Newt promises a permanent moonbase by the end of his second term

[MaGZ]

As Puppycow pointed out, Newter admitted as much during the debate.

His complete lack of shame becomes more apparent every time he opens his mouth. Who is voting for this schmuck?

Christian Zionists and Jews who want this country to achieve regime change in Syria and Iran.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

That's likely a thousand year project. That's why the Moon makes sense as a short term objective for colonization.

The unsuitability of Mars is not an argument in favor of colonizing the Moon.

And it certainly doesn't support Newt's promise of a permanent base on the Moon within 8 years.

I note, haze, that you still haven't been able to say where any money for Newt's promise (not even for a single $10 billion prize fund) would come from given that his proposed tax plan (which would reduce federal revenues by more than $1.2 trillion) and his call for a balanced budget (meaning we'd have to account for the $1.3 trillion deficit in current budgets), means he'd have to make up a shortfall of around $2.5 trillion in a single year!

According to government reports, total receipts in 2011 came to about $2.5 trillion and total outlays were about $3.8 trillion. Cutting the receipts by $1.2 trillion cuts the income figure nearly in half, and balancing the budget means you'd have to cut spending by another $1.3 trillion. We're going from a government that spent $3.8 billion to one that will spend only about $1.3 trillion annually. That's a government just over 1/3 the size of the previous government! And this change would take place in a single year!

So again, where will Newt get this $10 billion for a prize that he thinks will lead to a project that costs much more? Heck, how will he even keep the federal government from disappearing down the bathtub drain? You mentioned cutting $100 billion from entitlement spending. Aside from the fact that doing so would pretty much guarantee he wouldn't get a second term (assuming he got a first term with his bizarro ideas), where does the other $2.4 trillion come from?

Sorry, there's nothing left to spend on NASA at all. Newt shrunk the government way too much way too quickly for such non-necessities as space science and exploration.

 

[MaGZ]

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" over and over and over and over....

or Stairway to Heaven.

 

[MaGZ]

I would think one could build some truly huge telescopes in that low lunar gravity.

A more practical reason to have a moon base would be a radio telescope on the “dark side”.

 

[johnny karate]

Nonsense. You claimed NASA could do it, I showed what that's not reality.

You claimed (repeatedly) that a moon base would cost 440B, I added up that launch and habitat cost, increased that by 1.3B, and got 3B for a budgetary number. Make up your mind. It's either 440B, or it's 3B. You want to have it both ways - so you can criticize both ends.

I don't think I've ever seen such a blatantly dishonest representation of someone else's argument. You have basically told a complete lie.

None of those numbers are mine. They are numbers you introduced into the discussion to defend your assertions. You are lying when you try to impose those numbers on me.

I have no idea how much a moon base would cost. I am basing my argument on what you claimed it would cost. As Joe said, one does not need accept the numbers as true in order to accept them for the sake of argument.

And ultimately, the actual numbers are irrelevant to the point I'm making. What ever the cost of the moon base or the amount of the prize, you have presented two infeasible scenarios based on the glaring gap between the two.

It's just as stupid to suggest that someone would spend $450 billion to win $10 billion as it is to suggest the government should just toss $7 billion out the window.

 

[mhaze]

I don't think I've ever seen such a blatantly dishonest representation of someone else's argument. You have basically told a complete lie.

None of those numbers are mine. They are numbers you introduced into the discussion to defend your assertions. You are lying when you try to impose those numbers on me.

I have no idea how much a moon base would cost. I am basing my argument on what you claimed it would cost. As Joe said, one does not need accept the numbers as true in order to accept them for the sake of argument.

And ultimately, the actual numbers are irrelevant to the point I'm making. What ever the cost of the moon base or the amount of the prize, you have presented two infeasible scenarios based on the glaring gap between the two.

It's just as stupid to suggest that someone would spend $450 billion to win $10 billion as it is to suggest the government should just toss $7 billion out the window.

Well, I don't see it that way. If you incorporate a number I present in your claim, that is part of your claim. That's what you've done several times.

Otherwise, you are just saying something like "Whatever number you come up with is absurd".

That's patently false.

 

[mhaze]

A more practical reason to have a moon base would be a radio telescope on the “dark side”.

A lot of people would agree with that wholeheartedly. But the location of a "moon base" needs to be close to one of several key craters on the pole. Maybe we need a couple of moon bases.

No big deal.

 

[johnny karate]

Well, I don't see it that way. If you incorporate a number I present in your claim, that is part of your claim. That's what you've done several times.

