Partisan Food Fight Erupts Over NASA, Commercial Space

RocketAcademy writes "Until recently, space policy has been a non-partisan issue. Even when politicians disagreed on space-policy issues, that disagreement rarely aligned with party lines. That has changed in the last few years. Now, one organization is throwing fuel on the political fire. The Space Frontier Foundation has called Republicans the Party of Big Government Space. SFF is upset about the GOP platform, which lacks specifics about space policy. According to the SFF, the GOP 'has nothing but hackneyed praise for NASA, and doesn't even mention the increasing role of the private sector.' The Obama campaign quickly echoed the statement. But NASA Watch points out that the Democratic platform is even less specific than the GOP's. Others express concerns that partisanship harms space policy."

Comments

Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[Taco Cowboy]

It is nothing wrong to criticize anyone, including criticizing the GOP, but I do find it very strange that this so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" criticizes the GOP for "hackneyed praise for NASA" while in the meantime, where were they - and I mean, that "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a "Muslim Training Camp to outer-space " ?

If you do not know what I mean ... Obama instructed NASA's administrator Charles Bolden to turn NASA into a sort of "training camp for Muslims" via a Muslim Outreach Program in order "to ind 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."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/07/nasas_muslim_outreach_106214.html

How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?
 

Because he DIDN'T ???

[Taco Cowboy]

How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?

Because he didn't.

Partisanship can only go so far, buddy, and when you cross the line you are telling a BIG FLAT LIE !
 
How do you explain this ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVM1ASIxwWI

Or are you saying that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is a liar ?
 
Obama has instructed Charles Bolden 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 "
 
As report by The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html
San Francisco Examiner http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/nasa039s-muslim-outreach-al-jazeera-told-first
  and the White House itself never denied the existence of that "MUSLIM OUTREACH PROGRAM" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/07/white-house-nasa-defend-comments-about-nasa-outreach-to-muslim-world-criticized-by-conservatives/
 
Sir, if you want to comment, comment away, but please, stop lying !
 

Re:Because he DIDN'T ???

[Teancum]

I have no doubt that after Charles Bolden was appointed by Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, that Bolden had a serious sit down meeting in the Oval Office discussing outreach efforts on the part of NASA.

Other than the hype, I think it was a pretty good idea. There have been Muslims who have flown on the Space Shuttle (including a Saudi prince), and if there could be a way to have the children of the Middle East and other Muslim countries to have a role model which exemplifies the exploration of space and that living in the 21st Century has some benefits worth trying to examine, I think it is a pretty good thing.

I would also agree with you in terms of looking through what NASA has done over the past couple of years under the leadership of Bolden to see what exactly has accomplished that shows any sort of "selling out" or even making such outreach to Muslim countries something that impacts the other programs of the agency.

For myself, I very much like Obama's space policy and those who hate it usually are partisan hacks who can't find anything good to say about somebody they perceive as "the enemy". The real truth is that space policy over the past 40 years (since the Nixon administration) has been nearly a disaster and so screwed up (under both Democrat and Republican administrations... it was an equal opportunity screw up) that almost any change could have been better.

Obama in this case seemed to want to do something that was "not Bush". Literally NASA's policies were so screwed up under Bush that doing the exact opposite was an improvement. Bush inherited an awful program too, but then again so did Clinton.