Former NASA Director Says Muslim Outreach Push 'Deeply Flawed'
The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as "deeply flawed" the idea that the space exploration agency's priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month.
The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as "deeply flawed" the idea that the space exploration agency's priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month.
"NASA ... represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity," Michael Griffin, who served as NASA administrator during the latter half of the Bush administration, told FoxNews.com.
Bolden created a firestorm after telling Al Jazeera last month that President Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships 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."
Officials from the White House and NASA on Tuesday stood by Bolden's statement that part of his mission is to improve relations with Muslim countries -- though NASA backed off the claim that such international diplomacy is Bolden's "foremost" responsibility. ..................>>>>.......................>>>>..........................>>>>.............http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....ch-foremost-mission/
NASA 's official mission statement - " To improve life here, to extend life to there . To find life beyond. NASA Vision. To understand and protect our home planet " -
While rhetorically this sounds idiotic, the idea behind it is sound. Landing on the moon saw us a huge economic boom and tied us closely with old enemies that were also working towards similar goals. Lots of businesses want to do business in a technologically advanced nation and it has big side effects that are beneficial. I'm not sure how the Obama camp plans to use this as a diplomatic gain with the Muslim world, and maybe it could work and maybe it won't.
The idea is idiotic. While they stop space exploration they want to improve Muslim's self esteem? This Obama stooge must be immediately removed. Just when you think you've heard the worst about this administration another fiasco.
NASA needs to find a scientific purpose and not waste time build up another religion's self esteem. No wonder Obama's poll numbers keep tanking. REPS can not take back Congress soon enough.
NASA is not about to become a cheering section of the Muslim world. But through NASA and the scientific break throughs it achieves we can include former enemies to become our friends.
You also missed in the cut...
Quoted Text
"Meeting that mandate requires NASA to partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries. The space race began as a global competition, but, today, it is a global collaboration," he said.
Bob Jacobs, NASA's assistant administrator for public affairs, echoed that point. However, he said that Bolden was speaking of priorities when it came to "outreach" and not about NASA's primary missions of "science, aeronautics and space exploration." He said the "core mission" is exploration and that it was unfortunate Bolden's comments are now being viewed through a "partisan prism."
I'll trust the guy at NASA over and old NASA head that lost his job when Bush left.