The Window of Opportunity Has Arrived

Newt published a book in 1984 called Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future.

Circa 2010, Newt sold copies online for $34.45. You could, however, get a fairly pristine copy off of Amazon.com for $0.01, paying $3.99 shipping and handling. The book was, at some point pre-February 2010, sold at a Goodwill somewhere for $2.99. A certain circa 2010 purchaser of Window received a copy of Amazon with the Goodwill pricetag still attached.

If you clicked at that link with the book's title, you may have noticed the cover image. Yes: the title is written in a fabulous spacey typeface. Yes: Newt's byline is listed as "The Honorable Newt Gingrich, Chairman of the Congressional Space Caucus." Yes: the cover image is of a space shuttle, the planet earth, an eagle, and the American flag.

The book is published by Tor, a company that tends to publish science fiction books.

The most prominent blurb on the back is from the Gipper himself.

Enough cover matter: in Window of Opportunity, Newt tells us, the Americans of tomorrow (tomorrow from the perspective of 1984), what he could have brought us, space-wise, if we had just listened to him (ca. 1984).

And now an excerpt (pages 41-42, italics and caps not in original, but important for the "craziness" effect):

The NASA team proposed both a space shuttle and a space station to President Nixon, who, although distracted by Vietnam and budget fights, nonetheless supported one major program--the space shuttle--as a prudent investment in America's future.

The space shuttle allowed NASA and its major contractors to continue working on new programs and thus was a partial victory. However, the shuttle was a process-oriented, bureaucratic, technocratic program which lacked the romance and adventure that might have created a new generation of engineers AND SPACE ACTIVISTS.

...Imagine that business and industrial leaders had been far-sighted enough to understand that a space industry would spin off earth-based jobs using satellite antennas, new medicines, large surfaces, and zero-gravity alloys.

[...]

With a coherent understanding of the value of space, the President could have scheduled a national address the night man landed on the moon, and after the world watched that first "small step for man, one giant step for mankind," announced a massive new program to build A PERMANENT LUNAR COLONY TO EXPLOIT THE MOON'S RESOURCES FOR USE IN SPACE coupled with the concurrent development of a space shuttle and a series of permanent manned satellites to sustain that colony. Finally, TO USE THE GENIUS OF A PERMANENT AMERICAN FREE-MARKET SYSTEM, THE PRESIDENT COULD HAVE ANNOUNCED A SERIES OF TAX AND REGULATORY INCENTIVES TO TURN SPACE INTO A PROFITABLE ARENA FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.