SpaceBanter.com - View Single Post - NASA declines to protect the Planet Earth

**Brad Guth[_1_]**

Phil Hays wrote:
wrote:

NASA is an arm of the executive branch of the federal govenment of the
USA. No more or less so than, say, the army. The army doesn't "decide
to invade Iraq" -- everybody would recognize this statement as
ridiculous. And neither does NASA "decide to build a space station" or
"fly shuttles" or any such thing.

Why do people think that these are reasonable claims to make?

NASA does whatever *congress* and *the White House* decide to do. If
the White House decides tomorrow that NASA should build the next
generation toilet brush, then that is what NASA is going to do.

I suspect that if the President told the army to spend all of it's
efforts on building a "next generation toilet brush", a lot of people
would be scared/mad/upset. And rightly so.

The previous administration thought NASA was a great thing to use to
study, monitor, understand and protect our own planet.

This isn't just a change from the previous administration. The 1958
mission statement included "the expansion of human knowledge of the
earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space."

One reason to go up is to look down.

--
Phil Hays

But now it's all a big ass lie, isn't it.
-
Brad Guth