Gingrich: Make the moon the 51st state

COCOA BEACH, Fla., Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich say he wants Americans on the moon and would give statehood to a space colony if it had a big enough population.

"By the end of my second term," Gingrich said at a campaign stop in Coco Beach, Fla., "we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American."

Not only that, he said, by 2020 there would be regular flights to Mars, ABC News reported

"I am sick of being told we have to be timid and I'm sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50 years old," Gingrich said.

Reminding the crowd that GOP rival Mitt Romney had made light of his proposal for lunar colonies, Gingrich said there is something Romney's researchers haven't come across yet, something he called "the weirdest thing I've ever done."

When he served in the House, Gingrich said, he authored a bill that would allow a lunar colony to apply for statehood once it reached 13,000 residents.

Gingrich said he did not mind a charge that has so often been directed at him, that he is "grandiose."

"I accept the charge that I am American and Americans are instinctively grandiose because we believe in a bigger future," he said.