Earth science debate notes

A couple of quick notes about the debate on the deletion of the reference to planet Earth in NASA’s mission statement: in a comment in earlier post on the topic, Oliver Morton provides an excerpt of an editorial in last week’s issue of Nature that is critical of the move. (It is also perhaps the first time, and hopefully the last time, that a Nature editorial makes use of scenes from Superman III.) Also last week the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT), sent a letter to NASA expressing their “deep concern about the recent elimination of the phrase ‘to understand and protect our home planet’ from NASA’s mission statement”. The letter concludes that the senators are willing to work with NASA “to ensure NASA’s continued contributions to the understanding and protection of our planet”, although one suspects that Sen. Lieberman in particular is a little preoccupied at the moment…