Gingrich would put America back into space race

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Rod Haxton, editor

By Rod Haxton, editor

The race is on. Or at least it will be if Newt Gingrich can get into the White House.

We refer to none other than the space race.

You probably thought that race was over and we’d already won. Well, you’d be wrong.

Gingrich says we need to be racing back to the moon.

Before you reply with, “Been there. Done that” we’re not talking about just putting another man on the moon. Newt, being the visionary that he is, wants to put 13,000 men (and we assume women and children) on the moon with one goal in mind. He wants to add another star to the American flag.

If we don’t do it, then the Russians, or the Chinese or god only knows, the Iranians, will beat us to it. And the last thing we want is to be looking at the full moon on a beautiful summer night and see a Great Wall wrapping around it.

The blame actually goes back to the Kennedy Administration and JFK’s promise that the United States would put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. That promise was delivered in 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon.

Armstrong, however, made one mistake. As he descended from the Apollo landing module and delivered the famous, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” there was just one thing missing.

He didn’t specify which man.

In Gingrich’s world, Armstrong should have explained that he was taking a step for the American man (preferably white and middle-aged with an income of more than $250,000 a year).

We planted the flag. The moon is ours. That was good enough for the Spanish, the French, the Portuguese and the English when laying claim to the New World. That should be good enough when laying claim to the moon.

Now it’s a matter of taking the next natural step and putting people - our people - on the moon. Time’s a wasting, according to Gingrich. It needs to be done by 2020.

No problem. We can’t fix our own highways and bridges. We don’t have enough money for schools. But let’s start colonizing the moon.

How will it be paid for without adding to the deficit? Again, no problem. We push the Social Security retirement age back to 82-years-old and we cut a few billion from Medicare.

But that still leaves the question of where do we find 13,000 people who will live on the moon?

Well, it’s really not that big of a dilemma. We deported about 400,000 people from the United States last year.

Why not give them a choice? They can either be sent back to their original country or they can still live in the United States without actually living “in” the United States.

Out of sight, out of mind.

We’re talking about less than four percent of the people who are deported each year. How difficult can that be?

You want a DREAM Act?

Fine. Live on the moon for six years and that will entitle you to pay in-state tuition rates for a college or university in the lower (much lower) 50 states.

Anchor babies?

No problem. If you have kids born on the moon they will be considered U.S. citizens as long as they remain on the moon. It’s not perfect, but it is better than Mexico, right? And there’s no border fence keeping you out. Everyone’s invited.

Minimum wage laws? OSHA? Government health care? Child labor laws?

Sorry, not on the moon.

We didn’t have those things when the West was settled. There was no OSHA when the Transcontinental Railroad was being built. There was no health care when Lewis and Clark were exploring the Louisiana Purchase. There was no minimum wage for those driving cattle herds north to Kansas.

And, best of all, there’s no need for the EPA.

The moon is already desolate. What more damage can we do? And with no atmosphere, the Clean Air Act becomes null and void.

A world - or at least a satellite - without any government regulation. It’s a Republican dream.

We can finally recapture the frontier spirit that existed when America was settled.

But . . . and this could be a problem . . . what if the Chinese or the Russians beat us to the punch? After all, the Chinese are moving aggressively into space, as Gingrich has noted. And the Russians have the “only man-rated vehicle for space.”

What if they are first to colonize the moon? Where does that leave our Betsy Ross industry which has been stuck with producing the same 50-star model since 1959?

That’s why we must move quickly. Gingrich wants this to be accomplished in just eight years and the clock is ticking. Lashing back at those who have mocked his vision, Gingrich says people didn’t question President Kennedy’s goal of putting a man on the moon. He takes exception to those who “lack faith” in America.

Gingrich is right.

Those are American footprints on the moon. That’s American junk on the moon. We were the first to spoil the moon’s pristine environment.

It’s time we made it our own and finish what we started.

Rod Haxton can be reached at editor@screcord.com