Topic: Solar System showdown

[sam]

Steve Squyres, the indefatigable principal investigator for NASA's Mars rover missions, sells the seductive charms of the red planet better than just about anyone. But as chairman of the planetary science decadal survey, a US National Academies study that will decide on NASA's Solar System mission priorities for 2013–22, he has to play a different part: that of the dispassionate and disinterested pan-planetarian.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100706/full/466168a.html

[Clive]

I think Mars is the more important solar system object to explore.  Europa can keep for a future generation. 

[sam]

boo. I want Europa, sounds more fun. Then again, spacecraft are becoming cheaper and cheaper... they should send more probes like Spirit those things rock.

[Clive]

Yes indeed!  But you should live to see a Europa probe.   

[sam]

you'd have hoped so.