When former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in February that the president may ask former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) for advice “if there’s a problem on a lunar colony,” he was joking.

[Photo: talkingpointsmemo.com]

But as it turns out, someone took Gingrich’s weird pitch for a permanent presence on the moon seriously.

According to The Washington Post, the failed Republican presidential candidate has joined the advisory board of the newly formed Golden Spike Company, which aims to launch a moon tourism business for governments and the ultra-wealthy.

Gingrich famously said during the Republican primary debates that if he were elected president, America would put a colony on the moon by the end of his second term. He even said that the moon cold become America’s 51st state once 13,000 people are living there.

As one might expect, he was widely mocked for the pitch, with the website Funny or Die, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart piling on.

Admittedly, it is easy to mine Gingrich’s dream of a lunar colony for comedy gold, but the folks at Golden Spike Company are not laughing. Read more;