This is just becoming sad. That you "don't see it that way" means you fail to understand basic logic.

I'll just quote Joe since he already put it in the simplest terms possible:

"If P then Q" doesn't mean that I have to accept P. I just have to consider what its being true would logically lead to. I can, in fact, show that "if P then Q" is false logically and not just because I reject P.

Otherwise, you are just saying something like "Whatever number you come up with is absurd".

That's patently false.

No, what I'm saying is that the numbers you've come up with don't work together. I've said nothing about the numbers themselves.

 

[mhaze]

The unsuitability of Mars is not an argument in favor of colonizing the Moon.

And it certainly doesn't support Newt's promise of a permanent base on the Moon within 8 years.

I note, haze, that you still haven't been able to say where any money for Newt's promise (not even for a single $10 billion prize fund) would come from given that his proposed tax plan (which would reduce federal revenues by more than $1.2 trillion) and his call for a balanced budget (meaning we'd have to account for the $1.3 trillion deficit in current budgets), means he'd have to make up a shortfall of around $2.5 trillion in a single year!

According to government reports, total receipts in 2011 came to about $2.5 trillion and total outlays were about $3.8 trillion. Cutting the receipts by $1.2 trillion cuts the income figure nearly in half, and balancing the budget means you'd have to cut spending by another $1.3 trillion. We're going from a government that spent $3.8 billion to one that will spend only about $1.3 trillion annually. That's a government just over 1/3 the size of the previous government! And this change would take place in a single year!

So again, where will Newt get this $10 billion for a prize that he thinks will lead to a project that costs much more? Heck, how will he even keep the federal government from disappearing down the bathtub drain? You mentioned cutting $100 billion from entitlement spending. Aside from the fact that doing so would pretty much guarantee he wouldn't get a second term (assuming he got a first term with his bizarro ideas), where does the other $2.4 trillion come from?

Sorry, there's nothing left to spend on NASA at all. Newt shrunk the government way too much way too quickly for such non-necessities as space science and exploration.

Gee, Joe, you sure like talking about Newt's plan for chopping the budget and lowering tax rates. Tell ya what. Why don't you just start a thread on that? I don't think it has anything to do with moon colonies. It's certainly an interesting subject, don't get me wrong. But you have a number of presumptions there, and it just doesn't connect much with the moon base

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

A more practical reason to have a moon base would be a radio telescope on the “dark side”.

Which would be cheaper, building a radio telescope on the moon without a permanent moon base, or first building a permanent moon base, then using it to more easily build a radio telescope?

Either way, we'd have to compare the best of those two options to the costs/benefits of a major terrestrial radio telescope such as the Square Kilometer Array.

 

[MaGZ]

That's likely a thousand year project. That's why the Moon makes sense as a short term objective for colonization. Also, the Martian soil is apparently highly oxidative - rub it on your skin, sores break out.

Might not be so practical.

Even if Mars was terraformed the a new race on Mars would have to be genetically modified to adapt to special conditions. A new form of eugenics would be born out of necessity.

 

[thaiboxerken]

It's amazing what nonsense some people will defend just because their favorite political horse said it.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Gee, Joe, you sure like talking about Newt's plan for chopping the budget and lowering tax rates.

You think it's not related?

Do I have to remind you that Newt's promise of a permanent base on the moon was explicitly made as a campaign promise?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Even if Mars was terraformed the a new race on Mars would have to be genetically modified to adapt to special conditions. A new form of eugenics would be born out of necessity.

But think of all the Unobtainium we could get!

 

[mhaze]

Which would be cheaper, building a radio telescope on the moon without a permanent moon base, or first building a permanent moon base, then using it to more easily build a radio telescope?

Either way, we'd have to compare the best of those two options to the costs/benefits of a major terrestrial radio telescope such as the Square Kilometer Array.

Having the permanent base first, of course. Then have one job for them to experiment with turning moondust into something that could be run through 3d printers. Likely making larger 3d printers, and larger, then building components for specific industrial projects on the moon, like the telescope you mentioned.

Only after the success or failure of 3d printing was well understood could one even estimate costs for a large scale moon radio telescope.

Actually, 3d printing on the mmon would be a good thing for an unmanned robot moon prize, wouldn't it?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Having the permanent base first, of course.

That isn't an option because we don't already have a permanent moon base there.

That choice is between the cost of establishing a permanent moon base and then using it to build a radio telescope and the cost of building a radio telescope without a moon base.

And then of course we have the other choice to make--whether either of those approaches is more cost effective than terrestrial based projects like the SKA radio telescope.

