A Space Race for the 21st Century.

Newt Gingrich declared to the Florida Space Coast that the United States should be colonizing the Moon by 2020 and that once the colony reached 13,000 occupants that the moon should become the 51st state in the Union.  "But wait!" you say, "I thought that the UN said nobody can own the moon and that Space belongs to all mankind."  Well you aren't wrong, and you aren't right either.  For full explanations of both topics look at these two links NEWT on SPACE and Moon Wars.  What I want to talk about is what this means for us.  Does it really matter?  More after the break.


Do people care about Space anymore?  I know I do but recent polling would indicate that the majority of Americans don't rank Space Exploration as a top priority or concern.  Should people care about Space Exploration?  Yes, more than they know.

Do you like your Cell service?  GPS?  On Star? 24 hour National/International News?  Up to the minute Stock Market and Commodity values?  The majority of the information we have at our fingertips relies upon Satellite communication to get to us.

Do you like having a military that can strike targets all the way around the world with little to no risk to military personnel?  I do.  How do we do it?  With technologies that utilize space technologies.

If a country ever wanted to really go to war with the United States and stand a chance their first strike would be against our military and civilian Space based assets, particularly GPS satellites.  That shouldn't be a shock to anyone reading this and if it is you clearly aren't paying attention to how the modern world operates, and in a post 9/11 world that is ridiculously ignorant.

"The big deal"

The big deal is simple.  If we allow another country, China or not, begin to take a larger foothold in space than we have we lose.  We lose any military contests the future will, note will not may, hold in store and we will lose the future economies that will develop from space travel.  I am not saying this will happen in the next decade but most certainly in my life time we will begin to see the utilization of space for Economic gains.  The Moon, Mars, and the Asteroid belt are potentially huge sources for mineral resources.  If we allow another country to colonize the Moon or Mars and claim it for themselves we lose an extraordinarily important linchpin in the future of space travel and commerce.

We will run out of resources here on Earth, many of those resources, given current population projections, will run out in my generations life time without drastic technological advances.  Let's not forget that they call them non-renewable resources for a reason.  Maybe you don't view space travel as something important but you should.  Our future and more importantly the power of our country in the century to come depends upon how we utilize and claim space.

Then again it may just be that I want to be the first Governor of the Moon...