NASA, which stands for...?

[alexpgp]

Okay, so Charlie Bolden, the head of NASA, shows up in Cairo last month and does an interview with Al Jazeera.

In the course of the interview, Bolden says the following (starting at about 1:10 in the Al Jazeera video posted on YouTube):

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- [President Obama] charged me with three things. 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." (Clarification mine.)

Aside from the immediate question of why any kid should want to get into science or math when such skills are not essential for careers to "expand international relationships," and the secondary question of why NASA should be engaged in an outreach effort to make any group, much less a group of nations, "feel good about themselves" (a goal that, in my opinion, is the last refuge of failed educators and their unfortunate students), there would appear to be a couple of phrases missing from the text of Bolden's marching orders from the President.

Those would have something to do with "space" and/or "aeronautics."

Cheers...