 

[Bri]

Actually, you can make anything up that you want. But why not go ahead, tell us what the parts of the cost budget would be that adds to >440B....

If I'm not mistaken, the $450B was Newt's own estimate of the cost of the manned Mars mission that he also promised.

I've already posted the article by Phil Plait outlining why it would cost much, much more than $3B to build a colony on the moon. The Center for Strategic & International Studies put the cost of establishing a modest four-person station at $35 billion, including the development of a lunar lander, but not the rocket to take it there. You're also not including more than an estimated $7 billion per year to keep it operational. And that's just for 4 people. Newt was talking about a base that could support thousands of people (remember, he mentioned that the base might petition for statehood).

In addition, it's highly unlikely that a moon base and rocket capable of getting the equipment and people to the moon could be built in 8 years. Much less the Mars rocket.

Newt's moon colony: What would it cost?

Not only would such an initiative involve developing a rocket to transport people and resources to the moon, it would also entail establishing an inhabitable outpost to hold up to 10 people, he said.

The outpost would be much like those the United States sets up in places like Antarctica, "where people are living in severe conditions, but the difference is you can't go out and breathe the air," said Logsdon. Americans living at the outpost would be there to research and explore the resources on the moon.

But Gingrich doesn't want to stop at a research base, saying during a speech in Florida last week that once there are 13,000 people on the moon, "they can petition to become a state."

"Depending on what kind of rockets they use and what kind of outpost is built, a really big buildup of large-scale settlements on the moon could cost in the trillions over many, many years," said Logsdon.

That's not even including the $450 billion Mars mission.

-Bri

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

If I'm not mistaken, the $450B was Newt's own estimate of the cost of the manned Mars mission that he also promised.

He was vaguely (i.e. effectively adding an "IIRC" to the statement) citing the "Bush administration"'s estimate from some years ago. (I'm not sure which Bush administration he meant, so I don't know how out of date that estimate might be.)

I've already posted the article by Phil Plait outlining why it would cost much, much more than $3B to build a colony on the moon.

Can you repost that link please? I was looking for it before but didn't run across it.

 

[mhaze]

...I've already posted the article by Phil Plait outlining why it would cost much, much more than $3B to build a colony on the moon. The Center for Strategic & International Studies put the cost of establishing a modest four-person station at $35 billion, including the development of a lunar lander, but not the rocket to take it there. You're also not including more than an estimated $7 billion per year to keep it operational. And that's just for 4 people. Newt was talking about a base that could support thousands of people (remember, he mentioned that the base might petition for statehood).

In addition, it's highly unlikely that a moon base and rocket capable of getting the equipment and people to the moon could be built in 8 years. Much less the Mars rocket.

Newt's moon colony: What would it cost?


-Bri

And I've already debunked our friend Plait's article. Then I've noted specific rockets and habitat modules and costs for them. So I can't see where your CNN article adds anything to this - it's just a group of vague generalities.

As for whether it could be done in 8 years, sure, there isn't any problem with that. We already have the technology. Apollo was 8 years, and they started from scratch. Big, big difference.

The BA330 units? 2 are in orbital test.

The Falcon Heavy is not flight ready, but the primary vehicle is, and the Heavy just straps three side by side. That's not a new rocket system, but a modification of existing working hardware.

I haven't discussed year to year operational costs of a moon base, true. But that's because I don't have a clearly defined mission profile for a crew on a moon base. Are they prospecting? Doing scientific experiments? Or what?

But my general answer would be that those people would pay for the use of that habitat, like a hotel. Some users might be private industry, some might be government.

That issue - year to year cost - is a separate issue from establishing a moon base. As you have noted, the CSIS study...

http://csis.org/publication/costs-international-lunar-base

has certain assumptions that I didn't make, such as Nasa's involvement and the expectation of their cost overruns. They assume, essentially, the rocket programs that have been cancelled for NASA would have been used to return to the moon. And that was part of the rationale for those programs. But now that's obsolete. So I guess if you ran back through CSIS's budgetary calculations (or asked them to) using the modules and launch system I proposed, you could get a good number of yearly cost based on staffing levels.

 

[lomiller]

Newt's proposal was incredibly stupid. We are in agreement on that point.

In the ever lasting vigilant search to find moments or sparks of sanity amoung the liberal left, I've hit on one possible candidate.

In your own words:

Yes, any moon base is fictional at the current time.

And yet you continue to try and defend Newt and insist that it's the people critical of him that are the "problem" when in fact it's your own attempts to defend him despite agreeing his plan is absurd that reveal you growing departure from sanity.