Newt's Illegal Moon State - President of the Moon

Newt Gingrich Would Like To Live On The Moon - watch more funny videos


"At one point early in my career I introduced the northwest ordinance for space and I said when we got -- I think the number is 13,000 -- when we have 13,000 Americans living on the moon they can petition to become a state," Gingrich said, telling the crowd this was the "weirdest" thing he has ever done. "And I will as president encourage the introduction of the northwest ordinance for space to put a marker down that we want Americans to think boldly about the future…"

Gingrich finished off his public schedule for the day with a Space Industry Roundtable at Brevard Community College. [1] 

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. [2] 

On Tuesday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said if elected president he would encourage Americans to reach for the stars — literally — and that by the end of his second term there would be a permanent outpost on the moon "and it would be American."

But while his fellow GOP candidates panned the plan on the grounds that it would cost too much. Gingrich's proposal for stellar statehood faces another obstacle: It could violate space law.

"Statehood for a colony on the moon is going too far and would violate the [Outer Space Treaty of 1967] since it would involve rights to land on the moon and also require some type of territorial border," said Henry Hertzfeld, a research professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs Space Policy Institute, told BuzzFeed.

Gingrich introduced a bill in Congress in 1981 that would offer a path to statehood for a lunar colony with at least half a million residents. (Gingrich has mischaracterized the bill he introduced, saying it would grant statehood at 13,000 residents. In fact, the bill only provides for self-governance at 20,000 residents.)

At issue is the 1967 treaty, which the United States ratified, that prohibits any earth-based country from claiming sovereignty over moon or other space territory.

Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

Hertzfeld said that can legally use the moon and put people, structures and property there — and they own those items, but not the land they're on — so Gingrich can have his space base, but it can't "be American." [3]