In Response to "To the Moon, Newt!"

A recent blog post on Slate Magazine’s blog “future tense” recently titled “To the Moon, Newt!” addressed a recent statement by Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich. In a recent speech in Florida, Gingrich proposed an ambitious plan to create a permanent colony on the moon in the next decade with plans to go to Mars afterwards. Gingrich then went on to propose that this colony could potentially become the “51^st state” of the United States.

The future tense article discusses the recent speech by Gingrich and numerous reasons why it is implausible. The post appears to ridicule Gingrich’s statements never agreeing or acknowledging any of his statements as valid. Being a post on Slate Magazine’s website, the content is clearly geared towards a liberal audience. The magazine has a history of supporting Democratic candidates such as Barack Obama. In addition, the magazine has entirely free content and is supported by ads as a source of revenue. As a result, attracting readership is key. Due to this, it is easy to see why Slate chose to present this topic with an entertaining diction, painting Gingrich as entirely a fool. It is evident that there is some level of exaggeration or embellishment on the author’s part. By doing so, the author appeases and amuses his audience, increasing readership and profits.

Despite the amusingly contrarian nature of the post, the author brings up a number of valid points about Gingrich’s statement. For example, the speech took place in Florida, which is the state most invested in space travel. It is apparent that Gingrich partially gave out this speech to attract voters in this key state using one of the most romanticized endeavors of this country, space travel. What makes this blatant appease more apparent and unrealistic is the projected cost of the project. Putting a man on the moon 40 years ago cost $100 billion after adjusted for inflation. The creation of a permanent moon colony would undoubtedly cost more, a cost that may be hard to swallow in today’s economy.

This blog post brings up an interesting example of how science and technology is often politicized. Science is a subject that is completely objective, based on fact and reason. However, it is often used in emotionally based topics such as politics. When doing so, science is often presented as a mysterious but necessary ideal. As a result, the majority of citizens accepts statements about science as “fact” and fail to question them. As a result, politician’s statements using science are viewed as supported by evidence and unquestionable. We often see politicians preaching about things like “the need for scientific innovation” or “staying competitive in science”. By misrepresenting science, politicians attempt to connect their non-science agendas to fact and rationalize them. In the case of Gingrich, he presents an entirely unrealistic scientific endeavor that most people would not realize as impossible in order to get a rise in the polls. While science is a necessary and major part of our nation, should politicians be the one’s talking about science? Should there be some sort of watchdog that fact checks politician’s discussion of science much like the St. Petersburg Times PoltiFact fact checker?