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

[johnny karate]

Surrreeee.....

• By that logic the prize that Charles Linbergh won did not result in beneficial side effects, did not stretch the envelope. Let me ponder that wisdom on my next transatlantic flight.
• By that logic the X Prize did not stretch the envelope, show that private companies can replicate the feats of the X15 at less than 1/10 the cost, and lead to private spaceports and private suborbital rocketry.

That's clearly the worthless end results of "tying up a bunch of money and doing nothing with it".

Who would be so stupid as to want to do something like that?

No, that's not logic, it's just silly partisanship. You just refuse to admit someone on your team might be wrong, and will therefore blindly defend anything any of them says.

What Newt proposes is on a magnitude far greater than either of the examples you cited - both in terms of finance and technology - and is completely without precedent. By his own numbers, he expects someone to pony up hundreds of billions of dollars to accomplish something no one else has even come close to attempting. There is no reasonable expectation for this to work.

 

[mhaze]

No, that's not logic, it's just silly partisanship. You just refuse to admit someone on your team might be wrong, and will therefore blindly defend anything any of them says.

What Newt proposes is on a magnitude far greater than either of the examples you cited - both in terms of finance and technology - and is completely without precedent. By his own numbers, he expects someone to pony up hundreds of billions of dollars to accomplish something no one else has even come close to attempting. There is no reasonable expectation for this to work.

I have some news that might surprise you.

The entire history of aviation and aerospace is NOTHING BUT "stretching the envelope" over and over again, in conditions often where there was ridicule, and no "reasonable expectation" for something to be possible.

And by the way, Newt suggested a great many prizes, large and small...not just one or two.

By your logic if I offered a prize in 1940 for someone running a 4 minute mile, I'd be a liar. Really, that makes no sense.

 

[BenBurch]

Useful.

 

[johnny karate]

I have some news that might surprise you.

The entire history of aviation and aerospace is NOTHING BUT "stretching the envelope" over and over again, in conditions often where there was ridicule, and no "reasonable expectation" for something to be possible.

And I have some news that might surprise you. The term "stretching the envelope" is reserved for endeavors the incrementally push the boundaries of previous endeavors.

The expectation for some private entity to step up and fund a moon base within the next 8 years isn't "pushing the envelope". It's a radical notion several orders of magnitude beyond current aerospace technology and financial feasibility.

The only thing that comes close is the moon race of the 60s, and I don't recall private enterprise stepping up to foot the bill for that.

In short, it's a pipe dream.

And by the way, Newt suggested a great many prizes, large and small...not just one or two.

I don't see how multiple prizes based on the expectation of someone coming out of the woodwork to fulfill Newt's campaign promise for him at loss of hundreds of billions of dollars makes the whole idea any less stupid.

By your logic if I offered a prize in 1940 for someone running a 4 minute mile, I'd be a liar. Really, that makes no sense.

I've haven't made an argument even approaching this tortured logic you're dishonestly trying to attribute to me.

The only logic I used to call Newt a liar was your own. Scroll up an reread your own posts if you need to be reminded.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

By your logic if I offered a prize in 1940 for someone running a 4 minute mile, I'd be a liar. Really, that makes no sense.

That's not good logic. In fact, it's an argument by faulty analogy.

I hope you realize, too, that offering a prize is not the same thing as giving a credible plan to fulfill a promise.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Bri
So let's just tie up a bunch of money and do nothing with it. Same result.

I suspect few people would think that'd be a good thing.

-Bri

Surrreeee.....

• By that logic the prize that Charles Linbergh won did not result in beneficial side effects, did not stretch the envelope. Let me ponder that wisdom on my next transatlantic flight.
  
• By that logic the X Prize did not stretch the envelope, show that private companies can replicate the feats of the X15 at less than 1/10 the cost, and lead to private spaceports and private suborbital rocketry.

That's clearly the worthless end results of "tying up a bunch of money and doing nothing with it".

Who would be so stupid as to want to do something like that?

You're so dead wrong, haze. These things do not remotely flow from the same logic that proves that tying up $10 billion dollars for a prize that no one wins is not without cost.

