Update: The Moon colony is now part of the Republican debate!

I woke up today to realize that Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney fought over the existence of a lunar colony on the December 10th debate. This is the best policy issue, and by far the weirdest thing I have seen in national politics. In the midst of real economic issues, we are talking about lunar colonies. I can’t find a video about it (yet), but here is the article where Gingrich and Romney’s sparring is highlighted.

Let’s look at the highlights:

Romney: We could start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon. I’m not in favor of spending that kind of money to do that.

Newt: I’m happy to defend the idea that America should be in space and should be there in an aggressive, entrepreneurial way.

Mr. Gingrich, there is already a private initiative to go into space. This is CMU’s rover lander, which was rated one of the top ten innovations by Popular Science in 2011. While “Moon 2: Republican Space Race” is just a weird concept with very catchy name, entrepreneurial efforts to continue the space program is very real. I would like to see Republicans actually support one area of science. If they’re going to deny global warming and evolution, they can’t hate the moon. The moon is like America’s only colony, right?

Newt Gingrich would like to make the movie “Moon” into real life

I’m at least thrilled that Gingrich has one policy idea that I could fully embrace. He wants start “a massive new program to build a permanent lunar colony to exploit the Moon’s resources.” He has suggested that “a mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the highways.”

That’s right, New Gingrich wants to make the movie “Moon” into reality. What? You haven’t seen this movie? Here is the IMDb plot:

With only three weeks left in his three year contract, Sam Bell is getting anxious to finally return to Earth. He is the only occupant of a Moon-based manufacturing facility along with his computer and assistant, GERTY. The long period of time alone however has resulted in him talking to himself for the most part, or to his plants. Direct communication with Earth is not possible due to a long-standing communication malfunction but he does get an occasional message from his wife Tess. When he has an accident however, he wakens to find that he is not alone. He also comes to realize that his world is not what he thought it was.

Here’s the trailer!

The movie really is good, so go watch it! But let’s also discuss Gingrich’s idea to make this future of a Moon powered earth into a reality. I would support that he goes the entire way into adding clones to the mixture. Mr. Gingrich, I will fully support your effort to clone humans and send them to the moon to send power back to earth. This is one diutopian future you and I can agree upon. And here ends the list of things Newt Gingrich and I agree about.