I was absolutely thrilled by the advent of manned space exploration. It was an exciting time. I followed the program in minute detail. I still know the names of every Mercury astronaut and most of the Gemini astronauts as well. I can name virtually every crew of every flight right through Skylab and the first several shuttle missions. I built a Gemini capsule simulator in my parents’ basement complete with proper instrument panels and toggle switches. Alan Shepard sent me a letter. Along with the country I wept for the Apollo 1 astronauts and was shocked at the losses of the two orbiters, especially as they were lost for stupid monetary concerns.
There is a brief history of NASA here.
Dogs have always been an integral part of my life and as much painful as it is, one knows when the time has come to end suffering. As much as I have loved NASA for almost all my life, I feel it is time to end its suffering. NASA is suffering and it is heartbreaking to watch. Barack Obama promised to save NASA, but as we all know too well, Obama promises are pure horse manure:
“So let me be clear: we cannot cede our leadership in space. That’s why I’m going to close the gap, ensure that our space program doesn’t suffer when the shuttle goes out of service. We may extend an additional shuttle launch. We’re going to work with Bill Nelson to add at least one flight after 2010 by continuing to support NASA funding, by speeding the development of the shuttle’s successor, by making sure that all those who work in the space industry in Florida do not lose their jobs when the shuttle is retired because we cant afford to lose their expertise. But more broadly, we need a real vision for the next stage of space exploration….”
Barack Obama weaponizes some government agencies for political persecution and politicizes other government agencies, perverting their mission purpose, and he has done just that to NASA. NASA has been reduced to political arm of the Democrat National Committee, its mission now is seek out liberal life and liberal worlds, going where political correctness has gone before.
The end started to become clear when Obama decided that NASA’s mission would become a “Muslim outreach” organization, to help make Muslims countries “feel good” about their contributions to our space program:
It’s not really surprising that President Obama told NASA administrator Charles Bolden that his highest priority should be “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.” It fits with so much that we already knew about the president.
It is consistent with his wildly exaggerated concept of governmental and presidential power and competence. Samuel Johnson wrote: “How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part which laws or kings can cause or cure.” Obama believes the opposite — that his presidency can be a transformative moment not just for the nation, but for the world. He will halt global warming and stop the rise of the oceans, transition America to a green energy future, prevent the “cycle of boom and bust” in the economy, provide universal health care while spending less than before, cushion “underwater” mortgage holders without rewarding profligate borrowers, increase taxes on the “rich” without harming the middle class, solve the problem of excessive public debt by amassing more public debt and so on.
So how was that to work? We’ll boost their self-esteem:
How in the world would NASA help Muslim nations to “feel good” about themselves? Would NASA hold science fairs in Tripoli or Tehran? Produce and circulate propaganda films about Great Muslim Men (careful, never women) of Science? Stress our global debt to Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the father of algebra? (That’s risky, since al-Khwarizmi reportedly learned his math from the Indians.) How would Obama’s NASA chief undertake to alter the civilizational self-esteem of a billion people?
Of course, it’s entirely possible (pace Bernard Lewis) that the Muslim world does not lack for self-esteem on the matter of science or anything else. Certainly, scientific know-how has not been lacking in nuclear-armed Pakistan or (would be) nuclear Iran. Besides, hasn’t Obama heard? The whole self-esteem myth has been exploded. Though millions of tax dollars and God only knows how many wasted instructional hours have gone toward making American kids think they are really, really special, it turns out that there is zero correlation between such drilled self-esteem and academic performance. (See Scientific American, January 2005)
Now Obama turns NASA into a left wing activist organization, focusing on the coming “collapse of Western civilization”:
Few think Western civilization is on the brink of collapse—but it’s also doubtful the Romans and Mesopotamians saw their own demise coming either.
If we’re to avoid their fate, we’ll need policies to reduce economic inequality and preserve natural resources, according to a NASA-funded study that looked at the collapses of previous societies.
“Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed,” reads the study. “The stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity and the economic stratification of society into Elites and Masses.”
In unequal societies, researchers said, “collapse is difficult to avoid…. Elites grow and consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society.”
As limited resources plague the working class, the wealthy, insulated from the problem, “continue consuming unequally” and exacerbate the issue, the study said.
