Indonesia sought as NASA's new mission partner?

The chief of NASA says Indonesia is being considered as a likely space-mission partner for the United States, since President Obama has ordered the agency to reach out specifically to nations dominated by Islam.

But the confirmation from NASA administrator Charlie Bolden to an audience of engineering students recently has stirred a furor in the Orlando Sentinel forum pages after his comments were reported there.

The report said Bolden confirmed Obama has asked him to "find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries" and find ways to use his agency as a tool of diplomacy with those nations.

TRENDING: What do you suppose Satan's chances of defeating God are?

"In addition to the nations that most of you usually hear about when you think about the International Space Station, we now have expanded our efforts to reach out to nontraditional partners," the newspaper's blog reported Bolden told an audience of students.

He said he was referencing nations without established space programs and suggested the U.S. goal would be to help them conduct science missions. Specifically, he suggested Indonesia.

"We really like Indonesia because the State Department, the Department of Education [and] other agencies in the U.S. are reaching out to Indonesia as the largest Muslim nation in the world. We would love to establish partners there," the blog reported Bolden said.

Even as a presidential candidate, Obama had promoted the concept of a more "international" space effort and suggested the next time NASA lands on the moon, it would result from that effort.

On the newspaper's forum page there was considerable outrage:

"This is proof that President Oboma (sic) is working to destroy Americas greatness. He is a smooth talker, gifted, but he is going to bring America down to a 3rd world nation," wrote one participant.

"I am angry. … Not so much at Barack Hussein Obama as I am at the stupid Americans that heard his speeches, witnessed his hatred for America and his desire to destroy it … who witnessed his disrespect for our flag and our national anthem, who heard him say that in a crisis he would stand with Islam, who said he would create his own security force as large as, as well equiped (sic) as our armed forces, who have witnessed our debt climb to unthinkable proportions, who have witness our economy being dismantled and handed to China. Those that have voted for him in a frenzied uproar are complicit in our destruction," added another.

"And what about the women astronauts? Won't the Muslims find this really upsetting?" questioned still another.

RELATED: Interpol chief: Close EU border loophole or risk attack

"I am so glad I am retired from NASA and don't have to participate in this STUPID jester designed to ... what? I don't know! The decline of the American space program, something I was once so proud to work for, is near complete. The total cancellation of NASA and its programs altogether is all that remains," said another.

And, "Wouldn’t this be considered 'Racial Profiling'? You can't specifically drag Muslims out of an airport security line, why should you be able to give them special favors in NASA? Can you say … double standard?"

WND has reported before on Obama's ardent outreach to Muslims, which has come up periodically ever since he claimed to be a Muslim in a television interview where the interviewer corrected his "misstatement."

Obama's comments from before the 2008 election:

Another video has been assembled by a group called Feel the Change Media highlighting Obama's numerous remarks about Islam:

It has been viewed more than two million times already.

It was last year when Toby Harden, of the Daily Telegraph, cited Obama's statement that the U.S. is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

Obama had said, he quoted, "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

Obama also previously said in Turkey that Americans "do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation."

During a June 2007 speech available on YouTube, Obama
stated, "Whatever we once were, we're no longer a Christian nation. At least not
just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation,
and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."

In that speech, Obama took aim at the "Christian Right" for
"hijacking" religion and using it to divide the nation:

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us
together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's
because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too
eager to exploit what divides us," he said.

He also hired many Muslims for his administration, created the outreach to the worldwide Muslim community in the State Department, announced cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, offered funding to a Muslim technology fund, issued a special hajj message, had a "nonreligious" Christmas and offered support for an anti-Israel resolution at the U.N.