NASA scientists are pissed because the Bush administration has oh-so-subtly changed NASA's mission statement so it doesn't include studying the earth anymore the NYT reports.

Anyway here's the before mission statement:

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.

And here's the after mission statement:

to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.

It sounds like George "Global Warming needs more study" Bush has decided one of the major scientific agencies capable of studying global climate should no longer study the earth. It's interesting because the first mission statement came from a Bush appointee in 2002 but only after consultation with scientists in the agency. This most recent change is more of a top-down executive decision without any consultation, probably having to do with Bush's idiotic idea of exploring Mars. As much as I like Nerd Trek, I'd much prefer NASA study ways to keep spaceship earth intact, rather than wasting billions on Bush's idiotic "man on Mars" idea.

The shift in language echoes a shift in the agency's budgets toward space projects and away from earth missions, a shift that began in 2004, the year Mr. Bush announced his vision of human missions to the Moon and beyond.

The "understand and protect" phrase was cited repeatedly by James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA who said publicly last winter that he was being threatened by political appointees for speaking out about the dangers posed by greenhouse gas emissions.

Didn't the NASA scientists get the memo that when Bush comes up with one of these idiotic ideas to distract people from the failure of his policies that he won't remember them a week later? Why did they even pay attention to his Mars babble? The guy has ADD, they should have just worked on it for a week, and shelved it once he forgot about it, like he forgot about hydrogen cars, caring about the poverty after Katrina, fixing our oil addiction, money for AIDS in Africa etc. In fact, a "Bush Promise" should become an expression synonmyous with a hollow or empty promise.