[Guest post by DRJ]
It appears Congress doesn’t share President Obama’s vision for NASA:
“The commerce committee will begin considering the legislation, seen below, Thursday. It represents a significant departure from President Obama’s remake of NASA proposed in February.”
The Houston Chronicle blog attributes much of the legislation to input from Florida Senator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut “who many on the Hill look to for guidance on space issues.” The text of the Senate bill is at the link and it doesn’t mention reaching out to the Muslim world, which is consistent with yesterday’s statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs said NASA administrator Charles Bolden was wrong to say that reaching out to the Muslim world was a top priority of the U.S. space agency. Nevertheless, Bolden’s admirable career suggests he isn’t the sort of man who would lie when he told Al-Jazeera television that President Obama said one of his top priorities 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, math and engineering.”
It seems Bolden just got thrown under the bus.
– DRJ
