Twenty-four men have been to the moon; of those 24, only 12 have ever walked on the surface, and, even in his alternate history novels, none of them was Newt Gingrich. This didn’t stop Gingrich from making absurd promises to a gathering of 700 space industry employees and their families this past Wednesday on Florida’s space coast to create a permanent moon base by 2020. Gingrich’s announcement strives for the thrill of John F. Kennedy’s 1961 promise to put the first man on the moon, but the difference being, JFK’s promise was exciting, new, and, of course, he was already president when he made it.
In his speech, Gingrich gave voice to a desire to create a strong commercial space industry similar to the airline boom of the 1930s. Again, Gingrich fails to see the differences in his situation. Even in the 1930s, commercial airfare was more affordable than, say, the speculative cost of a recreational trip to the moon. Airlines were a convenient and more time-efficient way to accomplish something many people were already doing. No one works on the moon. No one has family on the moon. No one travels to the moon, not in the past 30 years.
In 1961, Kennedy was reaching out to an entire nation recently embarrassed by the first man in space – not an American, but a Russian. In 1961, the space race existed; in 2012, space exploration has become a largely collaborative affair. The International Space Station represents a collaboration of five nations, and NASA, the European Space Agency, and potentially Russia’s space program Roscosmos collaborate on the two major interplanetary space probe missions planned for the next decade.
If Gingrich cited that manned space exploration has seen little progress or innovation since the Apollo mission, his case for a moon base would have a point. Space programs have, for the most part, stuck to either the moon or low-earth orbit for their manned missions. In the face of recent recession and a crumbling global economy, however, the space industry, as Mitt Romney pointed out, falls far down on the list of causes in which to invest time or money. Before they can thrill Americans with the promise of exploration and the call of the unknown, Gingrich and the rest of the Republican contenders must first give us a plan for stability at home and solve the burning questions that still plague us here on Earth.
On Wednesday, Gingrich went for the small win. The tiny win. The 700-odd people win. And while that gathering of 700 may have looked crowded on Wednesday, they’re not enough to secure Gingrich a victory in the Florida primary. Mocking Gingrich’s idea for a moon base is a wagon all of his opponents have happily flocked to, especially in the wake of his surprising win in the South Carolina primary. Gingrich has written several alternate history novels – perhaps when he made his promise, he was simply pitching an idea for his next piece of fiction. Hopefully, it will be more inspirational than his blatant pandering.
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