yes...it is weird to live in giant soccer balls with milk carton doorways on the moon.

JOHN MADDEN! uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu aeiou

And to this I say,

RON PAUL 2012!!!

And to all this, I say:

RON PAUL 2012!!!

This is complete bullshit. Anyway we shouldnt colonise any other planets. They arent ours and will waste to much of earth's resources in trying to get us their. Just a waste of time. We should be happy with our planet and fix all of its current issues before even thinking of moving to another planet.

"They arent ours..."

So, whose are they?

"... and will waste to much of earth's resources in trying to get us their."

Nonsense.

"We should be happy with our planet and fix all of its current issues before even thinking of moving to another planet."

Double nonsense. Pretending it's either space/or Earthly problems doesn't make it so. You write as if no one is trying to address those problems, or that spreading beyond one planet would slow that down. Exactly just how much 'resources' do you think are involved in spaceflight, anyway?

I ended up writing a whole speech in response to your response but i decided to cut it down.

What Im talking about isn't nonsense, What this Gingrich guy is talking about it nonsense. I'm sure you know that hes just trying to get votes but the idea is stupid in reference to our current world. We shouldn't be trying to build crap on the moon. No one owns it except the solar system or the universe. We have a beautiful planet that we live on and should look towards fixing its problems first before even trying to build a base on the moon. Earth has limited resources. 

I know we have people addressing these problems but the governments of the world shouldn't create more or take people away from solving the current and more important problems.

I love my planet. Once we've stuffed it up we cant fix it. 

"What this Gingrich guy is talking about it nonsense. I'm sure you know
that hes just trying to get votes but the idea is stupid in reference to
our current world"

Then we'll have to just disagree about the value of going out to understand and utilize that which exists beyond this planet. I have some issues with the particular way Newt Gingrich (and some others) would do it, but I'm cool with the basic idea.

 " We shouldn't be trying to build crap on the moon. No one owns it except the solar system or the universe."

What exactly does that *mean?* Now, property rights in space are something that needs to be worked out on an international basis, but until then, the general sense is that it belongs to *no one.* (if not, then who?) 'The solar system' or 'The Universe' is welcome to come and challenge any claim we make. By that logic, we have no right to re-arrange two stones on Earth (which existed long before humanity) because of The Universe of which it is also a part.

What you're saying there, is unprovable, unfalsifiable philosophy.

"I know we have people addressing these problems but the governments of
the world shouldn't create more or take people away from solving the
current and more important problems.'

Aerospace and other engineers and technicians aren't this pool that you can re-direct at will. It's their chosen profession. If they don't do this, they'll do something similar that you also may disapprove of. Sorry. (I know a geologist at NASA in Houston, whose only other option, for a time, was to work for an oil company. Sorry, she doesn't know how to cure cancer.) And those who *are* doing what you prefer, aren't likely to change, either.

"I love my planet. Once we've stuffed it up we cant fix it."

And that's not inconsistent with understanding the rest of the Universe. Indeed, some of our solutions may come from there. (If it's *practical* to use resources from the Moon or asteroids, for example, I'll mine dead rocks over digging more holes in this world, ANY day.)

Stuff it. I dont want people damaging the moon. Hopefully Gingrich might just send up a bottle of ammonia and say "Look, I put a base on the moon". But I don't think he will get elected. Im not  American so I dont know much about America, their election candidates and therefore they dont concern me to a certain degree.

They probably wont even start doing things like building bases or mining the moon until after i'm dead. In know that there's already an extremely wealthy man who is organising mining the moon and Nasa has or is going to give him some money to help fund him. 

To me its just the governments of the world have the wrong priorities. If they want to build a base on the moon, then go ahead but just make sure they've got rid of poverty first and stopped chopping down the Amazon.

 "Stuff it. I dont want people damaging the moon."

Right. Billions of years of vacuum, solar and galactic radiation exposure, temperature extremes, NO biosphere, pounded by meteors of various sizes...tell me how we can do anything to that, that Nature already hasn't done.

And the solar system is full of many other such places. Learn some science.

They say 'strip mining makes a place look like the surface of the Moon.' They're right. I would rather use...the surface of the Moon, instead.

"They probably wont even start doing things like building bases or mining the moon until after i'm dead."

I don't know how you see that as a good thing, but good or bad, history will roll on after either of us, no matter how long we live, yes. That's a given.

"... then go ahead but just make sure they've got rid of poverty first and stopped chopping down the Amazon."

And those are STILL not mutually exclusive, no matter how much you insist it to be so. We do not live in a world where everything has to wait for something else.

And who gets to decide just when 'everything's perfect and now we can go into space?' Who makes that call?

Im just saying governments have their top priorities wrong. 

I know that mining the moon wont do any significant damage as in how it affects the earths tides. It will effect how the moon looks. The only change that i can see is the slight change in mass due to the loss of resources which we would take back to earth and probably because they might want to remove some of the rubble or rocks during mining. 

I know that mining the moon will at some stage be a very good option because of demand for resources but we shouldnt have to get to that option.

Even if they do build a base on the moon whats the point.

"
And the solar system is full of many other such places. Learn some science."

Well are these places close to us . No they arent. You may have some moons orbiting other planets but our moon is a significant satellite to the human race.  It is the closest large object in space. I know my science and Our moon is more significant to the human race than other moons in our solar system and we wont reach any other moon outside our solar system and probably wont reach all of the ones in our solar system.

We could easily destroy the moon. We have the technology we just have to use it. They could easily just take a large number of explosives up to the moon, detonate them and blow huge craters and holes in the moon. They could also open mine the moon, tunnel it, blow it up, pollute it. If they are going to mine it then at least do it on the darker side so that humanity can continue to see it how we have seen it for thousands of years before it moves to far away or we die out.

"And those are STILL not mutually exclusive, no matter how much you insist it to be so. We do not live in a world where everything has to wait for something else. "

Im not even implying that they are going to wait because they arent but they should. Thats all.

"And who gets to decide just when 'everything's perfect and now we can go into space?' Who makes that call? "

Farout im just saying that there are more important issues here on earth than space. If a space agency wants to send a person into space then they do. nothing i can do about it. The world cant be perfect and never will. 

Like teaching our children the difference between they're, their, and there.  42% of whom, don't know the difference at ages 10-12.

And yet, somehow, still just as believable as all the other campaign promises.

Maybe he knows something we don't.

He needs a moon base, to send all his ex-wives there.

Gingrich should leave the rocket science to the rocket scientists.

 Was Kennedy a 'rocket scientist?' (and that's 'engineer,' BTW) Whether it's Gingrich, someone has to make policy.

Check out the Space Launch System. *That* was a case of Congress specifically 'designing' a rocket that NASA did not ask for...

Gingrich is no Kennedy.

 Doesn't change what I said. *Whomever* is president, will mostly decide space policy.

Yes, engineers should be mostly let alone to what they're supposed to do, but it's the president that largely says; 'here's *what* we're gonna do.' Even if that's pretty much a continuation of existing programs...