http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/obamas-new-mission-for-nasa-reach-out-to-muslim-world-97785979.html

Can't Nasa explore space without this issue of it becoming politicized with the Islam issue like everything else? Seriously...wtf? Nasa doesn't exist to be a bridge with Islam you fucking dopes. If anything Nasa is one of the few bastions of science removed from the usual taint of religious overtures that seems to creep into EVERYTHING these days. Even Stephen Hawking can't escape it now. A Brit whose body is just a husk surrounding a brilliant mind but even he gets hen pecked by these religious kooks. So frustrating.

A Private, Commercial space presence can't happen soon enough. Its also seems that we can't dump our political meatheads, including the President, who can't seem to avoid being played by all this and to add further insult, use it as a diversionary tactic to mask their incompetence....soon enough.

Molehill --> mountain.

Obama was in Egypt and Bolden was in the Middle East too, so they both pandered to the locals. Same thing happens in other ways when they're in China, Japan, Europe, etc. The people seizing on that and making it into a political issue are the ones actually guilty of politicizing the issue, if anyone is.

Translation : we are broke, please send money.

LOL, I dunno aobut that. The money is there, but its allocated for more "pressing expenditures". If the NASA budget represented 1% of the federal budget per fiscal year than that would represent NASA's budget being almost doubled.


In 2008 dollars, the cumulative cost of the Manhattan project over 5 fiscal years was
approximately $22 billion; of the Apollo program over 14 fiscal years, approximately $98 billion;


Source: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34645.pdf

Bargains compared to the amount spent to bail out banks and what have you. Considering how little government money is spent on NASA, one would think that it would be viable to just let the science do the talking. Perhaps the sciences can build bridges. Math is universal.

Look, I am aware this is a mountain out of a mole hill, but if you want to appeal for aid from scientists than the religious dogma needs to be checked at the door.

'than the religious dogma needs to be checked at the door.'

- Only once we realise that can any real progress be made.