Michelle Malkin has a collection of new NASA logos.
[Update a while later]
More thoughts from Jay Nordlinger:
say that, back in the 2008 campaign, you had remarked, “If Obama becomes president, he will demand that NASA devote itself to making Muslims feel good about their contributions to science.” You would have been called the worst and wildest kind of right-winger.
…
This administration is simply beyond parody. Apologizing to Communist China for Arizona’s immigration laws; directing NASA to address itself to Muslim self-esteem . . . Unbelievable.
I wish it were.
[Update a few minutes later]
One giant leap backward:
According to contemporary liberalism, the government is the control room of society, where problems get solved, where institutions get their marching orders, where the oceans are commanded to stop rising. Each institution must subscribe to the progressive vision: All oars must pull as one. We are all in it together. We can do it all, if we all work together. Yes, we can.
In my book, Liberal Fascism, I called this phenomenon the “liberal Gleichschaltung.” Gleichschaltung is a German word (in case you couldn’t have guessed) borrowed from electrical engineering. It means “coordination.” The German National Socialists (Nazis) used the concept to get every institution to sing from the same hymnal. If a fraternity or business embraced Nazism, it could stay “independent.” If it rejected Nazism, it was crushed or bent to the state’s ideology. Meanwhile, every branch of government was charged with not merely doing its job but advancing the official state ideology.
Now, contemporary liberalism is not an evil ideology. Its intentions aren’t evil or even fruitfully comparable to Hitlerism. But there is a liberal Gleichschaltung all the same. Every institution must be on the same page. Every agency must advance the liberal agenda.
And unfortunately, it’s true in both Republican and Democrat administrations. The federal bureaucracy is eternal, and intrinsically incented to promote itself, growing like a cancer on the body civitas. It’s one of the reasons that NASA’s problems are so intractable. In the sixties, it had an essential mission, with an essentially unlimited budget, and it was a young agency that hadn’t had time to accrue the barnacles. It’s not really fixable four decades later. We need a fresh start.
[Update a while later]
More thoughts on the flawed thought processes of “liberals” (which occurred to me yesterday as well):
Of course, it’s entirely possible (pace Bernard Lewis) that the Muslim world does not lack for self-esteem on the matter of science or anything else. Certainly scientific know-how has not been lacking in nuclear-armed Pakistan, or (would-be) nuclear Iran. Besides, hasn’t Mr. Obama heard? The whole self-esteem myth has been exploded. Though millions of tax dollars and God only knows how many wasted instructional hours have gone toward making American kids think they are really, really special, it turns out that there is zero correlation between such drilled self-esteem and academic performance.
I never noticed that bullies had low self esteem. It seemed pretty clear to me that their self esteem was far too high.
To treat the Muslim world as a vast ocean of African Americans in need of respect and encouragement from us is both arrogant and incredibly solipsistic. In fact, large swaths of the Muslim world feel inexpressibly superior to us — particularly morally and spiritually. Until cold terror forced them to accept American servicemen on their soil, the Saudis kept “infidel” pollution to the barest minimum in the home of the prophet. That wasn’t an expression of inferiority. Osama bin Laden boasted in 2000 that he had defeated the Soviet Empire and that it would be a small matter to defeat the American one. Again, he may have been deluded, but he was not a candidate for assertiveness training. Nearly every Muslim child is instructed that his is the true faith, superior in every way to the errors that came before — Judaism and Christianity — and infinitely above paganism or atheism. Jihadis are taught that their shining pure religion requires no less than the mass murder of infidels and unbelievers.
It might just be that Muslim self-confidence is more dangerous to us than imagined Muslim feelings of inadequacy.
Yup. Even if NASA were capable of making Muslims feel better about themselves, it might be worse than useless to do so — it could be quite counterproductive, particularly if it causes them to hold us all the more in contempt. As I said in comments at PJM yesterday:
If even one young hot-head thinks America isn’t so bad after hearing this interview, and then chooses not to enlist in al-Qaeda, then American lives will have been saved.
Not if for each one hot-head who thinks that, ten think that we’re displaying weakness and cultural flaccidity. Recall what bin Laden said about the weak horse and the strong horse. The administration may think that it’s pursuing smart diplomacy, but all it’s really doing is sowing contempt for us among many in that culture. They don’t lack self esteem. They lack esteem for non-Muslims. And with this kind of nonsense, we give them good reason to.