Going back to Newt's own words: "If they don’t figure it out, it didn’t cost us anything."

Do you understand the concept of opportunity cost? Tying up $10 billion in prize money that no one wins is a cost. And yet again, given what Newt proposes to do to federal revenues, tying up $10 billion could be a huge cost!

There is no logical extension that leads to the "by your logic" claims you are making. You're ducking the point we are making and then arguing against a silly strawman position.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

You mean, the post 320 where he talks about a Mars mission, and you translate that into a moon base?

Haze, you should stop, take a breath, and reread Newt's words that I quoted in post 320. The permanent moon base by 2020 was among his promises. The prize is what he offered as how to do the things he promised.


These are Newt's own words.

That's the sort of thing that led me to suggest you actually go read his words.

You're full of crap.

First you accused me of not reading the transcript and responding to Newt's own words. When I pointed out that I had done just that back in post 320, now you accuse me of not reading them, when it's plain that you have not.


Again, from the transcript of the speech in question:

By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the Moon, and it will be American [applause].

We will have commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism, and manufacturing, and are designed to create a robust industry precisely on the model that was developed by the airlines in the 1930s, because it is in our interest to acquire so much experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching [applause].

And by the end of 2020 we will have the first continuous propulsion system in space capable of getting to Mars in a remarkably short time, because I am sick of being told we have to be timid, and I’m sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50 years old [applause].

A little bit later in the speech, he said:

So let’s go back to how to do it. I would want 10% of the NASA budget set aside for prize money. Lindberg flies to Paris for $25,000. You set up prizes – for example, I forget what the Bush administration estimate was, but it was something like $450 billion to get to Mars with a manned mission. So let’s put up $10 billion. And if somebody figures it out, we save $440 billion. If they don’t figure it out, it didn’t cost us anything.

Haze, you're just dead wrong if you think Newt didn't suggest this as the way to fulfill the promises he made (including the promise of a permanent moon base by the end of his second term, 2020).

But even if that's what you're arguing, you must realize it's a poor defense of Newt's speech. It would be the same as saying he made a crazy, unattainable grandiose promise but has offered no plan whatsoever as to how to do it (if we pretend that "So let's go back to how to do it" doesn't refer to these promises).

Stop and read the transcript before you embarrass yourself any further.

 

[mhaze]

So you have NOW FIGURED OUT that the mention of the 10B prize, and the 440B not spent, refers to Mars, not the Moon.

If so, well, we are moving right along....

 

[johnny karate]

So you have NOW FIGURED OUT that the mention of the 10B prize, and the 440B not spent, refers to Mars, not the Moon.

Immaterial to the glaring flaw in Newt's "plan", and remains an example of the retarded financial math he is using.

 

[Bri]

That's clearly the worthless end results of "tying up a bunch of money and doing nothing with it".

Who would be so stupid as to want to do something like that?

I was commenting on your statement that a "lot of people would think not spending budgeted money was a good thing." I don't think most people would think it's a good thing to tie up money that doesn't get spent.

So you have NOW FIGURED OUT that the mention of the 10B prize, and the 440B not spent, refers to Mars, not the Moon.

If so, well, we are moving right along....

So he promises both a moon base and a propulsion system capable of getting to Mars in 8 years. His plan for the Mars trip is to tie up $10B of Nasa's budget hoping someone else will pay the remaining $440B, and he has no plan at all for how the moon base will be built? Brilliant!

-Bri

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So you have NOW FIGURED OUT that the mention of the 10B prize, and the 440B not spent, refers to Mars, not the Moon.

If so, well, we are moving right along....

You're wrong. Read the transcript of his speech.

But again, even if we accepted your misreading of "So let’s go back to how to do it" to refer only to a Mars rocket and not the moon base, at best you're saying he's got an unworkable plan for his promised Mars rocket and no plan at all for his promised moon base.

 

[mhaze]

You're wrong. Read the transcript of his speech.

But again, even if we accepted your misreading of "So let’s go back to how to do it" to refer only to a Mars rocket and not the moon base, at best you're saying he's got an unworkable plan for his promised Mars rocket and no plan at all for his promised moon base.

