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Is It NASA’s Job to Make Muslim Nations ‘Feel Good’?
National Review ^ | 07/06/2010 | Elliot Abrams

Posted on 07/06/2010 7:00:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

In the spring of 1961, President Kennedy spoke to Congress about his desire to “win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny.” He told Congress and the nation that “now it is time to take longer strides — time for a great new American enterprise — time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.”

His inspiring conclusion: “I believe we should go to the moon” — though he noted that this would require additional expenditures of money and intellectual resources, and presidents were more serious about budgets in those days. Kennedy said, “It is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel, and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel. New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could in fact, aggravate them further — unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”

A half century later, in the age of Obama, that kind of inspirational yet candid communication from Washington is gone. This past week, the current NASA administrator revealed what our current president thinks about space. “When I became the NASA administrator, [Obama] charged me with three things,” NASA head Charles Bolden told al-Jazeera. “One, 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.”

This quote is entirely believable. Mr. Bolden was not told that he must advance American interests in space, but instead to become part of the big Obama program of engagement with the “international community.” His achievements will be measured by whether he can “reach out” to make people “feel good,” and those people aren’t even Americans; no, his “perhaps foremost” job is to make Muslims around the world “feel good” about their past.

A more serious task might be to make them feel terrible about the present level of education in Muslim lands, not least for women and girls, in the hope that we could spur them to reform and improvement. The dismal state of science, math, and engineering in Muslim nations is quite clear, but Mr. Bolden isn’t assigned to improve their performance (which would presumably be the job of USAID, but whatever). No, he’s to be another Dr. Feelgood, a sad assignment for this former astronaut. Mr. Bolden should not be criticized for telling the truth about his job, for the problem is at the top, not at NASA. The space program is being transformed into a tool of Obama foreign policy, which views American national greatness as an anachronism.

— Elliot Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: frontier; islam; nasa
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Nasa, moving from one great void to another great void.


21 posted on 07/06/2010 7:25:12 AM PDT by aimhigh
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To: andy58-in-nh
What precisely is the greatest Muslim “contribution to science and engineering”?

The IED.

22 posted on 07/06/2010 7:26:08 AM PDT by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: Ev Reeman

Is it our job to make the SOB’s in Washington feel good?


23 posted on 07/06/2010 7:28:51 AM PDT by ProudFossil
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To: realcleanguy
Islam worships the Moon God. Evident in Obama’s efforts to use NASA to build a relationship. Islam feels we blasphemed their God by walking on him when we landed and walked on the moon.

One of the goofier gods in the Egyptian pantheon (Which seems to be about the size of the Manhattan Phone Book), was Aapep, the Moon Snake.

Maybe they are trying to bring that guy back.

This is not to demean geniune contributions and publications, of course, like "Propagation of Detonation Waves in Infidel Tissue", "Commerical Aircraft as Demolition Media", and that titllating tome, "Internal Anatomy of the Female Goat".

24 posted on 07/06/2010 7:31:21 AM PDT by Gorzaloon (CNN:AP:etc:Today, President Obama's stool was firm and well-formed. One end was slightly pointed. ")
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To: SeekAndFind

Massive Nitrous Oxide deployments?


25 posted on 07/06/2010 7:32:51 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: ScottinVA
...I think we are missing the point here (no pun intended)....

So how do you precisely increase the "esteem " of the mooslimb nations ?...

Answer...

give them the technology and capability so they can build and operate their own orbital systems and astronauts....

..and as an added benefit develop a multiple warhead ICBM capability.

26 posted on 07/06/2010 7:34:22 AM PDT by spokeshave (From The One to zero in just 18 months – the myth has ended.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I want NASA to make me feel good....been down lately.


27 posted on 07/06/2010 7:35:27 AM PDT by Dallas59 (President Robert Gibbs 2009-2013)
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To: SeekAndFind

Now, now, boys & girls.

The crescent moon, moon river, moonbats and a lunatic.

We have a movement heah!!!


28 posted on 07/06/2010 7:35:42 AM PDT by sodpoodle (Despair - Man's surrender. Laughter - God's redemption)
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To: SeekAndFind
Dr. Drew concluded that Obama thought of himself as “part of an intelligent, radical vanguard that was leading the way towards this revolution and towards this new society.” ..."

Referring to Obama’s quote from “Dreams of My Father” that he associated with Marxist professors, Drew says, “What he’s not saying is that he was in 100 percent total agreement with those Marxist professors.