Meanwhile, resources continue to be used up, even by the technologies designed to preserve them. For instance, “an increase in vehicle fuel efficiency technology tends to enable increased per capita vehicle miles driven, heavier cars, and higher average speeds, which then negate the gains from the increased fuel-efficiency,” the study said.
The researchers used what they termed a Human And Nature DYnamical (HANDY) formula to reach their conclusions. The formula uses factors such as birth rates, resources, and income classes to create a mathematical equation to project outcomes.
Unequal outcomes. Economic inequality. NASA.
And just today in an email:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Humanity must act now if it hopes to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, NASA chief Charles Bolden says.
Climate change is not some far-off, nebulous issue that future generations will have to confront, Bolden told reporters Thursday (May 8) during a discussion of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment report here at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Rather, it’s happening right now, and people all over the world are already feeling the effects.
“The world is different from the way it used to be,” Bolden said. “Climate change is a problem we must deal with right now.”
It’s enough to make you vomit.
It breaks my heart to watch this and I know that it’s time to put an old friend down before Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Al Sharpton decide NASA’s next mission will be to teach Common Core math to illegal aliens.
Images courtesy of our friends at The People’s Cube
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Whoa!
The type is too small!
But, shades of totally discredited Jared Diamond and his theory of ”Collapse.”
No,
This is a myth perpetrated by Jared Diamond based mostly on his ideas about Easter island and totally refuted by actual archeologists!
Plural archeologists!
Separate studies.
So, other than Obama’s policy being built on the quicksand of a refuted theory, what’s good about it?
Not a thing.
When NASA’s primary missions are making Muslims feel good about themselves, promoting communism, and disseminating environmental pseudoscience propaganda, it’s clear that the agency no longer serves a useful function.
It’s unsurprising that America’s last great accomplishment as a nation were the Apollo missions of the lat 60s and early 70s. That’s about the time that the selfish Boomer-era Free-Love Flower-Children decided that Big Government was their sole purpose for living. It’s been a steady downhill ride for the nation ever since their greasy mitts grabbed hold of the reigns of governance. There’s no reason to expect that NASA would escape their dysfunction, when pretty much nothing else has.
DrJ.
The world is apparently being led by an individual who seems to know little about it — my 5 year old granddaughter seems more educated about the world she lives in. This President is also ignorant of human nature. In fact, there is little evidence that he understand very much of anything, other than adoration of the image in the mirror. From his obscenely lavish spending of taxpayer cash to vacation or fund raise all over the globe (when the Nation is hemorrhaging) , to his incessant lies, there no evidence that he gives a shit about anything but himself.
His perpetual fund-raising is for his billion dollar post-presidency cash cushion from which he probably wants to campaign for a “Global President” position at the UN. No one with any degree of self-confidence would allow himself to be so manhandled and puppeteered the way he has been. The disdain his real handlers probably have for him, won’t serve him well when he leaves the W.H.
The cluelessness of this statement you quote from him, about says it all:
There’s so much wrong and demeaning in this, it’s pathetic.
I say we keep NASA. Waste of Space will be gone in a few years. After that we can turn NASA back into the organization it once was (assuming we don’t get another left wing egomaniac in there) and pursue space exploration. There are a lot of benefits that can be gleaned from the technology and the knowledge of whatever else is out there. Setting a goal of putting a man (or woman) on Mars would be a good thing for the country. Hopefully it can resurrect the “can do” attitude of previous generations as opposed to the current whining and “give me, give me” mentality that seems to be growing in scope these days compliments in part of the current leadership promoting it.
The problem is not NASA per se, but Obama’s (and the Democrat’s) far-left political polarization of ALL the Federal Agencies. We need a Conservative Republican President and controlled Congress to purge the Federal government agencies of progressive ideologues and far-left loons.
The first A in NASA is for Aeronautics. This is the flight-testing, wind-tunnels, test facilities, etc., that grew out of the successful NACA agency. And, as there is also still good work being done in (remote) space exploration, let’s not get too down on the agency just because his nibs has Islamated it.
One interesting side-light, however, to O’s action. Talent and money is flowing into private space operations, and these are becoming increasingly competent and successful.
