Moscow, Jan 26 (IANS/RIA Novosti) A US Republican presidential hopeful has promised to build a moon base by 2020 if he becomes the next US president in the November poll.

Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, said this before a crowd of over 700 people on Florida’s “Space Coast” Wednesday.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” Gingrich promised to an applauding crowd.

Gingrich also said that he would push to develop “the first continuous propulsion system in space” that would enable humans to travel to Mars, Politico.com reported.

The topic of Gingrich’s latest campaign struck a particular chord with the residents of Florida’s “Space Coast” who are still struggling economically after recent US federal cuts to the space programme.

“We will have commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism and manufacturing, and are designed to create a robust industry precisely on the model of the development of the airlines of the 1930s,” CBC News quoted Gingrich, “the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching.”

Gingrich’s rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, mocked the idea of a lunar settlement, but Gingrich simply commented that “here’s the difference between romantics and so-called practical people”.

Both Gingrich and Romney are campaigning to secure Florida’s primary vote next Tuesday.

The US presidential election is scheduled to be held Nov 6, 2012.

–IANS/RIA Novosti
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