NASA quietly had its mission statement changed
By on Jul 22nd, 2006 at 11:40 am
NASA quietly had its mission statement changed
last February by the White House, who deleted the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.†NASA scientists were surprised to learn of the change. “Without it, these scientists say, there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.”
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The Bush Regime changes everything in secret and everyone finds out later by surprise!
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:43 amWhat climate change? Bush&co say it’s a hoax.
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:47 amSo this admin wants to “cut and run” from protecting the planet?
Why am I not surprised?
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:48 amHey Jay,
All I did was ask one question about a certain Scandinavian nutjob in the Bolton thread, and it must have spawned a dozen responses, without one post from said nutjob. Yikes.
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:50 amI think the Dems need to make the case for fighting the “War on Stupidity”.
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:53 amDrSinker the GOP loving Bush fanatics are getting more crazy daily > lol.
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:56 amThe move specifically to military sciences shows that NASA has become specifically an arm of destruction for the Pentagon and the war pigs that support such policy. What was once a great inspiration to all mankind is now part of the destruction of it.
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:57 amNew NASA statement:
Weh ave to fight those illegals out there, so we don’t have to fight them here!
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:06 pmEven global warming skeptics (all three of them) will tell you much more research is needed.
Instead, NASA is going to make a push to Mars. That makes a lot of sense.
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:07 pmo boy… my righty brother-in-law was ranting about last week’s space shuttle mission, saying that it was unnecessary and too expensive (agreed, at this point, btw)…
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 pmi wonder if he’ll now change his mind since nasa is now an obvious military project?…
this is an unfortunate turn… not surprised at the sneakiness tho…
Wait a minute! You mean to tell me that this administration is purposely altering information to suit their own political agenda?
I’m speechless. Truly speechless…
/sarcasm off
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:28 pm[...] NASA’s mission no longer includes “to understand and protect our home planet.” That phrase was excised by the Bush Administration. It was done quietly—secretly, even—in the usual manner of this administration. [...]
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:30 pmthis is an unfortunate turn… not surprised at the sneakiness tho… Comment by katy
It is a matter of priorites, katy. Spend money on Halliburton overcharges, corporate welfare, tax cuts for the wealthy, and Nation-building in the Middle East….
or build a new shuttle, repair the Hubble telescope, and continue to build a space station worthy of the 21st century.
The choice is clear for a man of vision.
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:36 pmThis is another sign for change. VOTE HIM AND HIS CRONIES OUT OF OFFICE AND SPEAK UP WITH LETTERS TO THE EDITORS EVERYWHERE….TWICE. I WILL in Palm Springs and at my Expo.
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:38 pmJoe 6pak
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:48 pmRegarding overcharges – Huffpo has an article today on two former Pentagon officials being chrged with fraud in Iraq contracts with Custer Battles.
As for NASA, its mission of global benefit is worthwhile, but since BushCo vision is self-centered, the mission statement reflects that now.
Marie, I saw that about Custer Battles. And that stink reaches into the office of former Secretary of the Navy Hansford Johnson, and his special assistant, Douglas Combs.
As for NASA, it is being gutted as a scientific institution. I am surprised it hasn’t been placed under Homeland Suckurity with the Department of Defense providing oversight.
Junior is still a man of vision, though, dreaming of putting a man on Mars in 20 years or so. Like his vision for rebuilding New Orleans.
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:11 pmThat’ll teach us to excoriate Bush’s “mission to Mars” crapola.
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:21 pmIf they don’t think the weather is changing then why the cloud seeding?
Texas and the 1996 Drought
In 1970, then Governor Preston Smith initiated a statewide cloud seeding program for three months. In July of that year, Texas suffered flooding, …
http://www.window.state.tx.us/comptrol/reports/drot1996.html
And further;
GovTrack:
S. 517: A bill to establish a Weather Modification
Tue Jun 7, 2005 19:21
HTTP://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-517
If they are not concerned about weather then why all this porkly project?
AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS- There is authorized
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:21 pmto be appropriated to the
Board for the purposes of carrying out the provisions of
this Act $10,000,000 for each of
fiscal years 2005 through 2014.
[90 million] Any sums appropriated
under this subsection shall remain
available, without fiscal year limitation, until
expended.
(c) GIFTS- The Board may accept, use, and dispose of
gifts or donations of services or property.
SEC. 9. EFFECTIVE DATE.
This Act shall take effect on October 1, 2005.
