Newt Gingrich promises Moon Base by 'end of second term'

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has promised he’d put a permanent base on the Moon by the ‘end of [his] second term’.

It’s not unusual for Presidential hopefuls to make promises to the electorate about things they would do once they reach office. However, such promises are usually related to tax cuts, job creation and budget cuts rather than promises of bases on the Moon. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t seem as though promising a permanent American base on Earth’s only satellite would be a vote winner but never-the-less Newt Gingrich has promised just that.

It’s quite possibly one of the more bizarre promises made so far in the Republican candidacy race. In front of a crowd 700 hundred strong Gingrich pledged ”By the end of my second term. We will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American… Does that mean I’m visionary? You betcha. We clearly have the capacity that Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to us.’

So could the stuff of science-fiction soon come true? Let’s hope any Moon base is more exciting than the dull 1970s BBC series Moonbase Three but also let’s hope the Moon doesn’t go all Space 1999 and blast off out of the solar system. The ATV series imagined a moon-base on the lunar surface by the year 1999 but thankfully it never happened otherwise we might be missing the Moon right about now. The Moon has featured quite prominently in Doctor Who stories over the years as well when it was usually used by aliens (such as the Cybermen and Ice Warriors) as a staging area for invasions of Earth.