Newt Gingrich has an Op Ed in today’s USA Today on the use of prizes to encourage technological progress.

This is not a new idea to members of the space policy community, and we already have organizations attempting to do this privately, such as the X-Prize Foundation, though they’ve had difficulty raising the money. It’s really a great idea, with very little downside, if our national goal is to make rapid progress in space technology. The political difficulty of it, of course, is that this is not our goal in space. Our goal in space remains to maintain a jobs program and use it as a foreign policy tool.

Also, I should point out, since many are probably unaware of this, that Newt has been a long-time supporter of a more vigorous and useful space program. He has long been aware of the potential of things like space solar power, and has served on the board of advisors of the old L-5 Society and (I believe) on the National Space Society. He had to subsume that interest when he became House Speaker, because it wasn’t perceived to be a pressing national issue, and he would have looked even worse and flakier than the press was ever eager to make him out to be had he pursued it.