And for you Californians in the crowd;
U.S. Senate Bill 517 & U.S. House Bill 2995
Protect Agriculture! It is time to oppose this legislation in 2006.
AGRICULTURE ALERT – June 2006
EXPERIMENTAL WEATHER MODIFICATION BILL FAST TRACKING FOR PASSAGE IN U.S. SENATE & HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
http://www.californiaskywatch.com/ca_agriculture_2002-2003/index.html
By Rosalind Peterson
U.S. Senate Bill 517 and U.S. House Bill 2995, a bill that would allow experimental weather modification by artificial methods and implement a national weather modification policy, does not include agriculture or public oversight, is on the “fast track†to be passed in 2006.
This bill is designed to implement experimental weather modification. The appointed Board of Directors established by this bill does not include any agricultural, water, EPA, or public representatives, and has no provisions for Congressional, State, County, or public oversight of their actions or expenditures.
What the hell is going on with these folks?
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:31 pmthere is nothing to ‘understand’ about earth. i explain it all in my newest book! god made the white people 5000 years ago. and, he made the ‘best’ white people in germany. and then he made jesus. and then some liberals at berkeley made fossils and sprinkled them around. and then i was born! yipeeee!!! oh, and before that gwb was born as the new messiah. he will save us by killing everyone. all the white people then go to heaven, and the rest of you vermin burn in hell.
don’t need nasa for that!
kisses,
ann
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:32 pmjoe... you’re starting to worry me… you’re getting much more
profound and emotional with your comments and observations…
…a very good thing… :-)
and i so agree with you… yes, it’s always about “priorities”…
too often, they are NOT about promoting “the general welfare”…
my son, the chemist, is a NASA enthusiast… 26 years old next week… he understands and appreciates the science and it’s benefits…as do i… in the heady days of surplusses those dreams seemed and WERE important… but now… …
what marie said…
all… i’ve been listening to more music – avoiding the nets and AAR to an extent… for my mentel health… but in keeping with the mood – today it’s
Warren Zevon, The Wing… please give a listen…
temps in low 80s for the first time in couple of weeks…
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:41 pmgonna go outside and get inspired… planning to dig a bigger garden pond this fall… some iris need moved… always something…
g’day!
Not to mention; “Many current and ongoing weather modification programs (80 listed by NOAA in 2005), including the one in Wyoming that is designed to increase the snowpack, may be diverting rainwater away from Oklahoma and Texas, two states that are currently fighting fires caused by a lack of rainfall.”
++
Oh Great. Wyoming Needs Snowflake.
++
Artificial weather modification can impact all of us by reducing water supplies, changing agricultural crop production cycles, reducing crop production, and water availability. Since most experimental weather modification programs use chemicals released into the atmosphere the public could be subjected increasingly toxic or unknown substances that could adversely impact agricultural crops and trees.
Trimethyl Aluminum (TMA) and barium are just two of the toxic chemicals used in recent atmospheric heating and testing programs according to NASA. The Alaska H.A.A.R.P. atmospheric heating program may have the capability of changing the Jet Stream which could also change our weather.
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:44 pm++
Ahh Fresh Air
Times Square!
Goodbye Country Life!
Crazy Farm we are here!
So, who’s surprised? The Bush Administration is very good about saying that want an open discussion. They doesn’t want a debate. They don’t debate anything. They just hand down mandates.
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:46 pmThe militarization of space is the goal along with fuel sources on the moon and elsewhere. The problem with the latter is that the taxpayer will pay for everything until it is time to reap,and that is when privatization steps in. An Ownership society off the backs of the worker. We are being enslaved in every way so that all human energy and effort flows upwards for the benenfit of the few,total control with no chance of rebellion.
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:12 pmNASA from the beginning was very much a political agency aimed at beating those commies to the moon and showing American superiority. But what a wonderful way of doing so. Now, we show how “superior” we are by threatening, invading and occupying other countries. I think I must truly be getting old because I long for the “good old days”.
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:38 pmAnother example of a criminal administrtion trying to remake reality to fit their fantasies. They must go NOW. Urge your congressperson to start investigations and impeachment hearings.
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:56 pmBrilliant move by the Bush administration. Once again, since liberals can’t win on the merits of an argument, they seek “infallible” sources to represent their beliefs – in this case – NASA. It was obvious that the democratic party was seeking any climatologists at NASA that could / would produce data supporting “global warming theories”, making them yet another federally funded researcher liberals could use. The Bush admininistration should also take a close look at the National Weather Service and the National Hurrican Center, to ensure federal assets aren’t used to “gin up” more “global warming data”.
