http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/science/22nasa.html


From 2002 until this year, NASA’s mission statement, prominently featured in its budget and planning documents, read: “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.”

In early February, the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” deleted.
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Not such a problem for me. I'd pass that responsibility on to NOAA and/or USGS anyway.

Phil

Yes, Phil, but you need to understand the context, here. NASA's "mission statement" has been changed to exclude studying the Earth just at the time when certain political movements (which happen to be in power in Washington at the moment) are trying to silence NASA in re global warming.

Sounds to me like the powers-that-be-for-now want to simply remove Earth observations from NASA's charter so they can avoid the embarassment of NASA telling them that they're wrong about global warming...

-the other Doug

Excellent point.

No, I do get the context, but I would hope that a responsible administration would move EO to another agency. I know this one isn't interested. I'm second to nobody in my distrust of - oh, ixnay on the oliticspay...

On the other hand I am very sceptical - cynical, in fact - about the value of mission statements anyway. If the bigwigs wanted to do something they don't need a mission statement to hang it on. If they don't want to do it they won't even if they have the statement in place. But I do have some sympathy for the complaint of the scientist who wanted to be able to refer to it.

Phil

Right...so don't expect to see it done. This is right in line with the government's recent censoring of scientists. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0502150_pf.html



Or the journalist, or the teacher, or the activist....

Oh, I agree, Phil -- the mission statement don't mean squat to the real operations of an agency. But in politics (which is what drives these kinds of things, whether we like it or not), appearance means more than substance.

This just smells to me like politicians trying to avoid embarassment in the public forum. This change (however official or unofficial, and however meaningless to the ongoing NASA EO programs) lets any number of scientifically ignorant, self-serving politicians point to the "adjusted" mission statement and say "What the heck do they have to say about it, it isn't even what they're supposed to be doing!"

Also remember, those same politicians don't give a tinker's damn whether or not what they say is truthful, as long as they can use it to sway similarly ignorant voters to vote for them.

It has nothing to do with science, or truth. It has to do with manipulating people to vote against their actual best interests. That's what I find distressing about this kind of thing happening.

Perhaps, as rational and concerned citizens, those of us who live in the U.S. should contact NASA and ask just why this has been removed from their publically-stated mission statement. Ask them if they have had their EO programs removed from their charter, who is now going to manage them, etc. Make them aware that we see through the political charade, and want NASA as an agency to respond to this kind of petty word-mincing with more than a shrug and a denial...?

My anticipation is that NASA would respond to such questions by saying that they have the same EO portfolio they always had, and that the mission statement means nothing. Which is something that can be brought up whenever a politician tries to use the statement I mentioned above...

-the other Doug

OK, you talked me round. It was useful, I was wrong.

Phil

It was the right result, but for the wrong reasons.

I would rather have our space agency have a clear focus of space, but there is no reason for that to be at the expense of terrestrial science.

Phillip

I'm completely with Phil on this one; the NASA mission statements are usually embarrassing pieces of PR hackwork (remember "to improve life here, extend life to there"?) What matters is what the NASA budget request asks for. The FY07 summary says "NASA will also continue to play a major role in the interagency Climate Change Science Program". See http://www.climatescience.gov/ for what that is. And I wonder about the cost effectiveness of the big EOS satellites anyway, especially for studying climate change.

Mission statements are written by middle and senior management with nothing better to do. They are worse than useless, they're actually damaging to company moral because they are such a joke. Some of the genuine MS's I've seen mentioned by Scott Adams in some of his books just defy belief.

Doug

OK, OK, you've talked me round. It was crap, I was right.

As Tom Good said, this is the principle of shifting principles.

Phil

Whether mission statements mean something or not, whether the tactic is useful or not, the alteration does look like a continuation of the government's attempts to stymie any science that might strengthen the global warming argument.

It depends - are there any EO missions being cancelled?

Are Aqua, Aura, Terra, and A-Train members being pulled out of service?

We are speaking just a few months after two valuable new members of the family were launched.

There's a lot of EO hardware up at the moment - changing a worthless mission statement doesn't change that.

Doug

As a non-US, I would say that this kind of manoeuvers is a pain for the entire world, as, like it or not, NASA of the US is the most present agency in space, our ambassador in a way. A large part of beautiful results, scientific results, and results useful here on Earth, were earned by NASA.

This shift in speech would be anecdotic, if it was the only thing. But there already was many other manoeuvers to try to hide evidences of climate change, or to manipulate public opinion about this, up to saying that climate change evidences are "junk science". So there is a real concern about valuable Earth Observation missions being canceled or "postponed".

And this is not for scientific reasons, even not for the interest of the US, it is just to defend the petty interests of a small number of politicians and businessmen.

In a way, those people are beginning to think and behave with science facts as the dogmatic religious are doing with spiritual/ethical facts: they decree the "truth" and fight other opinions. This is alas also possible in a science domain, and it already happened: the Lyssenkism, under Stalin, which was "teaching" things such as "carrots must be sowed thick, because carrots, like proletarians, will help each other". They did this and the result was a large famina. With the climate change problem, it is the same thing, in worse.

