NASA's new mission: Honorable but misguided??

[dabrockster]

The new Administrator of the NASA program states his focus is to reach out to the Muslim nation in Science and Math etc..

I think that NASA is a great educational tool for students. However, are we even sure if Muslims even have an interest in us "helping" them in this area?

Overall, it seems NASA has been downgraded to some educational program rather than space exploration..


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...emost-mission/

[Indy Coug]

In a similar move, Nintendo plans on donating 100,000 Wii consoles to HIV orphans in Africa.

[Moliere]

The new Administrator of the NASA program states his focus is to reach out to the Muslim nation in Science and Math etc..

I think that NASA is a great educational tool for students. However, are we even sure if Muslims even have an interest in us "helping" them in this area?

Overall, it seems NASA has been downgraded to some educational program rather than space exploration..


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...emost-mission/

It's about jobs

[YOhio]

They should consolidate and become an office of the State Department.

[beefytee]

NASA just opened some exhibits at Thanksgiving Pointe.

[Uncle Ted]

In a similar move, Nintendo plans on donating 100,000 Wii consoles to HIV orphans in Africa.

I wouldn't call this totally misguided from a business prospective. Nintendo could write off the market value of these game consoles while their costs are much less. These consoles may be an older generation/revision or something that they can't really sell anyway. Their choice may be destroy the consoles and write the cost off as a loss or donate them. The orphanages could sell these consoles and raise money to buy life saving drugs.

The U.S. government $7B/year HIV relief program in Uganda is actually increasing the infection rate because they now have access to drugs that help people live with the virus:

The AIDS rate is inching back up, above six percent, because now that AIDS is no longer a death sentence people are getting more careless about spreading it. Sadly, the solution has become part of the problem.

The U.S. alone can't afford to provide AIDS drugs for all these people and other wealthy countries are not stepping up to help. Now the U.S. will look like the bad guy if they pull out of this program. More of the money should have been spent on the prevention of spreading the virus. The $7B/year is not nearly enough even though it did help make the AIDS drugs less expensive.