Obama’s New Mission for NASA: Reach Out to Muslim World

[unionjack]

http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/blogs ... 85979.html


In a far-reaching restatement of goals for the nation’s space agency, NASA administrator Charles Bolden says President Obama has ordered him to pursue three new objectives: to “re-inspire children” to study science and math, to “expand our international relationships,” and to “reach out to the Muslim world.” Of those three goals, Bolden said in a recent interview with al-Jazeera, the mission to reach out to Muslims is “perhaps foremost,” because it will help Islamic nations “feel good” about their scientific accomplishments.

In the same interview, Bolden also said the United States, which first sent men to the moon in 1969, is no longer capable of reaching beyond low earth orbit without help from other nations.

Bolden made the statements during a recent trip to the Middle East. He told al-Jazeera that in the wake of the president’s speech in Cairo last year, the American space agency is now pursuing “a new beginning of the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world.” Then:

When I became the NASA Administrator — before I became the NASA Administrator — [Obama] charged me with three things: One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.

Later in the interview, Bolden discussed NASA’s goal of greater international cooperation in space exploration. He said the United States, more than 40 years after the first moon mission, cannot reach beyond earth’s orbit today without assistance from abroad:

In his message in Cairo, [Obama] talked about expanding our international outreach, expanding our international involvement. We’re not going to go anywhere beyond low earth orbit as a single entity. The United States can’t do it, China can’t do it — no single nation is going to go to a place like Mars alone.

Bolden’s trip included a June 15 speech at the American University in Cairo. In that speech, he said in the past NASA worked mostly with countries that are capable of space exploration. But that, too, has changed in light of Obama’s Cairo initiative. “He asked NASA to change…by reaching out to ‘non-traditional’ partners and strengthening our cooperation in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia and in particular in Muslim-majority nations,” Bolden said. “NASA has embraced this charge.”

“NASA is not only a space exploration agency,” Bolden concluded, “but also an earth improvement agency.”

[JakeYonkel]

LOL.

[absolutely fabulous]

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

glad we've now implemented it to feel good encouragement, ya know to school children and muslims, considering we've cut the budget so much and will be riding shotgun with russia.

how much will we be spending to observe, analyze and report on how to make muslims feel good about their achievements?
they already know what they've done and this makes us look like asstarts!

[SmokingGun]

Do they seriously not have any more pressing issues to spend time and money on? Is this a joke?

NASA, which I always thought was about astonauts and shit, is now to spend precious time and money trying to make friends with people who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in making friends with us.

What a load of bullshit.

[tin00can]

Do they seriously not have any more pressing issues to spend time and money on? Is this a joke?

NASA, which I always thought was about astonauts and shit, is now to spend precious time and money trying to make friends with people who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in making friends with us.

What a load of bullshit.

How much money will be spent on the muslim part? Maybe a few million dollars at most? I guess you missed the other objectives, about inspiring kids in school with the astronauts and shit. Maybe if you'd spent more time in school, you'd have better reading comprehension.

[EvilMadman]

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

What next? A Negro eating fried chicken and watermelon or a redneck fucking his sister, maybe?

[SmokingGun]

Do they seriously not have any more pressing issues to spend time and money on? Is this a joke?

NASA, which I always thought was about astonauts and shit, is now to spend precious time and money trying to make friends with people who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in making friends with us.

What a load of bullshit.

How much money will be spent on the muslim part? Maybe a few million dollars at most? I guess you missed the other objectives, about inspiring kids in school with the astronauts and shit. Maybe if you'd spent more time in school, you'd have better reading comprehension.

"the mission to reach out to Muslims is “perhaps foremost,” because it will help Islamic nations “feel good” about their scientific accomplishments."

'Maybe a few million', when it's perhaps their top priority. Uh-huh.

Keep pandering to the useless Muslims, who haven't achieved jack shit in the past 500 years. They just happen to be lucky enough to live above vast amounts of oil. Their other achievements are sectarian warfare going on for centuries, and the oppression of women. Hooray.

Have you done your part and appeased a Muslim today, tin00can? Made one "feel good" about his/her "accomplishments"?

[absolutely fabulous]

i wonder if any other country would start a campaign to recognize all the good that americans have accomplished...

[thejuggernaut]

To be fair, it's not a bad idea.

The words "feel good" were a poor decision, but the idea is sound.

For the right wing hawkish types, I'll ask you the same question I asked the lefties who spoke out against the Iraq war daily (and seem to have gone mostly silent about it now) - when was the last time you were in Baghdad ?

If you can convert a few adults, great.

But the real aim is kids, creatures still young enough to be malleable.

