NASA and Obama’s Vision for America

The Shuttle program has ended, as everyone knew it would at some point, but the cancellation of Constellation and other NASA programs should shock all Americans who believe in American exceptionalism. Our president, who went around the world apologizing for America, is succeeding in his plan to cut America down to size. We will no longer be first in space, if Obama has his way, and soon we will be just another weakened shell of a former colonial power – like France, Spain and Great Britain.

The hatred that Obama feels for those of us of white, European stock is being played out in many ways, and the destruction of NASA is only one of them. As Dinesh D’Souza explained in his perceptive book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”, Obama’s main inheritance from his parents and his early surroundings was a hatred of colonialism and a determination to make them (us) pay.

In Obama’s world at the time, the moon landing wasn’t seen as a giant leap for mankind, it was seen as Americans now owning the moon, and another humiliation for the third world. No wonder that he 1. “wants to blunt NASA’s space program, to divert it from being a symbol of American greatness to a more modest operation that builds ties with Muslims and other peoples”.

2. “Time and money issues aside, accusing NASA of a lack of innovation is ludicrous. According to NASA Scientific and Technical Information , NASA has filed over 6,300 patents with the U.S. government. So much new technology has come from NASA that one can hardly look around without seeing devices and techniques that originated from the space program -- exercise machines, satellite radio, scratch-resistant lenses, memory foam, shoe insoles, water filtering systems, cordless tools, home security systems, and flat-panel televisions, to name just a few. In addition to reducing our national energy consumption by such innovations as Radiant Barrier , it has been estimated that for every dollar the U.S. government has given NASA for space R&D, seven dollars are returned in the form of corporate and personal income taxes from increased jobs and economic growth. One NASA innovation, "safety grooving" in concrete for highways and airport landing strips, was so successful that it has been estimated to have reduced highway accidents by 85%, as well as created an entire industry, as shown by the International Grooving and Grinding Association .”

The selective modesty of Barack Obama

By Charles Krauthammer July 9, 2010 Washington Post (Excerpt)

“Remember NASA? It once represented to the world the apogee of American scientific and technological achievement. Here is President Obama's vision of NASA's mission, as explained by administrator Charles Bolden :
"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."

Apart from the psychobabble -- farcically turning a space-faring enterprise into a self-esteem enhancer -- what's the sentiment behind this charge? Sure America has put a man on the moon, led the information revolution, won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation by far -- but, on the other hand, a thousand years ago al-Khwarizmi gave us algebra.

Bolden seems quite intent on driving home this message of achievement equivalence -- lauding, for example, Russia's contribution to the space station. Russia? In the 1990s, the Russian space program fell apart, leaving the United States to pick up the slack and the tab for the missing Russian contributions to get the space station built.

For good measure, Bolden added that the United States cannot get to Mars without international assistance. Beside the fact that this is not true, contrast this with the elan and self-confidence of President John Kennedy's 1961 pledge that America would land on the moon within the decade .

There was no finer expression of belief in American exceptionalism than Kennedy's. Obama has a different take. As he said last year in France , "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Which of course means: If we're all exceptional, no one is.

Take human rights. After Obama's April meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, Mike McFaul of the National Security Council reported that Obama actually explained to the leader of that thuggish kleptocracy that we, too, are working on perfecting our own democracy.

Nor is this the only example of an implied moral equivalence that diminishes and devalues America. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner reported that in discussions with China about human rights , the U.S. side brought up Arizona's immigration law -- "early and often." As if there is the remotest connection between that and the persecution of dissidents, jailing of opponents and suppression of religion routinely practiced by the Chinese dictatorship.

Nothing new here. In his major addresses, Obama's modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as, in one venue after another, he has gratuitously confessed America's alleged failing -- from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11.” Washington Post

Note 1. "The Roots of Obama's Rage"
Note 2. American Thinker