How can NASA make Muslims feel good about their science when Islamic countries are still sentencing people to death for both witchcraft and sorcery?
The only Arab-speaking scientists doing anything scientifically productive are living and working in Israel!
“The collapse of Western Civilization” ??? isn’t that what all the doomsayers here are always wailing about?
NASA was once a shining example of American ingenuity and scientific achievement. Now we have to pay Russia to launch our astronauts into space because instead of having manned space flight capability because leftists have turned it into a political propaganda machine for the AGW cult and cheerleading for non-existent muslim accomplishments in science.
@john:
So what you’re saying is: That you and your fellow progressive, socialist-fascist, Democrat Hopey-changey fanatics only heard the doomsayers, and decided to make that a dream come true? Clearly the character of Arthur in Batman was correct and referring to Democrats when he said: “Some people just like to see the world burn.”
It’s a shame you weren’t listening to those Republicans who in the 1950 & ’60’s wanted to advance the American dream for all US citizens including blacks.
DrJohn
A person can remember the name of the first American into space by what a comedian said, and that was something like, “NASA must think there are sheep in space. Why else would they send a Shepard into space?”
obama tried to turned NASA to a muslim outreach service, and China is now saying they are going to build their own space station, and they are going to put men on the moon. When they do, you can be assured they will claim it as their own, since the USA never did. You can also be assured that they won’t want others going into space if they can stop them. If their space station is for peaceful purposes, wouldn’t they just join the one that is already up there, and add on to it?
As with ALL government agencies, departments, etc., we need to take the politics out of them. There has to be a law that specifically states what they are supposed to do, and NOBODY can make them do any differently without congress approving it. The law would specify specific punishment for breaking the law, even for politicians why try to use them for their own gain.
What is really frustrating to me is that the USA is helping China do all of this with all of the products we buy from them, and THE FOREIGN AID WE GIVE THEM.
@Smorgasbord:
Both Russia and China have plans to put colonies the moon.
Actually, No. The goal for the United Space to get to the moon first in 1969 was to ensure that it was claimed by the United States for all mankind and not one nation, in accordance with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, of which The US, China and Russia are also signatories and the three along with 99 other nations have ratified it (26 other nations also signed the treaty but have not ratified it). Russia, China and a total of 102 nations eagerly signed on to the treaty prior so as make sure that the US (which clearly by then was going to get to the moon first.) would agree to the UN treaty. When the US landed on the moon that gave America first claim rights, yet the US followed the Treaty as promised.
A related issue are those speculators who are selling deeds to real estate on the moon. Due to the above treaty, such deeds have no legal standing as these hucksters can not sell what they do not own.
Ditto
Good info. Would this be similar to or modeled on the Antarctic treaties?
@Ditto: #12
Thanks for the update. I either didn’t know about the treaty, or had forgotten about it. Will either country obey the treaty if they establish colonies (bases) on the Moon? For example, how many treaties has Russia kept that they signed with America, compared to how many they broke?
When you mentioned the selling of Moon real estate, it reminded me of the guy who sold people one square inch of Alaska land for $1, and made millions from it. I would like to see someone offer that for ALL the states so I could say that I own land in all 50 states. I would have to see how much the taxes would be, and how to pay them, and find out how complicated that would make my filing for taxes, before I would buy them.
@MAKAYA:
As I recall, there was some “overlapping” of a world claim premise between both treaties/ I couldn’t say of the top of my head which was in work first. There was also a specific “Moon Treaty” that was approved by the UN members but not ratified. I suspect because it was mostly just redundant, saying the same thing as the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, except using different wording and only pertaining to the moon. There was no need for a redundant treaty when most of the member nations had already ratified a greater one. Of course such a treaty does not mean that nations can not set up their own outpost bases or that manufacturing or resource collection facilities could not be set up. It merely means that nations can not set up Lunar “provinces” or “states” nor stake claim to large expanses or deposits of “natural” lunar resources. Said resources must be shared.
@Smorgasbord:
More lucrative perhaps would be selling icebergs as real estate. Hurry and buy your plot before it disappears.
Ditto
At the Seattle world’s fair, you could buy one square foot of Alaska for one dollar. Everyone knew it was a gag.
Heck, it may have been one square inch. In fact, you are probably right.