What kind of merit is there to Gingrich’s proposals — which he’s self-described as “grandiose” — for developing a rocket that can reach Mars, establishing a permanent moon base, and so on?

Well, let’s start with the “51st State” bit that’s being bandied about. Speaker Gingrich knows as well as the next political mammal that the Outer Space Treaty forbids any one nation from claiming sovereignty over the moon. So, not so much with the 51st State crap.

Now, a rocket that can reach Mars, or the Moon, with a crew-rated module. NASA used to have those. They were called Saturn V launchers. They stopped making them. And, right now, I don’t believe anyone is building a launcher with comparable juice. Space-X are making noises about one, but getting a stack crew-rated is a long haul. The Chinese, who seem to be basically cloning Apollo technology, aren’t there yet, but could be inside ten years. Everyone’s aware of this. The sort of lifting power we had with Apollo is gone. And Apollo would have been a crappy way of going to Mars anyway, because it’s still too slow, everyone would get cancer and it’d make being cooped up in the ISS for a year feel like living on Richard Branson’s private island.

Basically, because NASA stopped being able to try and solve all the problems, and because no-one else was all that interested, the science of crewed spaceflight really hasn’t advanced all that much since the 70s. So he can be as “grandiose” as he likes, but the term for what he’s actually doing is “bullshitting,” because neither NASA nor the private sector are in a condition to make his fantasies happen within the timeframe. There’s bugger all worth mining on the moon. The idea of extracting helium-3 from the lunar regolith to drive nuclear-fusion power stations that don’t exist yet… it’s all dream stuff.

Going to Mars is important. Going back to the Moon is, I think, important. But his plans and reasons for going make about as much sense as if he had said we had to go to Mars to find him something new to marry. I’m genuinely interested in seeing the human race escape the planet and go exploring. Speaker Gingrich would like to be elected.