Perhaps if a bunch of kids learn that the ideas that were directly responsible for space travel came from their "people", they might be less likely to cut off peoples' heads with rusty knives and blow up trains.

The goal isn't the hardcore zealots because you'll never change them. The goal is to get the youth. Kinda like how the Soviet Union dispatched their agents to scour campuses and protests - target those who are malleable and represent the future of things to come.

[TheMightyMaiden]

Most so called Muslim advances were stolen by Muslims as they conquered other peoples. Many people do not know that Chaldeans were using batteries thousands of years ago but once the Muslims invaded and took over, they destroyed the schools and halted all the advances that were ahead of the times. They're backward thinking people.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

To be fair, it's not a bad idea.

The words "feel good" were a poor decision, but the idea is sound.

For the right wing hawkish types, I'll ask you the same question I asked the lefties who spoke out against the Iraq war daily (and seem to have gone mostly silent about it now) - when was the last time you were in Baghdad ?

If you can convert a few adults, great.

But the real aim is kids, creatures still young enough to be malleable.

Perhaps if a bunch of kids learn that the ideas that were directly responsible for space travel came from their "people", they might be less likely to cut off peoples' heads with rusty knives and blow up trains.

The goal isn't the hardcore zealots because you'll never change them. The goal is to get the youth. Kinda like how the Soviet Union dispatched their agents to scour campuses and protests - target those who are malleable and represent the future of things to come.

I would like to think this was Obama's plan, but...

Most so called Muslim advances were stolen by Muslims as they conquered other peoples. Many people do not know that Chaldeans were using batteries thousands of years ago but once the Muslims invaded and took over, they destroyed the schools and halted all the advances that were ahead of the times. They're backward thinking people.

The Chaldeans were gone centuries before Mohammed was born. For this to be true, he would have to be hanging out with Doc Brown and H.G. Wells.

[thejuggernaut]

To be fair, it's not a bad idea.

The words "feel good" were a poor decision, but the idea is sound.

For the right wing hawkish types, I'll ask you the same question I asked the lefties who spoke out against the Iraq war daily (and seem to have gone mostly silent about it now) - when was the last time you were in Baghdad ?

If you can convert a few adults, great.

But the real aim is kids, creatures still young enough to be malleable.

Perhaps if a bunch of kids learn that the ideas that were directly responsible for space travel came from their "people", they might be less likely to cut off peoples' heads with rusty knives and blow up trains.

The goal isn't the hardcore zealots because you'll never change them. The goal is to get the youth. Kinda like how the Soviet Union dispatched their agents to scour campuses and protests - target those who are malleable and represent the future of things to come.

I would like to think this was Obama's plan, but...

Most so called Muslim advances were stolen by Muslims as they conquered other peoples. Many people do not know that Chaldeans were using batteries thousands of years ago but once the Muslims invaded and took over, they destroyed the schools and halted all the advances that were ahead of the times. They're backward thinking people.

The Chaldeans were gone centuries before Mohammed was born. For this to be true, he would have to be hanging out with Doc Brown and H.G. Wells.

Always a kudos for a BTTF reference.

[unionjack]

Good article on this topic....


http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... tionalism/


Remember NASA? It once represented to the world the apogee of American scientific and technological achievement. Here is President Obama’s vision of NASA’s mission, as explained by administrator Charles Bolden: “One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering.”

Apart from the psychobabble — farcically turning a space-faring enterprise into a self-esteem enhancer — what’s the sentiment behind this charge? Sure America has put a man on the moon, led the information revolution, won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation by far — but, on the other hand, a thousand years ago al-Khwarizmi gave us algebra. Bolden seems quite intent on driving home this message of achievement equivalence — lauding, for example, Russia’s contribution to the space station. Russia? In the 1990s, the Russian space program fell apart, leaving the United States to pick up the slack and the tab for the missing Russian contributions to get the space station built.

For good measure, Bolden added that the U.S. cannot get to Mars without international assistance. Beside the fact that this is not true, contrast this with the elan and self-confidence of President Kennedy’s pledge that America would land on the moon within the decade. There was no finer expression of belief in American exceptionalism than Kennedy’s. Obama has a different take. As he said last year in Strasbourg, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Which of course means: If we’re all exceptional, no one is.

Take human rights. After Obama’s meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, Mike McFaul of the National Security Council reported that Obama actually explained to the leader of that thuggish kleptocracy that we too are working on perfecting our own democracy. Nor is this the only example of an implied moral equivalence that diminishes and devalues America. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner reported that in discussions with China about human rights, the U.S. side brought up Arizona’s immigration law — “early and often.” As if there is the remotest connection between that and the persecution of dissidents, jailing of opponents, suppression of religion routinely practiced by the Chinese dictatorship.