When you understand that, Obama’s later associations and policies make more sense, including why he was taken in by Rev. Wright’s ideology.” ---------

Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, has written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator's victory in the Iowa caucuses:

"Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle.

Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

This is the old revolutionary 'mole,' not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through."


-People's Weekly World (PWW), official newspaper of the Communist Party, USA

29 posted on 07/06/2010 7:38:27 AM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009 (So stop treading on me already!)
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To: ScottinVA

Exactly my reaction. He cant run for re-election with this kind of stuff on the record. The MSM might not cover it now, but it will run ads that have clips of the Bolten interview. The truth will out and doom him.

I dont think he will run again.


30 posted on 07/06/2010 7:38:43 AM PDT by freespirited (There are a lot of bad Republicans but there are no good Democrats.--Ann Coulter)
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To: SeekAndFind
Is It NASA’s Job to Make Muslim Nations ‘Feel Good’?
Well that and perpetuate the global warming lie if they want to continue to get funding.
31 posted on 07/06/2010 7:41:02 AM PDT by lewislynn (What does the global warming movement and the Fairtax movement have in common? Disinformation)
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To: ScottinVA
What precisely is the greatest Muslim “contribution to science and engineering”?

The IED.

That's a good answer. I also considered the Suicide Vest and the Iranian Nasr 1 cruise missile, coming soon to a a country near you, especially if you live in Tel Aviv.

32 posted on 07/06/2010 7:41:35 AM PDT by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: ScottinVA
This guy has GOT to go in 2012.

. . the poser Prez has to go before 2012 or at least, be recognized in full for the threat he is; and with a collective promise of all decent Congressional Leadership that they will do NOTHING to advance his agenda. . .NOTHING!. Make him a 'lame Duck'; at the very least. . .and be ready to do more, if/as necessary.

33 posted on 07/06/2010 7:45:58 AM PDT by cricket ('flies don't lie')
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To: andy58-in-nh

They need to study the effects of beheading in space.


34 posted on 07/06/2010 7:48:00 AM PDT by Thurston_Howell_III (Ahoy polloi... where did you come from, a scotch ad?)
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To: andy58-in-nh

To paraphrase Kirk:

“What does Mohammed need with a spaceship?”


35 posted on 07/06/2010 7:56:42 AM PDT by sturmde
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To: andy58-in-nh

RE: What precisely is the greatest Muslim “contribution to science and engineering”?

I am quoting from Wikipedia in response to this question :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_medieval_Islam


“There are several different views on Islamic science among historians of science. The traditionalist view, as exemplified by Bertrand Russell, holds that Islamic science, while admirable in many technical ways, lacked the intellectual energy required for innovation and was chiefly important as a preserver of ancient knowledge and transmitter to medieval Europe.”

“The revisionist view, as exemplified by Abdus Salam, George Saliba and John M. Hobson holds that a Muslim scientific revolution occurred during the Middle Ages, an expression with which scholars such as Donald Routledge Hill and Ahmad Y Hassan express the view that Islam was the driving force behind the Muslim achievements, while Robert Briffault even sees Islamic science as the foundation of modern science.”

“The most prominent view in recent scholarship, however, as examplified by Toby E. Huff, Will Durant, Fielding H. Garrison, Muhammad Iqbal, Hossein Nasr and Bernard Lewis, holds that Muslim scientists did help in laying the foundations for an experimental science with their contributions to the scientific method and their empirical, experimental and quantitative approach to scientific inquiry, but that their work cannot be considered a Scientific Revolution, like that which occurred in early modern Europe and led to the emergence of modern science, with the exception of Ibn al-Haytham’s Book of Optics which is widely considered a revolution in the fields of optics and visual perception.”

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE ARTICLE...


36 posted on 07/06/2010 7:56:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

But I thought it was Republicans who politicize science?!


37 posted on 07/06/2010 7:57:28 AM PDT by StonyMan451
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To: SeekAndFind

Charles Krauthammer had devastatingly critical comments about that statement on FOX news yesterday.


38 posted on 07/06/2010 7:58:58 AM PDT by driftless2 (For long term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: andy58-in-nh

Actually, I believe Iran might be interested in advanced satellite technology. They’d even be interested in acquiring technology to weaponize space.

Knowing this interest on their part, is NASA’s goal under Barack Hussein Obama now going to help them develop in this area ? (Maybe it’s part of his RE-SET program to make them love us ).


39 posted on 07/06/2010 8:00:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

40 posted on 07/06/2010 8:01:06 AM PDT by Lancey Howard
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