How to Fix It: Get NASA Back on Mission

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nasa‘s mission statement used to 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 Feb 2006, it was altered to delete ‘to understand and protect our home planet.’ Addressing environmental issues such as climate change was reduced substantially as a research priority. As a result of a major shift in priorities toward space exploration, nasa has been forced to cancel, delay, or descope nearly all of its planned Earth and weather satellite missions. Satellites are critical for monitoring climate change, producing weather forecasts—hurricanes in particular—and monitoring hazards such as floods and wildfires.”

Read an extended interview with Judith Curry about the Bush legacy here.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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