This is of a piece with other myths about terrorism — that it is caused by poverty, or hopelessness. But many are poor in many countries, and don’t murder others in the name of their god. And what drives the terrorism of the “Palestinians” isn’t hopelessness, but hopefullness — the hope that with terror, they can force the Israelis to a settlement (and eventually out of the Middle East altogether).
This is what happens when you let academics run foreign policy.
[Update a while later]
Greg Gutfeld weighs in:
According to a piece by Byron York, Obama ordered NASA administrator Charles Bolden to focus on three goals – inspire brats to study science and math, expand international relations (which only works when hookers are involved), and help Muslims “feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering”. These goals, as Hot Air notes – have nothing to do with space.
But they are spacey.
And so our President has put feelings before frontiers. Which is a mistake, because you can’t inspire anyone – kids or Muslims – without actually doing something. And if space exploration is no longer about space exploration, what exactly is it?
Crap.
But you know what it should be about?
Blowing up crap. Fact is, we love movies like Star Wars, Star Trek and Star Jones – not for their emotion, but for their annihilation. In short: we need to weaponize space. Personally, I can’t think of a better way to excite a kid than giving him the chance to obliterate Pandora.
I hate those people.
And if you disagree with him, you’re a homophobic giant smurf.
[Afternoon update]
You know what isn’t a Muslim problem? A lack of space technology. Or self esteem.
This is stupid on multiple levels.
Some of those are very funny (in a grim sort of way). The take off on Alien is my favorite, followed by Call To Prayer…
“contemporary liberalism is not an evil ideology”
The HELL it isn’t.
No, what’s beyond parody is the depths of stupidity that Obama’s critics have gone to. A NASA administrator goes overseas to talk up international operations in space, a policy we’ve been pursuiting for decades, and says a few nice platitudes about Muslims in a Muslim country.
Somehow this act, which isn’t even big enough to be a tempest in a teacup, is now “OMG Obamaz EVIL !!11!!”
You wonder, Rand, why people you politically agree with “don’t get” that Obama’s space policy is a good thing. They don’t get it because they are reflexively anti-Obama. Obama could cure cancer and the National Review would start complaining about overpopulation.
Chris G, it isn’t just “a” policy. Bolden claimed it is among the main goals of NASA, if not THE goal. If you are in favor of the practical aspects of Obama’s space policy, you should be ticked off as such stupidity. It gives the general public the idea that Obama isn’t really serious about something (space exploration) he should be. It gives the opponents of the policy rhetorical ammunition to ridicule the policy.
Chris G should join NASA. Why? Because he always rushes in with the Obamunist party-line with rocket-like speed!
Press secretary — then he’d get paid for what he already does.
No, what’s beyond parody is the depths of
stupiditywillful ignorance that Obama’scriticswater carriers have gone to.There, fixed that for ya
This wasn’t a talking point that just sprang out of nowhere during a trip to a Muslim world. This is a statement that was in fact made some time ago right after the Constellation project was cut. The reason that this has all of a sudden become an issue is because of the high priority that Bolden placed on a what was originally interpreted as a touchy feely good politically correct platitude. Now it has seemingly become part of NASA’s mission statement. I mean of the three things Bolden said were NASA’s primary objectives none had anything to do with actually flying into space. I agree with Gene Cernan in that if Bolden really truly believes that these are the 3 primary purposes of NASA as an organization than he is not fit to be the administrator and should resign.
Josh Reiter – seemingly is the operant word. In the eyes of Obama’s critics, it seems like this statement is significant. It seems significant because it allows much wordage to be written about how Obama caters to The Evil Muslim Menace ™.
“Obama could cure cancer and the National Review would start complaining about overpopulation. . . ”
News of the Future. “This just in: President-for-Life Barack Obama has just been awarded his sixth Nobel Prize, this time for developing a cure for cancer. Our Dear Leader dismissed his reactionary critics, who have charged that the cure involves injecting cancer sufferers with the AIDS virus.
‘They’re just being negative,’ the Kenyan-born leader of the Once-Free World said, as he reached for his nine iron.
No, “perhaps” is the operant word, as in “perhaps foremost.” It could be foremost, it could be totally irrelevant. Perhaps you should lecture Bolden instead.