July 22nd, 2006 at 3:16 pmJason,
You’re an idiot, bud. Keep drinking the koolaid.
July 22nd, 2006 at 3:52 pmSeriously, Jason, can there be any real debate with you? Apparently not, since you do not grasp what “merit” means in an argument. This is why you assign high merit to the discredited Richard Lindzen, but low merit to the well-established consensus of thousands of scientists. Is this catastrophe in critical thinking just poor judgment on your part? Do you seriously believe Lindzen’s black helicopter conspiracy theories about the cabal of evil climatologists?
July 22nd, 2006 at 4:17 pmIs this catastrophe in critical thinking just poor judgment on your part?
Comment by RealScientist — July 22, 2006 @ 4:17 pm
I wouldn’t put much stock in getting any meaningful message across to Jason: In one of the recent threads on Global Warming, he said the following:
Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear showed that temperature increases are more strongly correlated to urban heat masses, and not global warming, so blame urbanization.
Comment by Jason M. Hendler — July 20, 2006 @ 11:11 am
He spent the whole time trying to convince everyone that Crichton’s uneducated opinion carries as much weight as that of any reputable, real climate scientist with proper credentials.
That is the depth of Jason’s pigheadedness.
July 22nd, 2006 at 4:47 pmBushco just cancelled THREE SATELLITES DESIGNED TO STUDY GLOBAL WARMING.
NASA has already announced plans to put nuclear reactors in orbit around the earth, which will have fueling value for space exploration, but which also will provide NUCLEAR FISSION for a militarist wetdream for fifty years — space lasers which can destroy whole cities.
One question that they don’t care about: What happens to the atmosphere from running giant lasers through it? Might it warm up?
Nuclear bombs and space lasers — what Global Warming really needs to go into overdrive.
July 22nd, 2006 at 4:57 pmI read on a reputable Science News website this past Spring that NASA is also planning to send a bomb the size of a school bus to the moon to break off a big chunk of it to check for water… I’m guessing just in case the Rapture doesn’t happen this decade?
July 22nd, 2006 at 5:06 pmIt is truly unbelievable that we currently have the most anti-humanitarian president ever. Profits are everything.
July 22nd, 2006 at 8:19 pmUnderstanding jason et al:
Franks Luntz’s handbook for the GOP- How to frame going to war to the public in a post 9/11 America…
July 22nd, 2006 at 10:04 pmthe full version here… you can download the PDF for bathroom reading…
more links at google…
[...] This is just simply ridiculous but no surprise coming from the Bush White House. Apparently, the Bush administration deleted the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” from the mission statement of NASA last February. [...]
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:41 pmGood post!!
July 23rd, 2006 at 4:57 amI see this a ruse. It’s a huge budget icon in most taxpayer’s mind and if you get people thinking that the economy is ok and the war is something we can afford, we must make sacrifices so let’s cut dream projects. Like protecting our planet, really, isn’t that a silly notion? The military’s presence in space is perpetual so that part of the budget will stay, but hey, to be able to afford more wars we’ll just have to stick to the destruction part, the earth will heal itself, right? It’s just like their bogus budget projection slight if hand.
July 23rd, 2006 at 9:06 amThe Bush administration secret diplomacy with the Taliban before July 2001 provoked the 9-11 attacks.
As for NASA, the REPUBLIKLAN Party does not have a good record on sending astronauts to space with 2 shuttles destroyed and 14 astronauts dead under their watch.
The Republiklan party does not appear to like science and math because it puts the lie to alot of their economic and social policy.
It appears unfortunate that we have to wait until the Republiklan party destroys America similar to what it did in 1929.
July 23rd, 2006 at 9:37 am#31, gregor,
Once again, you attack Crichton, and not his data, analysis and graphs. Urbanization does raise air temperature, since grass, trees and moist soil aren’t able to evaporate water to cool the air.
BTW, where are all those hurricanes you guys predicted? If the world is undergoing a global temp increase, why haven’t the hurricans been pouring in this year? The best you could muster is weeklong heatwave over middle America.
#38, LDPUSA,
Well, if we are assigning blame for bad things that happen during a presidential administration on the president, then I can assign the first WTC bombing, two embassy bombings, USS Cole bombing by Al Qieda, all on Clinton, who did NOTHING, but fire Tomahawk missles at one “training camp”, allowing Osama to get away and cause 9/11.
