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Edited Date/Time
1/23/2012 6:16am
NASA Joke?
ASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.
Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.
"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he 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 ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview.
The NASA administrator was in the Middle East last month marking the one-year anniversary since Obama delivered an address to Muslim nations in Cairo. Bolden spoke in June at the American University in Cairo -- in his interview with Al Jazeera, he described space travel as an international collaboration of which Muslim nations must be a part.
"It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)," he said. He held up the International Space Station as a model, praising the contributions there from the Russians and the Chinese.
However, Bolden denied the suggestion that he was on a diplomatic mission -- in a distinctly non-diplomatic role.
"Not at all. It's not a diplomatic anything," he said.
He said the United States is not going to travel beyond low-Earth orbit on its own and that no country is going to make it to Mars without international help.
Bolden has faced criticism this year for overseeing the cancellation of the agency's Constellation program, which was building new rockets and spaceships capable of returning astronauts to the moon. Stressing the importance of international cooperation in future missions, Bolden told Al Jazeera that the moon, Mars and asteroids are still planned destinations for NASA.
The Arabs have money. Lot's of money. Shitloads of money.
But they do not have a space program or the capability to launch their own satellites into orbit for telecommunications and other purposes.
So, if we want to privatize the space program and reduce the costs to the American public, you go where the money is.
and think about this, if we're launching their shit into space, we'll know exactly what it is, what it does and what it's capable of.
If someone else launches it, we're blind
Living near where all this shit gets launched, I'm cool with it because it'll keep a lot of jobs going down here.
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Dave if you think there would be total disclosure as to the capability and purpose of a satellite we put into orbit of theirs, your new glasses are in, slightly more rosy in color this year.
Oh and by the way Vandenberg AFB is alive and well, thank you.
We would have the satellite, obviously we would be able to inspect it and have the specs to it, necessary to send it up.
There are regulations on what can be launched from various areas, for example toxins or nuclear materials.
You think the Arabs are going to build the satellite themselves?
Not only that, they're going to deliver it the day before launch and just plop it on top, like a candle on a cake?
Get real
It's part of the plan the Administration has been talking about, the privatization of the space program in order to save the American public money
Not all Arab nations are like that.
My sister in law teaches in Dubai, and she says it is no big deal and a lot like here in Florida.
Sure, they have some customs and traditions like we do here and respect their primary religion, Islam, like we do Christianity here. But she doesn't have to cover her head, wear special clothes like a robe or anything else. She drives a car, goes shopping and can wear a bathing suit on the beach.
Not all Arab nations are the primitive animals you seem to think they are
You're wrong
and a liar
But you keep trying, skippy
She wears the same clothes there as she does here, she has her own car, her own apartment, goes shopping on her own (without a man) and has no problems whatsoever....she can even buy PORK!!
That's understandable, because most of the NASA sites are flipping out, and the mainstream news is on another planet.
Short version:
-The president released a new "National Space Policy" (NSP) last week.
-The NSP increases emphasis on commercial rockets and writes NASA out of the rocket-designing business for advanced R&D.
-The NSP has language about commercial space (New Space), national security, export reform, and international cooperation.
-The President has "public diplomacy" goals that have nothing to do with NASA (Cairo speech last year, etc).
-The NASA administrator (Bolden) went on Al Jazeera TV to talk about what NASA is up to. This was a public diplomacy talk, not a bid for international cooperation.
-Bolden would be the first to admit he is not a politician. He's a Marine General and shuttle astronaut. He got put into a position of doing something that is outside of his experience.
-Bolden made one comment about the importance of outreach (public diplomacy) that mentioned the Muslim world's historical contributions to science, which is a fact.
-There is nothing in the NSP that says anything about hooking up with Muslims as a primary goal for NASA. It's nonsense.
This has turned into a total meltdown but hardly anyone knows what they are talking about.
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