Gingrich Says NASA a Bureaucratic Tragedy

In answering a question on whether going back to the Moon is a national security issue, Gingrich states that, “…there is no better example of the tragedy of bureaucracy than NASA“. While mentioning the Chinese push to go to the Moon, Gingrich does not go on to actually answer the challenge of the Chinese’ push to the Moon other than to say that “…we need to fundamentally rethink our program in space“.

A correction is due as the former House Speaker does not have some of his fact right. At the time that Kennedy made his speech before Congress to go to the Moon on May 15, 1961, the total time in space was 15 minutes 28 seconds, not 3 hours as Gingrich states. America’s only manned space mission at the time was Mercury-Redstone 3, Alan Shepard’s sub-orbital mission on Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961.

[youtube_video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWBJhLqY0Oc[/youtube_video]

AmericaSpace Note: Thanks go to SpaceFan for the YouTube link.

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3 Comments

  1. I think our political process is a “tragedy”. I can’t recall a time when political leadership in both parties are so devoid of vision.

    The Chinese seem to “get it”… Push your national ambitions and you push your national development. It would be nice to have intelligent, visionary leaders in America bold enough to think that way.

  2. One might think that with Florida’s 29 electoral votes, more than 10% of the total needed to win the White House, Newt and others would choose their phraseology about NASA and space a bit more carefully. How soon they forget that space was a very hot issue in 2008–McCain lost Florida because of McCain Senior Economic Staffer Douglass Holtz-Eakin’s obstinate resistance to exempt NASA from its proposed budget freeze, which the voters were repeatedly reminded of by Biden and Florida’s Senator Nelson. Oh, Holtz-Eakin changed his tune, but not until Oct. 28th, long after voters had sent their mail-in ballots.

    GOP candidates are trying to say things that the Party faithful love. OTOH, when the eastern anchor of Florida’s critical I-4 Corridor is living through over 12% unemployment due to the ending of the Shuttle program, ravages of the fight over Constellation, fall of the housing industry, and the 2008 Recession, never mind the distaste that has built-up over Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott, it’s pretty hard for that normally GOP leaning voter block to get fired-up about about “…there is no better example of the tragedy of bureaucracy than NASA”. It’s not like they’ll rush to the President–hardly. But these desperately needed voters may just stay home unless valuable campaign assets are used to dislodge them.

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