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[Down memory Lane] Afghanistan's first spaceman returns home

pakistani342

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@A-Team -- I thought I'd post this article here for your comment that Afghans were nuclear engineers or rocket scientists:

Article here from BBC

I'll also quote another personal anecdote: Shortly after NASA put the first Saudi into space my Father met his Saudi friend and colleague from when they were graduate students in the US in the 70s.

My father congratulated the Saudi on his people become a space-faring-people. My father's friend's reply left my father a bit off balance. His friend replied: Well Achmed (not my father's real name) -- you know the Americans have sent dogs and monkeys into space so it was really high time that they send a prince.

Not to amplify the poor man's misery -- but he is an accountant in a small firm in Stuttgart -- or was at the time of the articles' writing.

I guess he didn't really grasp the path-integrals or ergodic theory in class.

----
His life is very different now - he's not a fighter pilot, or a cosmonaut, or a government minister, he's an accountant in a small firm in Stuttgart. He lives on the outskirts of the city with his wife and three children. It's less exciting, perhaps, but a good example of the peaceful normality the only Afghan to have visited space wishes for his own country.
----
 
@A-Team -- I thought I'd post this article here for your comment that Afghans were nuclear engineers or rocket scientists:

Article here from BBC

I'll also quote another personal anecdote: Shortly after NASA put the first Saudi into space my Father met his Saudi friend and colleague from when they were graduate students in the US in the 70s.

My father congratulated the Saudi on his people become a space-faring-people. My father's friend's reply left my father a bit off balance. His friend replied: Well Achmed (not my father's real name) -- you know the Americans have sent dogs and monkeys into space so it was really high time that they send a prince.

Not to amplify the poor man's misery -- but he is an accountant in a small firm in Stuttgart -- or was at the time of the articles' writing.

I guess he didn't really grasp the path-integrals or ergodic theory in class.

----
His life is very different now - he's not a fighter pilot, or a cosmonaut, or a government minister, he's an accountant in a small firm in Stuttgart. He lives on the outskirts of the city with his wife and three children. It's less exciting, perhaps, but a good example of the peaceful normality the only Afghan to have visited space wishes for his own country.
----

Nothing out of the ordinary, side of effects of the state collapses in the 90s. There are Syrian Phd holder roaming around Europe delivering pizzas. Russian nuclear scientists doing administrative works.
He is an accountant because he is good with numbers :) The point I making is that the masses of Afghans who were into core engineering subjects were sent to former USSR and by contrast those that you see in the West Coast are minute sample of the Afghan diaspora.
I am not belittling the ask at hand, I am just stating these things take time and breathing space, the combination of current Trump Policy and the Leadership of Ashraf Ghani is the right combination to bring about that change.

/Peace
 
Nothing out of the ordinary, side of effects of the state collapses in the 90s. There are Syrian Phd holder roaming around Europe delivering pizzas. Russian nuclear scientists doing administrative works.
He is an accountant because he is good with numbers :)

No -- Syrian PhD -- the ones who are good will rise very soon.

Russian PhDs -- who are any good -- Russia like India had a huge gap between top PhDs and the run of the mill PhDs have largely done very well.

Accounts is adding subtracting -- it is not Math

There are a lot of Rich Afghan carpet merchants and Kabob house owners in the US -- some doctors too. But in Science and Engineering they are rarer than a purple unicorn
 
No -- Syrian PhD -- the ones who are good will rise very soon.

Russian PhDs -- who are any good -- Russia like India had a huge gap between top PhDs and the run of the mill PhDs have largely done very well.

Accounts is adding subtracting -- it is not Math

There are a lot of Rich Afghan carpet merchants and Kabob house owners in the US -- some doctors too. But in Science and Engineering they are rarer than a purple unicorn

http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?year=2016

Scientific Journals Ranking 2016

Even Syria and Yemen , two countries even more savaged by war than Afghanistan in recent times are ahead of Afghanistan with double the number of citable documents. @A-Team .
 
http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?year=2016

Scientific Journals Ranking 2016

Even Syria and Yemen , two countries even more savaged by war than Afghanistan in recent times are ahead of Afghanistan with double the number of citable documents. @A-Team .

Syria and Yemen were not at war, until recently! We are talking of a generational change. I am one of those and I am as competitive as any of you. The point of I am taking is that we are taking of a generational change that is happening and these indicators will reflect that in due time.

/Peace
 
No -- Syrian PhD -- the ones who are good will rise very soon.

Russian PhDs -- who are any good -- Russia like India had a huge gap between top PhDs and the run of the mill PhDs have largely done very well.

