Deep Space Newt: Candidate vows moon colony

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, known to shoot from the hip, has made no secret of his big plans for America. This time he’s upped the ambitious rhetoric: He’s shooting for the moon.

In Cocoa, Florida, indulging voters on NASA’s “Space Coast,” the GOP contender vowed to build an American lunar colony within eight years if elected to the White House.

“By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” he told supporters Wednesday. The base would be the foundation for a “robust industry” that would grow “precisely on the model of the airlines in the 1930s.”

"When we have 13,000 Americans living on the moon, they can petition to become a state. And here's the difference between romantics and so-called practical people. I wanted every young American to say to themselves, 'I could be one of those 13,000. I could be a pioneer. I need to study science and math and engineering. I need to learn how to be a technician. I can be a part of building a bigger, better future'," he said according to CBS News.

In an obvious volley to rival Mitt Romney, who in December chided the former Speaker of the House for wanting to start a lunar colony “that would mine minerals from the moon," Gingrich brought up the space plans in an aim to differentiate himself from other candidates by trumpeting his desire to boldly go where few men have gone before: The stars.

One small step for Gingrich? Or a giant leap in fanciful campaigning?

Actually, Gingrich has been talking interplanetary for a while now. According to Foreign Policy’s Charles Homans, the former Georgia congressman hinted at cosmic goals as far back as 1984 in his now out-of-print Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future.

Read more: Newt campaign site asks, 'Where my dogs at?'

Speaking Wednesday in Sarasota, Gingrich said President Obama “doesn’t seem to operate on the same planet you and I do. There’s sort of a Planet Obama out there somewhere.”

So the theme, however far out some may think it is, is consistent with Gingrich's presidential agenda.

HLN readers, does Gingrich’s plans a bit spacey? Or does he have the right stuff for America?