Obama directs NASA to Improve Relations with the Muslim World

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

I just see a bunch of arrows. J/K

From wiki:
The olive branch and arrows denote the powers of peace and war. The eagle faces towards the right to show a preference to peace over war.

However peace/war, middle east bombs, etc. isn't the point. The point is this type of outreach and diplomacy isn't and should never be NASA's primary function. Nothing wrong with attempting to work with friendly nations when possible, but Bolden stated this was a primary focus given to him directly by the POTUS. Even the WH backed off Bolden's statement because they know it looks bad under scrutiny.

That being said, what would the outrage have been on CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC etc. if the NASA Administrator under Bush had come out and said as one of his primary directives was "(Bush) wanted me to find a way to reach out to the (Christian/Jewish) world and engage much more with dominantly (Christian/Jewish) nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering."

Actually Reagan asked for NASA outreach to the Russians during the Cold War. The idea of mixing space exploration and diplomacy is not as weird as you make it sound.

In terms of a specific outreach to Muslims, Muslims invented the concept of zero in operative mathematics (that is, not just a placeholder). The Maya did too, independently, but Western mathematics got the concept of zero from Muslim mathematicians. Muslims also developed algebra. Given that a motivation for terrorism arises from a felt loss of heritage (read the books of Georgetown Univ.'s John Esposito if you don't believe me), helping Muslims feel good about their historical contributions to mathematics actually is a terror-fighting tool. Plus it helps us to recruit bright minds from places like Egypt, Jordan, etc., to contribute to space advancements.