COMMENTARY | The American Spectator's Jeffrey Lord suggests that by attacking Newt Gingrich's moon base proposal, Mitt Romney and especially Rick Santorum have committed an unpardonable act for a Republican presidential candidate.
They have rejected the legacy -- in this case of space exploration -- of President Ronald Reagan.
Lord, who concentrates on Reagan's reaction to the Challenger explosion, might be on to something here. Reagan's space legacy is more attuned to the position Newt Gingrich is taking than the rhetoric of Romney or Santorum.
Reagan proposed before a joint session of Congress what eventually became the International Space Station. He said, "America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain." Reagan not only proposed building a space station but also measures to help foster a commercial space launch industry.
Santorum, instead of following Reagan's approach, attacked Gingrich's moon base idea in an op-ed: "The idea of a moon colony is purely pandering to a crowd for a few votes." In a news release Romney accused Gingrich of being "grandiose" and of ignoring housing problems on Earth.
How would Reagan have regarded Gingrich's moon base proposal? In the wake of the Challenger tragedy, Reagan convened a blue ribbon panel, the National Commission on Space, that later returned a series of recommendations, entitled "Pioneering the Space Frontier," which included, oddly enough, the establishment of a lunar base. According to the Associated Press, Reagan, upon receiving the report, said to members of the commission, "We will carry out your program."
It was a promise that remained unfilled, possibly because the Iran-Contra scandal consumed the rest of the Reagan administration. Three presidencies later, the promise is still yet to be fulfilled.
Reagan's space station, as Gingrich's moon base idea today, was savagely attacked by naysayers and encountered a number of near-death experiences in Congress. NASA nearly killed the project through mismanagement. But despite political mendacity and bureaucratic incompetence, the International Space Station is flying. It is the catalyst, it is hoped, for a future commercial launch industry,
Now Gingrich has proposed a moon base, as three Republican presidents have embraced before him. By ridiculing the idea, Santorum and Romney reject Reagan's space legacy. Shame on them.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.
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