NASA - No Americans in Space Anymore

Catchy acronym credited to commenter Dyspeptic Curmudgeon on Alpheca


So NASA has apparently been ordered to make its primary mission outreach to Muslim nations.

Charles Bolden, head of NASA, tells Al Jazeera that the "foremost" task President Obama has given him is "to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering." Thus, NASA's primary mission is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of "predominantly Muslim nations."
Exploring space didn't even make the top three things Obama wants Bolden to accomplish. The other two are "re-inspire children to want to get into science and math" and "expand our international relationships,"  source Powerline Blog

Bull crap.  First off, the contributions of ancient Arab and Persian civilizations are duly noted - but there haven't been any noteworthy innovations out of that part of the world since Islam took over.  There are no great contributions to Science, Mathematics or Engineering since then.  Islam has destroyed that culture.  Again, to quote another commenter:

Paraphrasing the address given by the Prime minister of Malaysia to a conference of Moslem heads of state around 29th December 2004. The gist of it was, original thinking has been haram (forbidden) to Moslems for the past 1200 years.

Got an exception?  If the Muslim world is so great, why is it that when a leader gets sick, he comes here?  Why is it they send their students here to learn engineering?

Former NASA Administrator  Michael Griffin joins us in disgust:

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. (Fox News) 

The administration is backpedaling on this like a four year old caught with both mitts in the cookie jar. 

....Bob Jacobs, NASA's assistant administrator for public affairs, ... 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."

When in doubt, blame everything on the Republicans, right?

Look, I'm one of those who think the moon landings were one of the pinnacles of human history. It pains me deeply for us to be throwing out our heritage in space.  In light of this, it's noteworthy that Bolden also 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.

In other words, we have completely lost our vision, and our ambition.  We have no desire to explore any more and would rather contemplate our navels.  Exploration's too hard.  It costs too much.  He's saying we can't even recreate technology we had 45 years ago and improve on it.  Even knowing the answer, as if from the back of the book, we can't re-create it.  He's telling the Chinese, the Indians, the Japanese and every other nation with a space program that they can't do it, either.  What a bunch of myopic crap. 

So the answer is that instead of taking on challenges, let's all just sit around and be proud of something our ancestors did over 2000 years ago.  Thanks, but if I'm proud of anything, it will be of things I've accomplished - anything my ancestors did was for them to be proud of.  

Pic shamelessly ripped from Weasel Zippers, who seem to have shamelessly ripped it from The Nose on Your Face

In a way, Glenn Beck hit on a very good concept a few weeks ago.  You may not have noticed it or it may not have stuck with you, but it's good. Think of the summer of 1969.  Two big things happened that summer.  The first moon landing in July, and Woodstock, a few weeks later.

The first was a tribute to hard working men and women: engineers, technicians, assemblers, and tens of thousands of hard working people who undertook a task that many viewed as impossible.  "To land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of this decade".  It was hard work, it was risky work.  Men died: outstanding men you'd be proud to have known or worked with.  It was a triumph of intellect, done with slide rules and calculators that your Smart Phone out classes by a factor of thousands.  Even today, it is thought of as so hard to do that about 5% of the population thinks we never did it.



The second was a bunch of kids having sex in the mud while drugged out of their minds, listening to singers and musicians drugged out of their minds.

The first group was dedicated to doing things others can barely only imagine - bending the universe to their will through sheer intellect and power.  They are "can do" people. 

The second group was dedicated to rubbing body parts against each other with no effort of will and no character.  Their entire focus in life is their genitals.   

The second group is now in charge of the country.

Which kind of person are you? 

...and lest you forget what Woodstock was like, Mrs. Graybeard and I laughed until we hurt at this ...