To the Moon and Beyond

The other day Newt Gingrich, in a speech from the Florida "space coast," called for America to once again send humans to the moon, this time to establish a colony. He has since been ridiculed by many in the press, and in a presidential debate his opponent, Mitt Romney, said that if an executive had brought him this idea, "I would have fired him." This just shows the difference between Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich. You see, Mr. Gingrich's speech was visionary. The only vision Mr. Romney has is a vision of himself as president, and it appears he will do or say anything to get there. John F. Kennedy once exhorted Americans to go to the moon. Not the "before this decade is out" speech, but his speech at Rice University where he sold the idea to the American people. (Google JFK Rice Moon Speech--it's 17 minutes long). In that speech, Mr. Kennedy said that trying for the moon would require that we create new technologies which would themselves create tens of thousands of jobs. On this point he was right. But he made an even bigger point in that speech. He said, to paraphrase him, that in reaching for something that hard to obtain, America would be forced to rise to the best of its abilities, and we would be united in a common purpose. "We choose to go to the moon," he said, "not because it is easy, but because it is hard." Now, colonizing the moon, as Mr. Gingrich lays out, would be hard. We, once again, would need new technologies and, once again, we would have to be united in purpose as a nation. The moon could be mined or it could be the jump off point for a mission to Mars. The point of Mr. Kennedy's long ago speech and Mr. Gingrich's speech the other day is that we can't stay isolated on this little blue pearl floating in the vastness of space. Man has always searched beyond the boundaries of his world for what was over the horizon. Have we lost our vision as a species? Have we lost the urge to strive to reach beyond the confines of our limited world? We need to get back to space. We need to strive to reach the stars. Mr. Kennedy beckons us from a long ago past. Mr. Gingrich takes up the call in our present. JFK would concur with Mr. Gingrich. Mr. Romney would fire him.