According to NASA's website: NASA's mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.
Maybe NASA needs to update its website. According to NASA administrator Charles Bolden there's a new mission (my emphasis):
When I became the NASA Administrator — before I became the NASA Administrator — [Obama] charged me with three things: One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.
Foremost? Is this a joke? Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be:
“NASA is not only a space exploration agency,” Bolden concluded, “but also an earth improvement agency.”
Earth improvement agency. How a person who could come up with that dopey statement made it to the top of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration is beyond me. But he gets his orders from the president, the poster child for the Peter Principle.
Maybe Obama thinks the rocket attacks on Israel count as "historic contributions to science". Maybe Muslims will promise not to fly any more planes into our buildings if we let them play astronaut.
Maybe we'll survive President Barack Hussein Obama.