Nothing new here. In his major addresses, Obama’s modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as, in one venue after another, he has gratuitously confessed America’s alleged failing — from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11. It’s fine to recognize the achievements of others and be non-chauvinistic about one’s country. But Obama’s modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply. It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention.

And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America’s sins and the world’s to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the first-person pronoun — I. It’s a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama’s exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies — both about himself. Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama’s modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence — yet not of his own country’s.

[bane]

To be fair, it's not a bad idea.

The words "feel good" were a poor decision, but the idea is sound.

For the right wing hawkish types, I'll ask you the same question I asked the lefties who spoke out against the Iraq war daily (and seem to have gone mostly silent about it now) - when was the last time you were in Baghdad ?

If you can convert a few adults, great.

But the real aim is kids, creatures still young enough to be malleable.

Perhaps if a bunch of kids learn that the ideas that were directly responsible for space travel came from their "people", they might be less likely to cut off peoples' heads with rusty knives and blow up trains.

The goal isn't the hardcore zealots because you'll never change them. The goal is to get the youth. Kinda like how the Soviet Union dispatched their agents to scour campuses and protests - target those who are malleable and represent the future of things to come.

I see your point, but stopping American occupation of Muslem countries will go a lot further on the winning the hearts and minds trip than a meaningless platitude about ancestral accomplishments. Unless Obama wants NASA to lobby a bunch of shieks for Mars money, this is a really stupid idea. Atta boys to the masses aren't getting us any closer to Star Trek. Who is John Galt?

[thejuggernaut]

To be fair, it's not a bad idea.

The words "feel good" were a poor decision, but the idea is sound.

For the right wing hawkish types, I'll ask you the same question I asked the lefties who spoke out against the Iraq war daily (and seem to have gone mostly silent about it now) - when was the last time you were in Baghdad ?

If you can convert a few adults, great.

But the real aim is kids, creatures still young enough to be malleable.

Perhaps if a bunch of kids learn that the ideas that were directly responsible for space travel came from their "people", they might be less likely to cut off peoples' heads with rusty knives and blow up trains.

The goal isn't the hardcore zealots because you'll never change them. The goal is to get the youth. Kinda like how the Soviet Union dispatched their agents to scour campuses and protests - target those who are malleable and represent the future of things to come.

I see your point, but stopping American occupation of Muslem countries will go a lot further on the winning the hearts and minds trip than a meaningless platitude about ancestral accomplishments. Unless Obama wants NASA to lobby a bunch of shieks for Mars money, this is a really stupid idea. Atta boys to the masses aren't getting us any closer to Star Trek. Who is John Galt?

Your country has managed to advance technologically while the "religious traditions" have been broken down, a step at a time.

Anyhow, I am going to go out on a really crazy limb here and say they are gonna do a little bit more than show up and say "hey, you guys used to be good at math. You should think about that." I feel comfortable in saying they probably will set up exhibits and various other "expo/learning center" style facilities.

I have to think they are going to do more than just speak some talking points and show up to give the occasional speech.

[bane]

What more do you envision them doing? It's NASA, not the Smithsonian. NASA should be focusing on science and engineering. Other than lobbying for public support, I don't see societal issues being part of their mission. They've got a nice little museum down at the Johnson Space center that helps to educate the public on what they've done and what their future plans are, but the nuts and bolts of NASA isn't in PR, or at least it hasn't been. I've got no problem with the president's desire to improve the west's relationship with the muslem world. My country has done a lot of pretty horrible shit to cause the current rift, but NASA isn't the place to try and fix that IMO. Regardless, I can't see this directive becoming much of a priority for NASA. It's probably got more to do with political posturing than it does with any legitimate plan going forward. The current senate bill, which is a bit at odds with the White House plan, is focused on extending the shuttle program another year and developing a new manned rocket by 2016. That will save jobs. It'll be a much easier sell to the American public than this reported atta boy directive.

[thejuggernaut]

What more do you envision them doing? It's NASA, not the Smithsonian. NASA should be focusing on science and engineering. Other than lobbying for public support, I don't see societal issues being part of their mission. They've got a nice little museum down at the Johnson Space center that helps to educate the public on what they've done and what their future plans are, but the nuts and bolts of NASA isn't in PR, or at least it hasn't been. I've got no problem with the president's desire to improve the west's relationship with the muslem world. My country has done a lot of pretty horrible shit to cause the current rift, but NASA isn't the place to try and fix that IMO. Regardless, I can't see this directive becoming much of a priority for NASA. It's probably got more to do with political posturing than it does with any legitimate plan going forward. The current senate bill, which is a bit at odds with the White House plan, is focused on extending the shuttle program another year and developing a new manned rocket by 2016. That will save jobs. It'll be a much easier sell to the American public than this reported atta boy directive.

