When Newt Gingrich proposed colonizing the moon and setting up a permanent U.S. base by 2020 during a 2012 Republican presidential primary debate he was laughed at by the Republicans in that debate hall, "Saturday Night Live," and Jon Stewart, but not by Jeb Bush.
"I’m thinking, ‘Really?’ I think it’s pretty cool,'" Bush recalled during a campaign stop at McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, New Hampshire.
What is “wrong about having big, aspirational goals,” Bush asked after expressing confusion that “people started laughing” when Gingrich first brought up the idea of a moon colony during a 2012 debate in Florida.
"By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon. And it will be American," Gingrich said at the time.
But instead of laughing at Gingrich's out of this world goals, Americans "need to be more aspirational again," Bush argued, endorsing Gingrich's plan to colonize the moon.
"The scientific benefits that come from connecting with space are incredible," Bush argued in favor of NASA partnering with private industry to continue space exploration.
“It’s not in the absence of taking care of the hungry or the poor,” he said. “We’re a big country, we’re a generous country, and the benefits of this are far more than people realize.”
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