Political Commentary, Space, War Commentary

Muslim Self Esteem

21 Comments

I have some thoughts on the NASA administrator’s recent comments over at PJM this morning.

[Update a while later]

I see that (as is usually the case) most of the commenters over there can’t be bothered to read or comprehend what I wrote, but instead just take it as an opportunity to vent on a public bulletin board.

[Update a while later]

More thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson. Bottom line:

We all know that Bolden means well and wishes to get his agency on board with President Obama’s larger plan to create a kinder and gentler image to the Muslim world in order to lessen world tension and reduce terrorist attacks against the U.S. Unfortunately, world tensions are rising, and 2009 saw the most foiled terrorist attempts against the U.S. mainland since 2001, so one can wonder about the efficacy of these approaches, or even worry that they are having the opposite effect of what they intend. But the real problem with using NASA as an arm of the State Department’s current politically correct agenda is that it is supposed to have other things to do.

What’s really stupid is that it is doing other things, and good ones, but idiocy like this wipes it off the media map.

[Update mid morning]

Mike Griffin weighs in:

“NASA was chartered by the 1958 Space Act to develop the arts and sciences of flight in the atmosphere and in space and to go where those technologies will allow us to go,” Griffin said in an interview Tuesday. “That’s what NASA does for the country. It is a perversion of NASA’s purpose to conduct activities in order to make the Muslim world feel good about its contributions to science and mathematics.”

Griffin calls NASA’s new mission, outlined by space agency administrator Charles Bolden in an interview with the al-Jazeera news agency, “very bad policy for NASA.” As for NASA’s core mission of space exploration, Griffin points out that it has been reaffirmed many times over the years, most recently in 2005, when a Republican Congress passed authorizing legislation, and in 2008, when a Democratic Congress did the same thing.

Too bad that you didn’t take NASA’s core mission seriously, Mike. Instead, you completely ignored the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission and the CE&I contractors, and decided to make NASA’s core mission on-the-job training for rocket designers at Marshall, and building an unnecessary new rocket that didn’t even get the crew all the way to earth orbit without help from the crew module.

“NASA has been for 50 years above politics, and for 50 years, NASA has been focused by one president or another on space exploration,” Griffin says. “Some presidents have championed it more strongly than others, and it is regrettable that none have championed it as strongly as President Kennedy.

Oh, please. NASA has been above politics for fifty years? NASA has been ninety percent politics since its inception. It’s a friggin’ government agency. And Kennedy didn’t champion space exploration — he championed beating the Soviets to the moon in a battle in the Cold War. He told his own administrator that he didn’t care about space.

For all his unhappiness with the new policy, Griffin says blame for the situation does not belong with NASA administrator Charles Bolden, whom Griffin calls “one of the best human beings you will find.” “When I see reports in the media excoriating Charlie for this position, that blame is misplaced,” Griffin says. “It belongs with the administration. That is where policy for NASA is set. The NASA administrator does not set policy for NASA, the administrator carries it out.”

Really? Well, gee, Mike, maybe if you’d carried out the Bush policy, instead of perverting it yourself, the agency wouldn’t be in such a mess now.

21 thoughts on “Muslim Self Esteem”

  1. Rand,
    If your point is that we should ignore the sillier parts of the policy and focus on the more practical ones, I’d have to agree. The problem is, Obama has handed the critics of his NASA policy a very big rhetorical club to use against it. The three main goals (as stated by Bolden) do not appear to have anything to do with what the American public (the people who pay for the stuff that makes the magic happen) would see as NASA’s main mission of exploring space. This makes the whole policy seem a lot less serious, and a lot easier to ridicule. No, Obama has not done himself or the supporters of his space policy any favors with this.

  4. What would Obama be doing differently if he wanted NASA to fail utterly?

    Standing a good chance of getting reelected.

    I’ve no problem with any of the particular aeronautic and HSF components of the upcoming budget, but what concerns me is five years from now, if Obama is still President, what next? And six years from now, what if we see a repeat of 2008?

    The right of center argument for Flexible Path is:

    1. that the US now will commit an extra $6 billion or so on things a President with a better vision can wrangle together into reasonable foothold into space.
    2. that foothold will allow commercial HSF to follow.

