NASA's new mission: bring Muslim world on board?

NASA's new mission: bring Muslim world on board?

by SouthernFriedInfidel | Published on July 6th, 2010, 2:28 pm | Science

Charles Bolden, NASA's administrator, is on a mission. According to what he told Al Jazeera in a recent interview, his top priority is:

...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, math, and engineering.

Now I know that he probably chose those words based in the audience he was trying to reach. But really -- shouldn't NASA be primarily engaged in developing technology to support national missions in the atmosphere and space? I mean, instead of giving feel-good interviews for political consumption, for instance. Just wondering...

I rather think this has been blown out of proportion. NASA's primary objective is still to develop and use technology to explore space - but to do it using international collaboration rather than competition.

WH spokesman Nick Shapiro wrote: The President has always said that he wants NASA to engage with the world’s best scientists and engineers as we work together to push the boundaries of exploration. Meeting that mandate requires NASA to partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries. The space race began as a global competition, but, today, it is a global collaboration.

I still think space should be the common goal that unites mankind.

A Person wrote:I rather think this has been blown out of proportion.

Most likely. But it just sort of underscores the sad plight of the whole business of space travel. So far, space has been a method of humanity's R&D, and it has provided a place to put our information age infrastructure. Not really much beyond that, however.

One wonders whether space travel will ever really take off. If we could find a way to mine something materially from other planets, I bet we'd be moving out there might quickly. All we need is to find out that Ceres is made of oil.

:lol:

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:All we need is to find out that Ceres is made of oil

BP would crash it into the Gulf

Liv wrote:I still think space should be the common goal that unites mankind.

They wouldn't let you immigrate there either. :lol:

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote: If we could find a way to mine something materially from other planets, I bet we'd be moving out there might quickly. All we need is to find out that Ceres is made of oil.

Pandora!!

Sanjuro wrote:
SouthernFriedInfidel wrote: If we could find a way to mine something materially from other planets, I bet we'd be moving out there might quickly. All we need is to find out that Ceres is made of oil.

Pandora!!

We don't have the technology to handle unobtanium yet do we? (gawd, what a rotten name for a mystery metal...)

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:We don't have the technology to handle unobtanium yet do we? (gawd, what a rotten name for a mystery metal...)

Are you kidding me? Its a PERFECT name. It's what you always refer to something in the script that is merely there to drive a plot. I really liked the way he made it completely dismissive by actually naming it as such.

Wiki wrote:Unobtainium can refer to any substance needed to build some device critical to the plot of a science fiction story, but which does not exist in the universe as we know it

Also similar to what George Lucas likes to call a Macguffin

Wiki wrote:A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction".[1] The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least initially) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. (Examples might include money, victory/glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, etc....or something entirely unexplained.)

But MacGuffin doesnt sound as cool. lol

Or in this case, the MacGuffin is the Unobtanium.

He should have continued the meme...

My name is Thick Hunk, I work for Evil Corp, you must be Romantic Interest? Shall we go off for a walk and some plot exposition...

Sure, oh no here comes Jealous Boyfriend and Angry Father. Let's talk in loud whispers and hide behind some convenient shrubbery

A Person wrote:He should have continued the meme...

My name is Thick Hunk, I work for Evil Corp, you must be Romantic Interest? Shall we go off for a walk and some plot exposition...

Sure, oh no here comes Jealous Boyfriend and Angry Father. Let's talk in loud whispers and hide behind some convenient shrubbery

MONEY IN THE BANK, BABY!

Sanjuro wrote:
SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:We don't have the technology to handle unobtanium yet do we? (gawd, what a rotten name for a mystery metal...)

Are you kidding me? Its a PERFECT name. It's what you always refer to something in the script that is merely there to drive a plot. I really liked the way he made it completely dismissive by actually naming it as such.

Wiki wrote:Unobtainium can refer to any substance needed to build some device critical to the plot of a science fiction story, but which does not exist in the universe as we know it

I'm just saying it's lazy writing. At least Frank Herbert went a little further with his writing to talk about the spice on Dune (I know... "melange" was only a bit less lazy) but at least he made it sound a lot better than the crap they were after on Pandora.

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:
I'm just saying it's lazy writing. At least Frank Herbert went a little further with his writing to talk about the spice on Dune (I know... "melange" was only a bit less lazy) but at least he made it sound a lot better than the crap they were after on Pandora.

I dunno, I thought it wasn't lazy at all. In one word with a wink and a nudge you told the audience emphatically "don't get caught up in worrying about this, its not why you're here".

I suppose so. I'd have appreciated a more appropriate name that wasn't so jarring, myself. Struck me as patronizing.

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:I suppose so. I'd have appreciated a more appropriate name that wasn't so jarring, myself. Struck me as patronizing.

I will say.. it did serve to take one out of the film, to that end it fails pretty miserably.