Charlie Bolden Likes To Travel (Too Much?)

It is NASA policy now to reach out to the "Muslim" world and not other worlds like the moon.

It should just be foreign outreach, not identifying an outreach program by a particular faith.

Will there be Buddhist outreach from NASA?

Why not?

I'm sorry, but thigns like this make me think the administration is stark raving out of it's mind.

NASA is being destroyed.

I'm sure the thousands being laid off at KSC, JSC and MSFC are tickled to death about this news.

With all of the heat Bolden's been getting from Congress and the sour looks from NASA employees, he probably feels a lot more comfortable overseas:-)

This is great, people need to know what this guy is doing. It just seems impossible to get a decent NASA Administrator. Then again, it's just a horribly political appointment anyway.

This is just another example of why Commercial Space companies are needed to replace NASA. Space companies CEOs will not be traveling the world and dining with ambassadors and prime ministers;they will be at home leading their company towards growth and success in their Space Projects.

Boldin stated early on, back in February at a NASA all-hands I believe, that they wanted to engage other countries that may not have been involved in space before. Someone asked Boldin a question on how he would deal with ITAR regulations and Boldin stated that ITAR rules needed to be changed.
That was a telling red flag on the Obama / Boldin M.O.

So what was ITAR for again? Oh yeah, that is so the rest of the world doesn't use our technology against us...

Is there no sense of National pride left?

Much ado without enough info...Senator Mikulski stated either two or three years ago that she recognized the impediment to NASA that the current ITAR restrictions raise. Seems to me that teaming with internationals, whether it be on the ISS, or small robotic missions, has been the MO for several administrations, reaching back to Bush 41.

I would caution readers not to paint absolutely every move that a political appointee makes as overtly political; many times, these busy managers are following the advice of career civil servants.

Charles Bolden is a good "yes man" second only to Dan Goldin. He beats Obama's drums and his own, the hell with NASA. Charles B likes political (ego) junkets whenever he can get them. I agree with one of the comments, he is a terrible appointment.

Originally that was the case, but since then the 'world' has developed its own technology and is now even marketing 'ITAR-free' geosynchronous telecom satellites. Thus if 40 years ago the U.S. controlled well over 90% of the industry come 2010 we're just about even with Europe.

The process to get an export license is so cumbersome (it can take weeks/months) that, in many cases, international customers simply don't bother doing business with the U.S. and would rather save themselves trouble and go straight to Europe to buy what they need. We're no longer in a position where we can just tell them to 'take it or leave it' because they'll just leave it and go elsewhere (or invest more in R&D to develop it themselves).

Bottom line: U.S. aerospace companies are hurting and, as a result, our own industrial base keeps shrinking. It's no longer an issue of 'pride' but, quite simply, survival.

There is something very wrong with NASA and with this administration at the current time.

He needed a break from being a yes man maybe? Either that or he was checking to see if the US could use Qatari boosters and launch facilities to launch US crew to the ISS. Just planning for the future ... no sense in putting all our eggs in the Russian basket eh Gen. Bolden?

Hey, thanks for the correction. I have often wondered if the ISS venture could have found loop holes and/or modifications to ITAR already.