Unworkable plan? You miss the entire point of what he was saying. Yes of course you can criticize one or several of his suggested prizes one way or another. What Gingrich was saying is that we need to recapture the vision that we can colonize space, in many fashions - and that it is private industry that can and will do it. Add to that other visions if you like, "we can find a cure for Aids", etc. He was saying this needs to be done with the tested, proven methods of awarding prizes such as has been done in aerospace. Also, by DARPA.

Those who have "unworkable plans" is who? Not Newt, but people in private industry whose plans in pursuit of one or another of these prizes do not pay off. For whatever reason.

Newt doesn't suggest the government should or can lay out precisely what "a plan to go to the moon or mars should be". That's the scheme that you are trying to burden him with that doesn't fit.

I was commenting on your statement that a "lot of people would think not spending budgeted money was a good thing." I don't think most people would think it's a good thing to tie up money that doesn't get spent.
.....
-Bri

Really? So if NASA with a 20B budget offered 2B in prizes, and NONE were taken, at year end NASA comes in 2B UNDERBUDGET.

And you think that's bad, not good?

 

[Bri]

Really? So if NASA with a 20B budget offered 2B in prizes, and NONE were taken, at year end NASA comes in 2B UNDERBUDGET.

And you think that's bad, not good?

Except that in this scenario, NASA isn't coming in under budget -- that's the problem. The money has been allocated and has been sitting there unused, so it was part of NASA's budget even though it hasn't been used for anything useful.

I think that most people would agree that allocating money that's not used is a really bad idea. To say that if it doesn't get used we haven't lost anything is ridiculous. The money could have been used for something else (like maybe paying down the national debt, or are you only concerned about that when Obama is president?).

-Bri

 

[mhaze]

Except that in this scenario, NASA isn't coming in under budget -- that's the problem. The money has been allocated and has been sitting there unused, so it was part of NASA's budget even though it hasn't been used for anything useful.

I think that most people would agree that allocating money that's not used is a really bad idea. To say that if it doesn't get used we haven't lost anything is ridiculous. The money could have been used for something else (like maybe paying down the national debt, or are you only concerned about that when Obama is president?).

-Bri

double talk on top of misunderstandings.

From my point of view, when and if NASA showed a successful X prize, and paid off, I'd increase the money they had for prizes accordingly. That'd grow the economy and turn NASA into a profit center, not a loss center.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Unworkable plan? You miss the entire point of what he was saying. Yes of course you can criticize one or several of his suggested prizes one way or another. What Gingrich was saying is that we need to recapture the vision that we can colonize space, in many fashions - and that it is private industry that can and will do it.

But he also promised a permanent moon base and a rocket capable of getting to Mars very fast by 2012. Indeed, these promises are the subject of this thread. He has offered no credible plan for fulfilling his fantastic campaign promises.

As I've mentioned once or twice, it's even more outrageous when you consider his tax proposal which would cut federal revenues by $1.2 trillion in a single year.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

From my point of view, when and if NASA showed a successful X prize, and paid off, I'd increase the money they had for prizes accordingly. That'd grow the economy and turn NASA into a profit center, not a loss center.

Why? Because the X-prize resulted in a reusable craft for profitable commercial spaceflight within 8 years?

This model is not a good model for fulfilling Newt's wild promises.

And his claim that if no one claims the prize it cost us nothing is just a lie.

ETA: If no one claimed the prize, NASA would not come in under budget. That money has to be budgeted regardless of whether or not someone wins it. It would effectively reduce NASA's budget by $10 billion. That's $10 billion less money for actual space exploration and science.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Have they started commercial flight yet?

Nope. Takes a little while to get the kinks ironed out.

Indeed. How many decades are there in "a little while"?*

But Newt promised us a permanent moonbase and a rocket that can get to Mars very fast by the year 2020. His plan for achieving that is to use the X Prize as a model. Since the X-Prize didn't result in radically new technology (reproduced what governments had already done), and still hasn't resulted in the end goal of commercial spaceflight, I see no reason to think it can achieve an even grander goal of the promises Newt made by 2020.

