I have thoughts about Newt Gingrich
Jan. 26th, 2012 07:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesWell, yes, I have many thoughts. Some of which are full of colorful language. These thoughts in particular about his whole 'space program thing'.
So, for my non-American readers, the Republican Party is currently trying to decide who they want to run as the official Republican nominee for President in November. Most of my thoughts on the candidates involve 'gentlemen, your policies are 99% bigoted garbage that I think will be horrible for America, and you seem engaged in a contest to see who can be the worst human being'.
But, Newt Gingrich, in an effort to distinguish himself from Mitt Romney*, decided he was going to be all 'Space is awesome, you guys!'. So, he said
Which... well, space is awesome. I've been reading fictional and non-fictional accounts of space since I was in elementary school. So let me share some wisdom from Robert Heinlein: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Mister Gingrich, you want to cut taxes and pay down the deficit. You also want to duplicate the Apollo program. These do not go together well, because the main think that John F Kennedy did that, say, George W Bush didn't do** was realize that when you say things like that, you need to give NASA the money NASA's engineers say it needs. And probably more, since if there's one thing I've learned about space missions, its that NASA engineers can be terrible at estimating costs (See: Mars Science Lab, the James Webb Space Telescope, our-post Space Shuttle human spaceflight plans).
Now, compared to the Iraq War, this is pocket change. If GWB had kept us out of Iraq and gave the money to NASA... well, we'd still be in the red, but we'd probably have awesome rockets that could take us back to the Moon (at least prototypes). But, people -- especially Republican voters*** -- tend to get cross when you throw large amounts of money at NASA.
This is not a new problem. We knew it back in W's days; we know it now. There are many intelligent people who have written reports on what it would take to get us back to the Moon, and probably one of the things they agree on is that improper funding is worse than no funding; no funding means you are basically admitting you're not working on it. Improper funding means you it takes forever, and certain costs (keeping the lights on at NASA centers) have to be paid whether you have one engineer or a thousand. So less money goes to actual progress.
Also, it doesn't help that Mister Gingrich, like the rest of the remaining Republican nominees, shows about as much sign of listening to scientists/engineers when they tell him things he doesn't want to here as listening to yours truly. See: anthropogenic climate change.
The vast majority of people who study the Earth's atmosphere/climate and know what they're doing are all 'this is a thing that is happening', but the current nominees are all 'nope, it's not happening, that's silly'. Now, if they wanted to say 'this is a thing that is happening, but we think that it would hurt the economy too much to do things like tell people to not burn as much oil and gasoline'... that's a policy position. You can argue how to weigh the costs of climate change versus the costs of regulating hydrocarbons and promoting cleaner energy. Saying 'no, that can't be true' when someone shows you a boatload of data is being willfully ignorant because you don't like the answer. And it doesn't convince me that you should be setting space policy, because you'll ignore the folks at NASA who say things like 'this is how much it costs to get that rocket designed' or 'no, rockets can't do that'.
I'm not going to even touch how the only candidate who would even say 'evolution, the central tenant of the biological sciences, is true' was John Huntsman, who isn't in the running any more. The rest either know nothing of biology or refuse to alienate those voters who believe their interpretation of their holy book trumps everything, including observations of the real world.
So, Mister Gingrich, you'll forgive me if your dreams seem about as realistic as the ones I had last night, which I don't remember but probably involved magic and such. Space is awesome, but you need to be more than a dreamer to get there.
* Who is about as exciting as dry white-bread toast and is generally known for being rich, being Mormon, and realizing that he has to change all of his political opinions from 'things that people in Massachusetts like' to 'things Republican primary voters like', and who most people expect will change again in the general election.
** Okay, there's a lot of things JFK did that GWB didn't do.
*** With the exception of those who are engineers or living on the Space Coast, both of whom assume the money is For Them.
So, for my non-American readers, the Republican Party is currently trying to decide who they want to run as the official Republican nominee for President in November. Most of my thoughts on the candidates involve 'gentlemen, your policies are 99% bigoted garbage that I think will be horrible for America, and you seem engaged in a contest to see who can be the worst human being'.
But, Newt Gingrich, in an effort to distinguish himself from Mitt Romney*, decided he was going to be all 'Space is awesome, you guys!'. So, he said
By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American.I think he also mentioned a rocket that could send a crewed mission to Mars.
Which... well, space is awesome. I've been reading fictional and non-fictional accounts of space since I was in elementary school. So let me share some wisdom from Robert Heinlein: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Mister Gingrich, you want to cut taxes and pay down the deficit. You also want to duplicate the Apollo program. These do not go together well, because the main think that John F Kennedy did that, say, George W Bush didn't do** was realize that when you say things like that, you need to give NASA the money NASA's engineers say it needs. And probably more, since if there's one thing I've learned about space missions, its that NASA engineers can be terrible at estimating costs (See: Mars Science Lab, the James Webb Space Telescope, our-post Space Shuttle human spaceflight plans).
Now, compared to the Iraq War, this is pocket change. If GWB had kept us out of Iraq and gave the money to NASA... well, we'd still be in the red, but we'd probably have awesome rockets that could take us back to the Moon (at least prototypes). But, people -- especially Republican voters*** -- tend to get cross when you throw large amounts of money at NASA.
This is not a new problem. We knew it back in W's days; we know it now. There are many intelligent people who have written reports on what it would take to get us back to the Moon, and probably one of the things they agree on is that improper funding is worse than no funding; no funding means you are basically admitting you're not working on it. Improper funding means you it takes forever, and certain costs (keeping the lights on at NASA centers) have to be paid whether you have one engineer or a thousand. So less money goes to actual progress.
Also, it doesn't help that Mister Gingrich, like the rest of the remaining Republican nominees, shows about as much sign of listening to scientists/engineers when they tell him things he doesn't want to here as listening to yours truly. See: anthropogenic climate change.
The vast majority of people who study the Earth's atmosphere/climate and know what they're doing are all 'this is a thing that is happening', but the current nominees are all 'nope, it's not happening, that's silly'. Now, if they wanted to say 'this is a thing that is happening, but we think that it would hurt the economy too much to do things like tell people to not burn as much oil and gasoline'... that's a policy position. You can argue how to weigh the costs of climate change versus the costs of regulating hydrocarbons and promoting cleaner energy. Saying 'no, that can't be true' when someone shows you a boatload of data is being willfully ignorant because you don't like the answer. And it doesn't convince me that you should be setting space policy, because you'll ignore the folks at NASA who say things like 'this is how much it costs to get that rocket designed' or 'no, rockets can't do that'.
I'm not going to even touch how the only candidate who would even say 'evolution, the central tenant of the biological sciences, is true' was John Huntsman, who isn't in the running any more. The rest either know nothing of biology or refuse to alienate those voters who believe their interpretation of their holy book trumps everything, including observations of the real world.
So, Mister Gingrich, you'll forgive me if your dreams seem about as realistic as the ones I had last night, which I don't remember but probably involved magic and such. Space is awesome, but you need to be more than a dreamer to get there.
* Who is about as exciting as dry white-bread toast and is generally known for being rich, being Mormon, and realizing that he has to change all of his political opinions from 'things that people in Massachusetts like' to 'things Republican primary voters like', and who most people expect will change again in the general election.
** Okay, there's a lot of things JFK did that GWB didn't do.
*** With the exception of those who are engineers or living on the Space Coast, both of whom assume the money is For Them.