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:14 amIf we as citizens ever collectively come to our senses and do a massive task of housecleaning to restore our national luster and international standing, the job will be overwhelming.No agency, no policy can be overlooked, including NASA.
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:44 am#39 – Jason M. Hendler,
July 23rd, 2006 at 11:22 amThe jetstream is moving north this summer, cutting down on the mixing of cold and hot air just above the equator. The trend will lead to fewer cyclone-like disturbances (Excluding tornadoes which will become more common.) but will extend the deserts of the world significantly.
#41, Walt,
Ah, just what I thought – no global warming.
July 23rd, 2006 at 1:57 pm#42 – Jason M. Hendler,
July 23rd, 2006 at 2:08 pmRead the reference, global warming is the source of this movement. Unprecidented numbers of tornados in the northeast USA have the same origin.
If your representative is on the space committee, please call them up and ask how this nonsense is justifyable!
July 23rd, 2006 at 2:26 pmOnce again, you attack Crichton, and not his data, analysis and graphs.
Comment by Jason M. Hendler — July 23, 2006 @ 10:14 am
I am not attacking Crichton. I am highlighting his lack of proper credentials to issue any serious statement concerning global warming.
Once again, you fail to understand the importance of having professional qualifications on a particular field of expertise and choose Crichton’s uneducated opinion over the concensus in the scientific community -all of whom have the proper credentials.
Urbanization does raise air temperature, since grass, trees and moist soil aren’t able to evaporate water to cool the air.
And who is responsible for urbanisation? Angels? Extraterrestrials?
Even in this argument you choose to pursue, the cause of raising temperatures are humans.
BTW, where are all those hurricanes you guys predicted?
“you guys”? I though you were talking to me. Or are you responding to the voices in your head?
But since you bring it up, there is growing evidence that hurricanes are, indeed, getting stronger -although it is not conclusive. Check this link: Hurricanes and Global Warming – Q&A
If the world is undergoing a global temp increase, why haven’t the hurricans been pouring in this year? The best you could muster is weeklong heatwave over middle America.
So far, what scientists (you know, those who know what they are talking about) say is that global warming may have an impact on the frequency and strength of the hurricanes. That is a hypothesis that is being tested by gathering evidence.
Nobody as far as I know made a hard prediction on this issue. If you have links of a climate scientist making a prediction like that, please provide them.
July 23rd, 2006 at 5:00 pmIf your representative is on the space committee, please call them up and ask how this nonsense is justifyable!
Comment by Capt. Jean-Luc Pikachu — July 23, 2006 @ 2:26 pm
sir, that link did not go to anything about a “space committee”, but thank you for the story that it DID lead to:
Cheney uses Middle East disaster as campaign issue for Republicans
by John in DC – 7/22/2006 09:06:00 AM
I swear, there is no carnage, no mayhem, no disaster that the Republicans won’t try to turn around to their advantage. They ignore the Middle East, war erupts, they do nothing about it, and now Cheney is out there saying that this shows everyone should vote Republican. Uh huh.
So, why not help Cheney out. What other great issues should the Republicans run on this fall?
- Losing New Orleans
July 23rd, 2006 at 7:25 pm- Ignoring North Korea
- Botching Iraq
- Doing nothing about high gas prices
- Trying to privatize social security
- Screwing Alzheimers and Parkinsons patients by vetoing stem cell research
- Polluting the environment
- Breaking the budget
…
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/07/cheney-uses-middle-east-disaster-as.html
The best thing that we can do is that when the MSM ignores or underreports a story, we have to make sure that it doesn’t. From what I can see, so far so good.
As a community we can keep the story from getting swept under the rug, and help spread the word through online social networks and web sites like this one (and also more recently digg.com).
BTW, great comments by katy.
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:20 pmFor some reason lately, I seem to encounter difficulty when copying & pasting links. I am an idiot and I deeply apologize. The correct link for the House Space Committee: http://www.house.gov/science/committeeinfo/members/space/index.htm
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:58 pm[...] As reported in the New York Times and Think Progress, NASA has changed their Mission Statement to remove “to understand and protect our home planet.” This was ostensibly done to align it to Bush’s goals for space exploration. Of course it has nothing to do with global warming. That’d just be silly. [...]
July 24th, 2006 at 2:34 pm[...] The White House changed NASA’s mission statement. How? They removed “to understand and protect our home planet.†[...]
July 24th, 2006 at 4:58 pmIt seems it’s easier for Bush to make changes and ask for permission later.
September 8th, 2006 at 12:09 pmHow can we continue to allow such a limited person have such unlimited power?