Accounts is adding subtracting -- it is not Math
http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?year=2016

Scientific Journals Ranking 2016

Even Syria and Yemen , two countries even more savaged by war than Afghanistan in recent times are ahead of Afghanistan with double the number of citable documents. @A-Team .

Syria has an intellectual culture in the hard sciences -- you will occasionally run in the the Syrian professor at MIT or student at Stanford.

But Yemen ?!?!? ahead of Afghanistan -- now I'm mad :/ -- I'm writing to my representative on where my dollars have gone.
 
No -- Syrian PhD -- the ones who are good will rise very soon.

Russian PhDs -- who are any good -- Russia like India had a huge gap between top PhDs and the run of the mill PhDs have largely done very well.

Accounts is adding subtracting -- it is not Math

There are a lot of Rich Afghan carpet merchants and Kabob house owners in the US -- some doctors too. But in Science and Engineering they are rarer than a purple unicorn

Again you're citing your Kebab owner as a norm :) How many Afghans do you know that studied and were part of the soviet backed regime? I bet none! and thus the biased outlook.
 
Again you're citing your Kebab owner as a norm :) How many Afghans do you know that studied and were part of the soviet backed regime? I bet none! and thus the biased outlook.

My dear a lot of those Afghans eventually ended up in the US -- and yes I forget what my nearest Kabab owner studied in the USSR [his son is my good friend -- lol -- he's a royalist]

There are a lot of Afghan Generals and Soviet educated communists in the US. And they run flower ships, carpet shops, kabab houses -- surprisingly not as many taxi drivers as one would have thought
 
Syria has an intellectual culture in the hard sciences -- you will occasionally run in the the Syrian professor at MIT or student at Stanford.

But Yemen ?!?!? ahead of Afghanistan -- now I'm mad :/ -- I'm writing to my representative on where my dollars have gone.

LOL :D those dollars are gone to the ANSF that is currently conducting 34 simultaneous day and night operations across Afghanistan.
 
LOL :D those dollars are gone to the ANSF that is currently conducting 34 simultaneous day and night operations across Afghanistan.

Yes and as many authors are putting it -- how have they been loosing ground to the Taliban ....

Afghans are bad investments ...
 
My dear a lot of those Afghans eventually ended up in the US -- and yes I forget what my nearest Kabab owner studied in the USSR [his son is my good friend -- lol -- he's a royalist]

There are a lot of Afghan Generals and Soviet educated communists in the US. And they run flower ships, carpet shops, kabab houses -- surprisingly not as many taxi drivers as one would have thought

So you expect an engineer who has studied Russian Scud systems to be employed in the US aerospace industry? The knowledge of which is redundant in the US. Of course these were immigrants whose first need was to make a living and not be beggars on the streets of san-francisco.

Yes and as many authors are putting it -- how have they been loosing ground to the Taliban ....

Afghans are bad investments ...

Trump and entire national security apparatus seems to disagree :) and have signed for billions and billions more for the foreseeable decades to come. Trump being a businessman is the last person to be in the business of bad investments. No?
 
http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?year=2016

Scientific Journals Ranking 2016

Even Syria and Yemen , two countries even more savaged by war than Afghanistan in recent times are ahead of Afghanistan with double the number of citable documents. @A-Team .

BTW -- I've also been amazed by Somali Americans -- we don't have Somali Americans in academia just yet but they outnumber Afghans in top schools -- and are damn impressive.
 
It is interesting. Americans are now in Afganistan. Do they develop national Afganistan space program?
 
So you expect an engineer who has studied Russian Scud systems to be employed in the US aerospace industry? The knowledge of which is redundant in the US. Of course these were immigrants whose first need was to make a living and not be beggars on the streets of san-francisco.

Or course!!! that's what should happen -- Or say Pakistani PIA mechanics get picked up by other industries and get sent to school -- America is the land of opportunity.

I attend other events, purely social (I won't like the names) -- still do -- where intellectuals of hard sciences gather. You will find the elites: Israelis, Chinese, Indians, Koreans, then you will find the making an attempts: Pakistanis, Turks, etc. -- but I have never run into an Afghan.

Trump and entire national security apparatus seems to disagree :)

Actually no -- not at all -- you should hear what people say off the record
 
BTW -- I've also been amazed by Somali Americans -- we don't have Somali Americans in academia just yet but they outnumber Afghans in top schools -- and are damn impressive.

Speaking of investments, you are talking to one :) If I am able to keep up with you ( not entirely yet :) but was easily outwitting my compartirate from the neighbouring countries in the school. You can bet on this that my children will definitely be able to do the same to their peers in the years to come. All we need is the breathing space which is provided by this regime.

/Peace
 

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