Chris, that was my choice of words, not Charles Bolden’s. Bolden himself was far more assertive in his statements made to Al Jazeera. How many times are your going to make excuses for this administration? All the things Obama has said or done in the past that you ridiculed us for, SEEM, to be coming true. I’d be willing to wager that our track record for intuitiveness to Obama’s intentions has to date been far more reliable than your own.
It seemed pretty clear to me that their self esteem was far too high.
That’s exactly right. But you have to understand that in the liberal world-view, an excess of self-esteem is really a sign of a fragile ego, just as serial heterogenous fornication (“Don Juanism”) is a sign of deep insecurity about sexual identity.
Josh, keeping score won’t do you any good…you and Chris are not even on the same playing field. Don’t forget that most liberals want to be judged on intent rather than being held accountable for results.
That’s pretty disingenuous even for an Obama sycophant. I guess it’s just my lying ears that tell me Bolden says his “perhaps foremost” directive from President “Fore!” was to reach out to Muslim nations and make them feel good about what they achieved eight or nine centuries ago.
What is so funny is that many of the critics seem to have forgotten that President Reagan actually invited a Saudi Prince to fly on the space shuttle in 1985 (STS-51-G ) as part of his outreach to the Middle East.
Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman was a payload specialist on the Discovery. He was the first Muslim, first Arab and first member of a royal family to fly into space. If I recall he was also instrumental in creating the Association of Space Explorers whose membership requires one to have flown into space.
Now that was real outreach. Pity with the Shuttle gone and commercial crew years away NASA no longer has that tool for outreach to other cultures and nations.
I guess it all depends on what your definition of “foremost” is.
I like the picture of the call to prayer before the Shuttle … reminds of that scene in “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” …
Shorter Chris G.: “You’re wrong about whatever [Obama, one of the Obamanites] said! All he wants is to bake the world a cake full of rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy!”
Chris G. has a lot of feelings.
Thomas, outreach isn’t the problem. Bolden made it sound like this was a major (again, if not THE major) goal of NASA. I have no problem with the outreach being a by-product of what NASA is doing. As I have said before, welcoming our Muslim friends into the 21st Century is a good idea (though they don’t really seem interested in such things). Making that a major focus above other things (like say, space exploration) seems to be a great way to undermine the more practical aspects of the policy. Even as we speak (type), the new policy opponents are seizing on this silliness to sink the whole thing.
Far more impressive than some useless self-esteem outreach would be some real accomplishments in space. One of the benefits of the Moon landings is that they impressed the hell out a lot of people outside the U.S.
I’d rethink this outreach stuff. Is the Muslim world gets rocket ships, they’ll probably strap Gays, “blasphemers,” and accused adulteresses to the outside and shoot them off into space.
So, in Gerrib’s world, Bolden was lying directly to the Muslim community in an effort to be politically correct.
All of us should realize the great strategy Obama and his administration has in trying to manipulate sentiment for the US in muslim communities by sending emissaries to their countries to lie directly to them.
ChrisG, I have heard Charlie Bolden speak twice, once to the American Astronomical Society, and both times he pushed education hard. Indeed, I came away from the AAS talk with the idea that the Obama administration thinks the best use of a roomful of PhD astrophysicists is for them all to go and devote their decades of technical and scientific expertise to early education outreach. This is not a passing statement on Bolden’s part; he clearly has been directed to emphasize education and outreach over some of NASA’s more traditional areas of expertise.
Chris L.
The basic purpose of NASA, from its creation in response to Sputnik, to Apollo, to the Shuttle and then ISS has always been driven by geopolitics. The science and engineering in NASA’s charter are only rationalizations to avoid mentioning its geopolitical mission in polite company, just as folks who buy Mercedes rationalize to friends its because they are “safer”.
So Gen Bolden’s major crime here may be just saying the honest truth about why NASA exists, geoplitics instead of the politically correct ones of science and technology.
Astra,
What would you expect given his original space policy positions were crafted by his expert on education? First impressions and policy statements are usually the honest ones.
What is so funny is that many of the critics seem to have forgotten that President Reagan actually invited a Saudi Prince to fly on the space shuttle in 1985 (STS-51-G ) as part of his outreach to the Middle East.
Before the laws were changed to prohibit launching commercial satellites on the Shuttle following the Challenger accident, companies that hired the Shuttle to launch their satellite often sent along a mission specialist. That mission launched three commsats and one of them was ARABSAT-1A.
