West is another smarmy, try-hard 'libertarian' tosser. Still, looks like this latest piece has gone down like a fart in a crowded lift.
Jude Crasta
Today 01:21 AM
West is completely out of sync with what the world needs right now. His personal cynical commentary resembles more of a cry for attention to conservative political views than anything else. We don't need your editorializing of how the pursuit of equality is fruitless or that welfare is life-wasting. Keep them to yourself. I am all for space exploration and do believe it is the only way forward but a '51st American state'?
Let's keep the politics and land greed to the confines of the planet's atmosphere. Let's agree that anything outside the atmosphere of the planet and within our planetary system's boundaries are INTERNATIONAL territory. We don't need to set the stage for a war outside. Everyone should have the right to space. The moon is WORLD property, not that of the first one to go and pitch a tent. Why don't we just build cities on the Pacific and Atlantic and call them American territories and tax whatever trade routes pass through? Heck, they'd be cheaper. Space program, moon base, exploration- YES! Political territory-NO!.
kerensky111
Yesterday 10:14 PM
This idiot West supports Gingrich's moon base on the grounds that it will unite humanity. He then says that Gingrich intends to establish a massive colony and claim the moon as the fifty-first state. Wonder how united the world will be with America when it realises that the US is claiming ownership of the moon. I know blogs like these are money for old rope to their authors but they could at least put some thought into them.
This one is sub-Delingpole.
neil_mcgowan_in_moscow
Yesterday 07:54 PM
But meantime, the USA hasn't a single spaceworthy vehicle. They are all grounded. The USA is hitching lifts on Russian launches to get to the ISS. The ISS is being supplied exclusively by Russian supply launches.
There's a glaring gulf between Newt's mouth-offs about space and reality. But this is par for the course with yankee rightwing whackjobs. Ronnie Raygun said he was going to build Star Wars weapons in space. The Simian Simpleton said he was going to launch a manned mission to Mars (although he might have meant 'to m'arse'). The plan for a Newt Colony on the Moon will merely be the third Republican election promise on space exploration to fall through.
Douglas Adams had an excellent plan called 'The B-Ark'. Think of all the people it could carry? George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Condi Rice, Scooter Libby, Colin Powell, Newt Gingrich, Billary Clinton, Mutt Romney, Chuck Norris. Now there's a space project that deserves funding!
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.