Politics

Newt Gingrich's Laws For Governing A Space Colony

Here’s the bill he introduced providing a path to statehood for a moon base. Is he a visionary? — you betcha. posted

I know, right? Now tell your friends!
Newt Gingrich's Laws For Governing A S...
Zeke Miller
(Getty Images / PAUL J. RICHARDS)

Yesterday Newt Gingrich revealed his "weirdest idea ever" — to provide a path to statehood for a hypothetical lunar colony.

With the help of the skilled research librarians in the Library of Congress Law Library, BuzzFeed tracked down the bill, which Gingrich called the "Northwest Ordinance for Space," or formally the "National Space and Aeronautics Policy Act of 1981."

“The Congress declares that the United States is committed to the expansion of free people and free institutions into space,” the bill stated, calling for an array of near earth and solar space travel vehicles to be completed by 2010.

It also called for the creation of "an environmentally acceptable space to Earth power capability that is economically competitive with power generation on Earth," by the year 2000.

Gingrich appears to have misstated the number of lunar colonists required for a space-based outpost to apply for statehood — the number is 20,000 for self-government in the original bill, not the 13,000 he mentioned yesterday. Statehood requires the population of the least populous state — or greater than Wyoming's 563,626 people in the 2010 Census.

Read the full bill below:

Updated population count to clarify between self-government and statehood.

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5 Responses So Far

  • It's taken 12 years and we still don't have a new WTC. And he plans to build a moon base in 8 years?

    kanger
    3 weeks ago
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  • President Gingrich: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?  Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious… service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

    President Gingrich: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

    therblig
    3 weeks ago
  • samb19 thinks Newt Gingrich's Laws For Governin... is Fail  about 3 weeks ago
  • Better start buying land on the moon. All the celebs are doing it.

    Cecilia N.
    3 weeks ago
  • “The Congress declares that the United States is committed to the expansion of free people and free institutions into space,” the bill stated, calling for an array of near earth and solar space travel vehicles to be completed by 2010” I love how wildly optimistic people were in the 50s-80s about the turn of the millenium.

    bighungrysteve
    3 weeks ago
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  • OK. So. Newt. Newt is crazy. Can we all agree? Not that going to the moon and being able to live there wouldn't be cool… but by EVERY ACCOUNT it is in no way possible in our current economic condition. We don't have ANY real money. Our debt is so far gone, nobody likes to think about it, our education system is failing, just about everything you'd need to do
    something like that is non existent. ESPECIALLY since the Republican party seems to have it out for science.  And people say Ron Paul is crazy. This guy…

    Krissy Diggs
    3 weeks ago
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  • Andrew Kaczynski   Newt Gingrich's Laws For Governin... and thinks it’s Win  about 3 weeks ago

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