All these reporters were haters about Newt Gingrich's vision for a moon colony, and now they're tweeting about the space shuttle like nerdy NASA-cap wearing third graders. In the moment that Gingrich's campaign has withered to almost nothing, his spokesman  tweeted a small plea for redemption for one of his boss's more controversial ideas Tuesday. As the retiring Discovery shuttle flew over Washington, D.C., R.C. Hammond issued this understated plea for some introspection: "Thousands in DC flee offices to spot shuttle overflight, yet a moon colony is a silly idea. #justsayin." 

Others agreed that Tuesday's mid-day Twitter diversion might be an appropriate moment to reconsider anti-space bigotry. Slate's Dave Weigel concurred: "D.C. taking short break from mocking Newt's crazy space ideas to gawk at an awesome space shuttle." "Space is awesome," Reason's Peter Suderman agreed. "If I was Newt Gingrich, I'd be talking my moon base stuff with the shuttle flying conveniently over DC right now #hint," University of Pennsylvania's Anthea Butler tweeted. 

The Atlantic Wire feels no guilt on this historic day, since we noted in January when Gingrich was being mocked for his visions of a colony on the moon that his campaign was being undone by his most defensible idea. Nevertheless, others were not solemn in this moment. "Kind of wish Newt was straddling the shuttle waving his hat," @pourmecoffee, an evident Kubrick fan, tweets. "Now that would've been funny," responded Outside the Beltway's Doug Mataconis, who actually has a picture of space as his background on his Twitter page. "How I stopped worrying and learned to love the Rom," Yahoo's Mike Byhoff replies. Newt's best hope from redemption probably comes from our (hopefully distant) future alien overlords.

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Elspeth Reeve