    But should the ISS deorbit in 2020 and no follow on exploration mission is in place, will private HSF be able to stand on its two feet? If not, will she have at least staked out some market Americans wouldn’t hem and haw about subsidizing?

    FP is certainly better than nothing, but that’s cold comfort.

  5. “The few, the proud…the undermined.”

    I’m one of those who agrees with the space policy proposals and has been fighting a battle with ignorance and willful self-delusion about it (while believing that Obama’s other policies are a catastrophe).

    Now this incident comes along and I feel like my feet have been kicked out from under me. Really, it makes me ill. Maybe that kick was higher than I thought…

  6. But should the ISS deorbit in 2020 and no follow on exploration mission is in place, will private HSF be able to stand on its two feet?

    It’s hard to wrap my head around the implications of your question. I assume NASA has it’s budget? With no ISS it wouldn’t seem they’d have any need to spend any of it on HSF? They would still have robotic survey missions of potential human destinations?

    Beyond NASA, it seems certain that Bigelow habitats will be put into orbit for at least some customers. That could easily result in more human traffic to orbit than the ISS requires today. Next may come habitats in lunar orbit which suggests an earth orbit fuel depot in order to reach and supply those. Nothing more will probably happen after that until a lunar lander is put into earth orbit. This would allow the start of a lunar base which I think brings NASA back into the picture (NASA up until then being an outreach program to muslims and envirowackos.)

    I would like to see a moon base without NASA involvement. What kind of commercial project on the moons surface could be justified? What commercial ventures have a budget already close to what establishing a moon base would cost?

  8. Really? Well, gee, Mike, maybe if you’d carried out the Bush policy, instead of perverting it yourself, the agency wouldn’t be in such a mess now.

    Amen

  9. On the outreach idea itself, perhaps the reason our Middle Eastern friends might not have much self esteem in that area is because they haven’t contributed much in that area, at least since the 8th or 9th century. You see, scientific and technological innovation usually requires a free and open society to flourish. That’s something that theocracies are not very good at. Perhaps if they were willing to join the rest of us in the 21st century (you know, where women are allowed to vote and drive, and people of other faiths aren’t killed in the name of an invisible deity) they might be able to make more progress and feel better about themselves.

  14. It’s hard to wrap my head around the implications of your question.

    ISS is the only destination you’ve got right now, and is the only destination the private sector won’t have to make for itself for the foreseeable future. If NASA doesn’t have plans for manned space after ISS, why take it as a given other ISS partners do? Why assume If they do, why assume Bigelow or some other American firm will be better positioned in 2020 than a foreign competitor? If government buyers go away, why would we even think it probable that soem LEO HSF market will emerge that can sustain both the habitat and launch ends of the business?

    I would like to see a moon base without NASA involvement. What kind of commercial project on the moons surface could be justified? What commercial ventures have a budget already close to what establishing a moon base would cost?

    I do to, but I can’t help but feel the government–whether through NASA or some less cumbersome arrangement–will have to do the frontier legwork before industry decides to go all in.

  16. Curious.

    Does anyone have any objections to the 2011 budget? I’m pretty sure everyone here agrees with the line items for aeronautics R&D and commercial space, but given say the same increase–$6 billion over five years–would anyone have mixed the pot differently?

  18. Wow. I think I lost IQ points reading some of the comments at the PJM site.

    A valiant effort, Rand.

  19. On the other hand, I saw this at American Digest:

    I await eagerly Iowahawk’s interpretation of “The Right Stuff” in the age of Obama.

    Posted by westsoundmodern at July 6, 2010 1:46 PM

    LOL.

  20. Charles A. Lurio,

    [[[I’m one of those who agrees with the space policy proposals and has been fighting a battle with ignorance and willful self-delusion about it (while believing that Obama’s other policies are a catastrophe).

    Now this incident comes along and I feel like my feet have been kicked out from under me. Really, it makes me ill. Maybe that kick was higher than I thought…]]]

    Wait until President Obama finds that private industry is actually up to the challenge of “commercial crew” and has to take measures to make sure the New Space approach fails…

  21. “Do not think more of yourself than is necessary”, says the scripture. So some self esteem is important, but thinking yourself superior is going too far. A problem for many muslim and perhaps our president, strike a pose with nose in the air, as well.

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