In 1985 he flew as a Payload Specialist on STS-51G Discovery (June 17-24, 1985). As one of a seven member international crew, which also included American and French astronauts, he represented the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (ARABSAT) in deploying their satellite, ARABSAT-1B.
Astra,
I share your impression of what Obama expects NASA scientists and engineers to do. From each according to their ability and all that…
I’ll keep my thoughts on Bolden, but I will say that his speech at JSC, or rather his Q&A session, woke me up.
Larry J,
Yes, the first private commercial astronauts, one of many, many commercial firsts for the Shuttle. It also bought comsats back to Earth when they failed to reach their orbit. But that was back in the old days when promoting commercialization of space was considered by NASA to be providing launch services for commercial payloads. And space advocates saw the Shuttle as the future of space commerce, not a barrier to it.
Tom, and one of the best things that ever happened to the space industry was when the Commercial Space Act got pushed through and NASA was prohibited from violating the law. The price of launch went way down and launch manifests filled way up. And now we’re seeing the second great commercialization, with entrepreneurial operators lowering costs even more and taking over the launch of humans.
My proposal: turn self-replicating robots loose on the moon and sell robot hunting licenses.
Each of those NASA commercial launches ended up being heavily subsidized by American taxpayers. So were those recovery operations – the cost of the flight was greater than the value of the satellites.
It’s never a good thing when a government entity competes with the private sector, especially when they were doing everything they could to establish a government monopoly on US launch services.
> LoboSolo Says: July 7th, 2010 at 11:20 am
> I like the picture of the call to prayer before the Shuttle …
Hey when the Saudi Prince Thomas Matula mentioned flew on the shuttle they had a call to prayer FROM the shuttle. Course then we had to write some software to calculate which direction Mecca was second by second in orbit…..
😉
> Larry J Says: July 7th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
>
> Before the laws were changed to prohibit launching commercial
> satellites on the Shuttle following the Challenger accident,
> companies that hired the Shuttle to launch their satellite often
> sent along a mission specialist..
Yeah Hughes had a guy named Jarvis on the Challenger when it crashed.
Trent Waddington Says:
[[[Tom, and one of the best things that ever happened to the space industry was when the Commercial Space Act got pushed through and NASA was prohibited from violating the law.]]]
I think you are referring to the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990. The Commercial Space Acts were something else entirely, focusing on the regulation of private launch vehicles, and New Space, back when it was Alt.Space basically opposed the first one in 1984…
Of course by the time the Act was passed NASA had already decided to stop carrying commercial satellites on the Shuttle because of Challenger….
larry j Says:
[[[Each of those NASA commercial launches ended up being heavily subsidized by American taxpayers. So were those recovery operations – the cost of the flight was greater than the value of the satellites.]]]
Yep, and when the subsidies stopped the commercial payloads went to cheaper foreign launch systems in Russia and China (until a slip by Loral giving the Chinese MIRV technology triggered the current harsh version of ITAR and eliminated China).
I often wonder if without the switch NASA would have been able to make the case for the VentureStar as the Shuttle replacement and commercial satellite firms today would have a low cost SSTO RLV for launch instead of still depending on ELVs, mostly foreign.
I often wonder if without the switch NASA would have been able to make the case for the VentureStar as the Shuttle replacement and commercial satellite firms today would have a low cost SSTO RLV for launch instead of still depending on ELVs, mostly foreign.
I never wonder that. VentureStar was always doomed to failure, as a flawed technical concept.
> Thomas Matula Says: July 8th, 2010 at 11:00 am
>
> == I often wonder if without the switch NASA would have
> been able to make the case for the VentureStar as the
> Shuttle replacement and commercial satellite firms today
> would have a low cost SSTO RLV for launch instead of
> still depending on ELVs, mostly foreign.
Humm…
interesting thought. NASA went with Venture Star because they wanted to study the most exotic tech, and NOT field a shuttle replacement, because they didn’t see any potential growth path for them if they fielded a lower cost RLV solution. Relpace shuttle with a craft costing 1/10th as much per flight, and the programs political support adn their budget goes away. V* certainly could have leed to a low cost RLV (though a SSTO RLV was more questionable), but if NASA saw a real future in being a large scale national launch services company (like they did in the late ‘70’s early ‘80’s) they might have chosen to replace teh shuttle more quickly, and the DC-X or Rockwell X-33 proposals, which were far less challenging, and more likely to quickly field a low cost RLV shuttle replacement. Havnig a real practical mission they had to deliver no, would change their focus dramatically as a agency.
