Is this the best use of NASA's budget?

"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."

When I read that, I immediately thought of Kennedy's speech where he challenged us to go to the moon by the end of the decade, and then I laughed out loud at the sheer silliness of the new goals.

Why should we borrow even $1 (we will have to borrow it after all, we're running huge deficits) to make the Muslim nations feel good about their own contributions. If they don't feel good about their contributions, that's their problem. (If it is a problem.)

I'd be curious to see how NASA accomplishes this mission, but my head would probably explode if I found out. Maybe we'll send up a rocket named after some Muslim scholar loaded up with a bunch of school children from all over the world who excel in science and math? That would at least be something somewhat related to NASA's raison d'?tre.