NASA Drops Earth from Mission

An article by Andrew Revkin in today's New York Times starts: "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." I am very sorry to learn of this. It's another sign of an administration with little respect for science or reality. Because the reality is that looking down on Earth is the most precious fruit of the American space program, its most practical and arguably its most interesting payoff.