*ETA: The X-Prize was first offered in 1996. It was awarded in 2004. 8 years later, and those kinks still haven't been ironed out. Yes, this is ALL a question of the timeline. No one is saying a moonbase isn't possible. We're saying that Newt's promise of a permanent moon base within 8 years is absurd.

 

[Bri]

From my point of view, when and if NASA showed a successful X prize, and paid off, I'd increase the money they had for prizes accordingly. That'd grow the economy and turn NASA into a profit center, not a loss center.

You're forgetting the far more likely end of the "when and if" equation. If it fails, NASA wouldn't be doing anything but sitting on money that could be better spent elsewhere. Somehow, I don't think people would be overjoyed about that.

And even if we're absurdly optimistic and assume that a company exists that would be capable and willing to sink hundreds of times the amount of money that the prize is worth into the project, it's highly unlikely that it would result in a moon base and a Mars rocket in 8 years as Newt promised.

-Bri

 

[mhaze]

Indeed. How many decades are there in "a little while"?*.....

Obviously you haven't had the pleasure of walking around these vehicles. They exist, now. Taking a quick look at the flight tests and their schedule, it shows commercial flights to begin in 2013. Looks reasonable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipTwo

So a project that was greatly facilitated by a prize, is moving into a commercial reality - private suborbital space trips with paying customers.

Why do you seem to feel the need to be so critical about such a thing? I imagine just as many Democrats as Republicans will be on those flights.

So far, spaceflight has averaged 5% fatalities. The real question is whether that can be improved on. "Government"....doesn't have such a good track record on not killing people, does it?

Indeed. How many decades are there in "a little while"?*

But Newt promised us a permanent moonbase and a rocket that can get to Mars very fast by the year 2020. His plan for achieving that is to use the X Prize as a model. Since the X-Prize didn't result in radically new technology (reproduced what governments had already done), and still hasn't resulted in the end goal of commercial spaceflight.....

REally? You mean that a private company doing with a privately built COMPOSITE carrier aircraft, composite space vehicle, and hybrid motors is not radically different than the government doing it with a B52 and a plane made of hammered Inconel, with liquid fuel o2/alcohol motors?

It's better to ask what part of the winning solution was NOT radically new technology.

....*ETA: The X-Prize was first offered in 1996. It was awarded in 2004. 8 years later, and those kinks still haven't been ironed out. .....

Kinks? What kinks?

...cut federal revenues by $1.2 trillion in a single year.

Oh, we are back to 1.2T? Last time you quipped this, it was 1.2B. Well, which is it? Hard to tell them apart these days?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Obviously you haven't had the pleasure of walking around these vehicles. They exist, now. Taking a quick look at the flight tests and their schedule, it shows commercial flights to begin in 2013. Looks reasonable.

Maybe it was reasonable to offer a prize in '96 and maybe possibly get commercial spaceflight as early as 2013 (but don't hold your breath). That's a far cry from Newt's promise to have a permanent moon base and rockets that can get to Mars quickly by 2020--within 8 years!

Kinks? What kinks?

Kinks was your word:

Have they started commercial flight yet?

Nope. Takes a little while to get the kinks ironed out.

Again, how long is "a little while"? Is it under 8 years?

Oh, we are back to 1.2T? Last time you quipped this, it was 1.2B. Well, which is it? Hard to tell them apart these days?

[ETA: I don't think you know what the word "quip" means.]

If I typed $1.2 billion, that was a typo. Newt's tax proposal would cut federal revenues by $1.2 trillion in a single year. I've substantiated that observation repeatedly.

From the Tax Policy Center's analysis:

The Gingrich plan would reduce federal tax revenues dramatically. TPC estimates that on a static basis, the Gingrich plan would lower federal tax liability by $1.28 trillion in calendar year 2015 compared with current law, roughly a 35 percent cut in total projected revenue.

Linky.

So yes, Gingrich is simultaneously proposing to take $10 billion out of NASA's budget for an unworkable prize to fulfill his grand moon base and Mars rocket promises, while cutting revenues by an absurd amount.