chimps in space

You know me, I always got beef with NASA. They officially no longer seek to understand or protect Earth. WHAT! Wouldn't that be the equivalent to the S.F.P.D. suddenly dropping the "protect and serve" gig and releasing a statement they our tax dollars will go directly into the public servant's donut fund? Something's fishy and I don't like it.

From ThinkProgress:

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.”

Until this year, NASA’s mission statement 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.” The new, Bush-approved mission has “to understand and protect our home planet” deleted and replaced with “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.” Hmmm...so much for saving the planet. Fuck the home planet! That's SO last century!

We are supposed to be inspired by this arm of the gubbament, who spend our taxes in their secret labs making robots like Johnny #5 so that Bush and Co. can have their animatronic cleaning ladies all lined up for the post-Rapture years, when all the rich white men live on Mars. Quietly, the President protects all the nation's American flags, man-woman marriages, and oh yes, the future of Mars. Meanwhile, record high temperatures continue to blaze n' scorch innocent lil' old ladies around the country and global warming is still just a theory. Ho hum.