I grew up in the glorious days of the 60s when President Kennedy set a goal for the U.S…..to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Although NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was established in 1958, its mission clearly stated in 2006 is to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research."

Enter President Obama. The present NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Huh?

Did I miss something in all the scientific achievements of the past fifty years by the men and women at NASA? The spectacular manned and unmanned missions into space is the heritage of NASA, leaving a record of superlative accomplishments achieved nowhere else in the world’s scientific community.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera, which aired June 20th, that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview.

Bolden has faced criticism this year for overseeing the cancellation of the agency's Constellation program, which was building new rockets and spaceships capable of returning astronauts to the moon.

Wonderful. Now we see the real purpose of NASA…to make Muslims feel good about themselves. Returning to the moon is off the table, as are many more ambitious programs. We are left with the last shuttle flight in February of next year and reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for shuttling supplies and those who man the International Space Station. No comment on the recent failure of Soyuz to dock at the ISS as planned after flying past the facility in a rare mishap this past weekend.

As Jackie Gleason would say to his wife in the “Honeymooners”… "... one of these days ... Pow! Right in the kisser! One of these days Alice, straight to the Moon!"

Ed Hahnenberg

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