Gingrich Moon Colony ‘Optimistic, to Say the Least,’ Glenn Says
John Glenn
Joe McNally/Getty Images
Astronaut John Glenn trains for a space mission aboard the Discovery on October of 1998 in Houston.
Astronaut John Glenn trains for a space mission aboard the Discovery on October of 1998 in Houston. Photographer: Joe McNally/Getty Images
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth, talks with Bloomberg's Mark Niquette about Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's goal to establish a permanent moon base by 2020 if elected. Glenn, a former Democratic senator, also discusses the U.S. space program and the 50th anniversary of his Friendship 7 orbital flight on Feb. 20, 1962. (Source: Bloomberg)
Newt Gingrich’s goal to establish a permanent moon base by 2020 if he is elected president would be costly and shouldn’t be the space program’s focus, said John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth.
“Sometime we’ll go to the moon, but I think to have a lunar colony by 2020 is optimistic to say the least,” Glenn, 90, said by telephone from Columbus, Ohio.
Glenn said he doubts the cost of a permanent base had been thought out in the middle of the political season, especially the expense of maintaining a colony. He called President George W. Bush’s decision to end the space shuttle program “a drastic mistake” and said the U.S. should be focusing on the boosters needed to reach the International Space Station.
Glenn, a former Democratic senator, made the comments in an interview about the 50th anniversary of his Friendship 7 orbital flight on Feb. 20, 1962.
R.C. Hammond, Gingrich’s spokesman, said the former speaker agrees with Glenn on the need to develop the boosters and that the moon colony is still a reachable goal.
“He’s not taking into account the fact you have to provide the leadership to move large projects forward,” Hammond said in a telephone interview. “You can’t sit around like a wet blanket and say things won’t get done.”
Shoot the Moon
Gingrich, campaigning in Florida (STOFL1) before its Jan. 31 Republican presidential primary, said in a Jan. 25 speech that “We will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American” by the end of his second term.
If he is elected, the U.S. also will have the “first continuous propulsion system in space, capable of getting to Mars in a remarkably short time,” Gingrich said in Cocoa, along what is known as Florida’s Space Coast.
“It has been tragic to see what has happened to our space program over the last 30 years,” Gingrich said, according to a transcript.
During a televised debate last night in Florida, Mitt Romney accused Gingrich of pandering to voters in Florida, which has a number of businesses tied to space exploration. Romney said Gingrich’s proposal is too expensive and that he would fire an executive who came to him with that idea.
“It may be a big idea, but it’s not a good idea,” Romney said.
Glenn, who represented his native Ohio from 1974-99 and was himself a candidate for the presidential nomination in 1984, was one of the first group of seven “Mercury” astronauts selected in 1959, according to his NASA biography.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus, Ohio, at mniquette@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net
Rate These Stories
Rate this Page