Hasta La Ideas

WAY late on this, but last week Alex posted a great piece on the necessity of NASA’s role “to understand and protect our home planet.” Here’s the sweet spot:

Here’s one of the best small, free ways I can think of for America to signal that change: restore NASA’s mission statement of service.

See, back in the dark ages of 2006, Bush hacks in NASA censored the space agency’s mission statement. It had been “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 next thing we knew, the “understand and protect our home planet” part was cut, implying that NASA has no legitimate role in applying science to the planet’s problems.

That should change. Indeed, we should go farther, explicitly adding two key ideas which have always been part of its scientific mission: duty to the future and to the benefit of all humanity.

I think the mission statement should read, “To understand and protect our home planet for the benefit of all humanity; to explore the universe and search for life; to prepare for the future and to inspire the next generation of explorers.”

And now that a few days have passed, you get the benefit of the comments. Our favorite? “One small sentence from a man. A giant step for mankind!” Too easy!

Hey: Don’t forget to check out Designing for Space: Core77 visits NASA’s Industrial Design Team, by Glen Jackson Taylor.

(more…)