10 thoughts on “More On Moon Base Feasibility”

  1. What bothers me is stuff like the articles by Phil Plait (author of the BadAstronomer blog) spouting off against the Gingrich plans as if he were intimately familiar with this stuff. And people accusing Gingrich of being a “political opportunist” by taking this stance ahead of the Florida primary, as if Gingrich hasn’t been saying this stuff for 30 years.

    1. But anyway, this whole media whirlwind has been VERY instructive to me. The days of getting popular support for ANYTHING are long gone. Tossing any idea out there in today’s political climate is the equivalent of tossing a chunk of meat into piranha infested waters. The comments are full of obvious liars with vested interests who twist and misrepresent easily verifiable facts, and loudmouth ignoramuses who MIGHT make the right decision IF they gave the subject even a little thought.

      1. Yes, the mockery and ridicule I’ve seen all over the net the past few days is pissing me right the hell off. I’ve seen comments like “Moonbase Newt” and “Gingrich wants to make the Moon the 51st state”. Far too many people evidently believe that snark equates to intelligence.

        If you’re wondering why we haven’t progressed more in space over the last 40 years, it’s because the vast majority of people simply don’t give a flying shit.

      2. I forgot to mention that there’s also a large subset of naysayers who mistakenly believe that Gingrich is proposing yet another program of massive government spending, which they correctly say we can’t afford. I’m more inclined to cut those people some slack, since they’re only operating under the traditional paradigm of “space = government program”.

  2. Most polls (Wall Street Journal) and the liberal Daily Kos favor building a Moon base. But there is a vocal minority that goes ballistic about any expenditures on manned spaceflight almost as if they think the whole thing is just Science Fiction.

    Congress is already spending billions on a Moon rocket. So we might as well use it to build something on the Moon.

  3. I’m glad to see he’s starting to get it when it comes to orbital propellant.

    Not completely though, because he still believes a moon lander would have to be assembled in orbit. I don’t think docking and loading propellant counts as assembly and Chang probably doesn’t either.

    1. Don’t even need propellant transfer. A lunar program could start with all existing boosters and technology – it could start today – with future technology added to the mix as it becomes available. But it’s easier to just sit on the ground and say “we need the new booster” or new technology.

      1. You’re right, and you’ve just stated the whole reason behind the Google Lunar X-Prize.

        The Giggle factor is still there. It was chipped away a little by Scaled winning the Ansari X-Prize. It was chipped away a little by the maiden launch of Dragon. The GLXP will hopefully be another step in ending the Giggle factor. As long as these milestones keep happening and getting attention, the ideas of things like moon bases become more plausible to the average person.

      2. Yep. Of course, storable propellant transfer is existing technology so there is no need to exclude it. And establishing a large and fiercely competitive commercial propellant launch market is kind of urgent, so it is even important not to exclude it.

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