Lot of ifs though. A lot of political vision changes ni congress.
Who knows.
Kelly,
I was at New Mexico State University when they were testing the DC-X. I remember hearing the engine tests in the morning from my house in Organ, NM by the test range. Everyone felt it should be the Shuttle replacement. It was even the spark for starting the spaceport effort in New Mexico. The original spaceport studies were all based on the DC-1 being flown from the spaceport.
Instead NASA, no longer having commercial missions to fly, picked the most interesting proposal from the perceptive of technology, the Lockheed version that the USAF had rejected in the 1980’s….
BTW that is exactly what Dr. Spudis is warning folks about regarding the new policy, namely that lacking a clear goal NASA will just drift, studying technology endlessly without producing anything useful.
Fuel depots are a good example. I expect there will be dozens of studies on different types of depots, but lacking clear direction or mission, nothing will get completed to the point of actually flying. And, as with SSTO RLV, everyone will then decide its just impossible to do fuel depots with the current technology. Even their advocates will give up on them.
But I find folks need to burn their fingers a few times before they learn that when you are warning them the stove is it, it is hot.
>Thomas Matula Says: July 8th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
> I was at New Mexico State University when they were
> testing the DC-X. I remember hearing the engine tests in
> the morning from my house in Organ, NM by the test range.
> Everyone felt it should be the Shuttle replacement. ==
Oh very cool!
🙂
Yeah I had a buddy in the program. McDonnell Douglas really thought the DC-X (or its DC-3 production version) would be the DC-3 of space, revolutionizing space access and travel like the Douglas DC-3 did for air travel. They were only a couple billion away from tested, FAA certified, production craft they could guarantee at LEAST a 10 fold reduction in direst costs. With on orbit refueling and some mods, it could land on the moon and return to land on Earth. The design was so far along it had parts lists with the catalog numbers included.
…and then they couldn’t find any interested customers.
…and then years later when NASA was looking to replace the shuttle, they denied RLVs were even possible, and planed to spent a hundred billion to develop Apollo on steroids.
I think industry gave up on marketing RLVs then.
I was in NASA, and they were fearful of someone fielding something with that kind of capability, and what it could do to NASA
8(
>= BTW that is exactly what Dr. Spudis is warning folks
> about regarding the new policy, namely that lacking a clear
> goal NASA will just drift, studying technology endlessly
> without producing anything useful.
Exactly. You can’t argue that NASA wouldn’t do that, given they usually HAVE done that. The fact with one breath they are talking about “studying” fuel depots, and in the next that no serious exploration can be done without a HLV; but each largely negates any use for the other?
Yeah, no one learns.
Still, at least in industry the RLV’s are taken much more as a given. So its on the shelf waiting for our wits to go stronger.
😉
Kelly,
[[[Still, at least in industry the RLV’s are taken much more as a given. So its on the shelf waiting for our wits to go stronger.]]]
No, its waiting for government funding. Hopefully from the USAF/DARPA to meet national security needs.
It may be the problem with the DC-X is they went for a scaled model and proved the concept which then made it a legitimate threat. Imagine if they went straight to a full scale model. It would have been a lot harder to kill once it had demonstrated it could make it all the way to orbit. That was never a possibility, but you can dream.
> Thomas Matula Says: July 9th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
>> Kelly,
>> Still, at least in industry the RLV’s are taken much more
>> as a given. So its on the shelf waiting for our wits to
>> go stronger.]]]
> No, its waiting for government funding. Hopefully from
> the USAF/DARPA to meet national security needs.
Well its waiting for anyone who’ll buy them – but yes it looks like the Mil is still holding to their statment when EELV was going ahead that it would be their last expendable booster.
> ken anthony Says: July 11th, 2010 at 10:08 am
>
> == Imagine if they went straight to a full scale model.
> It would have been a lot harder to kill once it had
> demonstrated it could make it all the way to orbit. ==
L/M pushed that for the X-33 program – and NASA threw money at them to stop.
They didn’t have much trouble killing it.
;/