Enough of the politics and religion. I am watching you

Also missing from the mission statement, and more important in my view

to inspire the next generation of explorers

This is false and misleading reporting by the NYT. The 2006 strategic plan says NASA's mission is "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautical research." That's a completely different statement, not an alteration of the previous one. And I can't even find a mission statement in the 2007 budget request.

It's fine to be arguing about whether we're spending enough trying to understand climate change, but it's
ridiculous to be parsing these mission statements for their intent.

Why would you say that it's "false and misleading reporting"? The new mission statement is given in full in the second paragraph of the New York Times article.

FWIW, Jack Welch says that if done right, they're hugely beneficial, and that to be done right, they must be done with input from all levels of an organization, but they're very rarely done right. Scott Adams's observations don't contradict that theory. And Jack Welch has made a lot more money than Scott Adams. Of course, the deity status of Jack Welch should been debated elsewhere.

Because the article lead says that the mission statement was "quietly altered". What's "quietly altered" about a complete change of the statement? The implication is that NASA was trying to slip this past, but anybody who's knows anything about the agency's culture would realize that NASA was trying to reaffirm its commitment to aeronautics (which the previous statement said nothing about) and be more general about its science and exploration goals.

The fact that there was no press release, as far as I can tell, or any external publicity about the new mission statement at the time it was created.

I agree with you, Doug, that such bad politics is a thing we SHOULD NOT HAVE to discuss here. And nowhere else. But alas it comes to impede in our topic...


About the other most recent posts, I am a bit reassured, that there would be a new mission statement, not just weakening it. But I would like to read it before making my opinion.

I actually would prefer to see NASA concentrate on extra-terrestrial exploration and like the sound of the new mission statement. It's just that the change has touched a nerve, already rubbed raw by the insertion of politics into science vis-a-vis global warming.

yes, extraterestrial exploration is its primary goal. But there are down to earth necessities. If it is not NASA's job, who else is it? This must be made clear.

extraterestrial exploration is NOT its primary goal


The National Aeronautics and Space Act
Sec. 102. (d) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;
(3) The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;
(4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes;
(5) The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;
(6) The making available to agencies directly concerned with national defense of discoveries that have military value or significance, and the furnishing by such agencies, to the civilian agency established to direct and control nonmilitary aeronautical and space activities, of information as to discoveries which have value or significance to that agency;
(7) Cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of nations in work done pursuant to this Act and in the peaceful application of the results thereof;
(8) The most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources of the United States, with close cooperation among all interested agencies of the United States in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, facilities, and equipment; and
(9) The preservation of the United States preeminent position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development related to associated manufacturing processes.

Sec. 203. (a) The Administration, in order to carry out the purpose of this Act, shall--

(1) plan, direct, and conduct aeronautical and space activities;
(2) arrange for participation by the scientific community in planning scientific measurements and observations to be made through use of aeronautical and space vehicles, and conduct or arrange for the conduct of such measurements and observations;
(3) provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof;
(4) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space; and
(5) encourage and provide for Federal Government use of commercially provided space services and hardware, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Government.

If this is the latest mission statement, there is no problem, the earth study is not deleted, it is even placed in first. So our discution was pointless

At a pinch, the word "protect" has disappeared. But protecting Earth about things such a climate change is not really a space exploration problem, it is about measures and policies here on the ground.

The only cases where space exploration would have to directly involve into Earth protection are missions such as Sun observation, or about dangerous meteorites.

Well, the latest as of 1958.... that is the act which established the NASA.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html

I think the problem in discussion is not with politics per se but in unbound editorializing... which the topic of politics happens to attract like sugar attracts flies. If someone editorialized boundlessly about a pet scientific theory ("if"?) that would also be noxious, while contrarily, if a few people managed to make factual non-editorial statements about how a space science issue has become political, I don't think there'd be harm in that.

Earth is certainly a planet, and it has the advantage of requiring by far the least delta-v to explore (and landers are very easy to fund ). Our knowledge of it so greatly outstrips that of the other planets that it commonly falls outside the discussion, and one could imagine Earth science being handled by some other agency altogether. Since 2001, there's been a continuous erosion of the link between the agency that has been handling it and that is probably not a coincidence. If this alteration of the mission statement happened in isolation, it probably wouldn't merit attention. But it's not in isolation.

Mission Ops, Applications/Commercialization/Education/Outreach

2000 $1043mm, $75mm
2001 $862mm, $69mm
2002 $761mm, $63mm
2003 $804mm, $62mm

After that, the pie was redivided so no equivalent line items exist (don't mistake the 2003-2004 figures as indicating a jump in ANY area), but the total Earth Science budget has continued:

2004 $1.526B
2005 $1.485B
2006 $1.390B

Factor in inflation, and you're looking at a drop of about 7% per year.

I thought it was more telling that in 2003, the Associate Administrator for Earth Science, Ghassam Asrar was promoted and his previous position was simply eliminated, leaving no one person as a high-ranking advocate of Earth Science first and foremost.

And it continues...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles...ate_satellites/

Seen in this light, I don't take the change of the mission statement as just a trivial restyling. And without the responsibilities being handed over to some other agency, it's not a benign alignment of NASA's priorities to spaceflight... it's the use of declining budgets to accomplish an end besides saving money.

I think the censoring of scientists is very serious, but they are two seperate issues