Beam NASA up from this order

NASA's manned space program may have been cut down to size by President Obama, but the agency has a new, exotic mission on Earth. NASA head Charles Bolden says a major administration initiative will be to improve relations with the Muslim world.

The presidential prime directive was recently explained by Mr. Bolden to al Jazeera television in Cairo, Egypt:

"One, he [Mr. Obama] 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 engineering -- science, math and engineering."

NASA's outreach presumably could involve the Muslim world in long-range cooperation with other nations on space exploration. ABC News quoted Mr. Bolden, formerly an astronaut, Marine fighter pilot and major general, as saying that no single nation will make it Mars on its own.

Nevertheless, the new mission appears to be more about self-esteem than outer space.

Or as Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer put it, in comments on Fox News Monday:

"This is a new height in fatuousness. NASA was established to get America into space and to keep us there. This idea to feel good about their past and to make achievements is the worst combination of group therapy, psychobabble, imperial condescension and adolescent diplomacy."

The president is known to be a fan of the old "Star Trek" series, which frequently moralized on the pitfalls of "imperial condescension."

Mr. Bolden may find some in the Muslim world more intransigent than a Klingon as he attempts to launch them into the space age.