The New York Times reports that NASA quietly revised their mission statement in February this year. Where previously their 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 agency has revised their mission as just “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

The latest change win the mission statement as implemented without the knowledge of its employees, in contrast to the mission statement revision in 2002, where the line “to understand and protect our home planet” was added in an open process with NASA scientists and employees.