You read it right...President Obama has tasked the space agency with improving relations with the Muslim world. In fact, he's made it their foremost mission.
Uh....what?
The space agency -- the guys who figured out how to get to the moon, and more importantly, back -- The brilliant scientists who have spent years discovering the stars, learning about the planets,and innovatively creating ways to get our world linked with the immeasurable universe -- is now supposed to reach out to the Muslim world.
And from what I read, it seems that the greatest motivation behind this is that the Muslim world has been...well, left out when it comes to historic contributions to science. "...there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from Muslim {nations}." NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden explained.
You'll note that he said "possible". I'm sorry but this seems a lot like giving participation ribbons to the all the little soccer players who were on the field, but didn't accomplish any thing beyond that. I'm sure that there are brilliant Muslim scientists, but I have never heard of any huge scientific discoveries or contributions made by Muslim countries...And probably no fault of the scientists, there either. Muslim nations don't strike me as being big into science, sadly.
It is bad enough that NASA has been hamstrung by budget cuts while Congress spends money on more unemployment benefits, but I'm appalled that now they are being made irrelevant by being tasked with this ridiculous mission.
Dear Honorable, Innovative, Hard-working, Forward-thinking NASA employees, you have my sympathy.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/05/nasa-chief-frontier-better-relations-muslims/
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