With questions still surrounding the curious comments of NASA’s administrator about the space agency’s “foremost” priority to reach out to Muslims across the world, the State Department went on the public relations offensive Friday to echo a similar message of engagement.

Its online webchat provided a forum for Farah Pandith, the Obama Administration’s special representative to Muslim communities, to articulate and praise the government’s attempts at fostering a positive dialogue with the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims.

“We have to listen. We have to hear what it is they are experiencing. Their expertise is better than somebody in Washington saying what must be,” Pandith said in explaining she is trying to help build a robust global Muslim community.

She also focused on attempts to change what she said is a widely-held negative narrative about Islam and terrorism. “We’re going out and hearing from people who are doing innovative and creative things. We’re lifting up their voices so that they can be role models for others.”

Pandith made clear that she tries not to speak of a single monolithic “Muslim world” and noted that she’s travelled to 25 countries in the past nine months talking to Muslims. She also emphasized that any successful engagement effort will take a long time to see widespread progress.

The tone of the webchat was very positive and spoke approvingly of President Obama’s speech on tensions with the Muslim world last year in Cairo.

The discussion did not address the comments of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden who recently told an al-Jazeera interviewer that Obama charged him with “find[ing] 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 contributions to science and engineering.” Bolden said it was his “foremost” responsibility from the president.

This week a State Department official said the Obama Administration’s “new space policy has a more international approach” that includes Muslims.