LOL

NASA is incapable of constructing exhibits in lands where......buildings already exist ??

[bane]

What more do you envision them doing? It's NASA, not the Smithsonian. NASA should be focusing on science and engineering. Other than lobbying for public support, I don't see societal issues being part of their mission. They've got a nice little museum down at the Johnson Space center that helps to educate the public on what they've done and what their future plans are, but the nuts and bolts of NASA isn't in PR, or at least it hasn't been. I've got no problem with the president's desire to improve the west's relationship with the muslem world. My country has done a lot of pretty horrible shit to cause the current rift, but NASA isn't the place to try and fix that IMO. Regardless, I can't see this directive becoming much of a priority for NASA. It's probably got more to do with political posturing than it does with any legitimate plan going forward. The current senate bill, which is a bit at odds with the White House plan, is focused on extending the shuttle program another year and developing a new manned rocket by 2016. That will save jobs. It'll be a much easier sell to the American public than this reported atta boy directive.

LOL

NASA is incapable of constructing exhibits in lands where......buildings already exist ??

Who said anything about capability?

[thejuggernaut]

What more do you envision them doing? It's NASA, not the Smithsonian. NASA should be focusing on science and engineering. Other than lobbying for public support, I don't see societal issues being part of their mission. They've got a nice little museum down at the Johnson Space center that helps to educate the public on what they've done and what their future plans are, but the nuts and bolts of NASA isn't in PR, or at least it hasn't been. I've got no problem with the president's desire to improve the west's relationship with the muslem world. My country has done a lot of pretty horrible shit to cause the current rift, but NASA isn't the place to try and fix that IMO. Regardless, I can't see this directive becoming much of a priority for NASA. It's probably got more to do with political posturing than it does with any legitimate plan going forward. The current senate bill, which is a bit at odds with the White House plan, is focused on extending the shuttle program another year and developing a new manned rocket by 2016. That will save jobs. It'll be a much easier sell to the American public than this reported atta boy directive.

LOL

NASA is incapable of constructing exhibits in lands where......buildings already exist ??

Who said anything about capability?

Then what's the problem ?

Build the exhibit so it gives kids a chance to look at something really cool from the "heavens" as an alternative to watching stonings, clitorectomies and cave glyphs.

[bane]

It's about allocation of resources. In the grand scheme we probably aren't talking much money, but NASA isn't the organization that should be doing that sort of thing IMO. There are museums for that. I don't have a problem with them putting up a history of mathmatics display highlighting arab and islamic contributions at the facilities they already run. (There are only 2 that I'm aware of) but leave the world wide stuff to somebody else. If a museum in Cairo or Tehran wants to borrow some NASA shit for an exhibit, fine, and if the president wants NASA to encourage those museums to run a space exhibit, cool, but NASA should be doing what NASA does and leave the exhibit business to the exhibitors. Just my 2 cents. I'm not incensed about it or anything. I just think it's a dumb idea.

[thejuggernaut]

It's about allocation of resources. In the grand scheme we probably aren't talking much money, but NASA isn't the organization that should be doing that sort of thing IMO. There are museums for that. I don't have a problem with them putting up a history of mathmatics display highlighting arab and islamic contributions at the facilities they already run. (There are only 2 that I'm aware of) but leave the world wide stuff to somebody else. If a museum in Cairo or Tehran wants to borrow some NASA shit for an exhibit, fine, and if the president wants NASA to encourage those museums to run a space exhibit, cool, but NASA should be doing what NASA does and leave the exhibit business to the exhibitors. Just my 2 cents. I'm not incensed about it or anything. I just think it's a dumb idea.

If the idea is to speed people out of the stoneage into the modern times, it's probably best to put it in the hands of the star walkers.

[bane]

Good point.

[BlackCrypt]

Is NASA still a real thing?

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

Man, this is definitely a thread from Christmas War Board Past. Juggernaut- banned, Mighty Maiden- became a doctor and stopped posting, Master of Meat Puppets- banned came back as Danzig In The Dark, bane- stopped posting, Jake Yonkel- stopped posting.

[Danzig in the Dark]

[absolutely fabulous]

Is this thing on?!


Houston we have a problem...