What are your thoughts on NASA and their mission statement?
The agency's current mission statement calls on the agency “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”
It doesn't matter because it is a political agency. The only slogan that matters is "Thou shalt not embarrass the director!" Exploration involves people dying, and that embarrasses the director, so that is why there isn't any exploration any more, except by robots.
Something that people find difficult to understand is that there is no connection between "aeronautics" and "space". But the space program's beginnings were dominated by weather people, so that is why rocket scientists all use Earthly weather terms to describe observations in space. For instance, shock waves only exist in an atmosphere, but scientists talk about shock waves in space without a thought. (Literally, they talk without thinking.) A magnetic field does not have "lines of force", but scientists glibly talk about lines breaking and reconnecting, and even flapping in the solar wind. (There is no wind in space. They are talking about charged particles expelled from the sun.)
Here is a forum provided for people to discuss astronomy pictures published by NASA. Notice rule 15: discussion of alternative theories, the definition of science, is specifically forbidden. asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26696 (NOT https)
