Pluto Mission Approved

JimPooley writes "The BBC are reporting here that a budget of $30 million has been approved by the US House and Senate conference committee to develop the mission to Pluto. They also agreed to fully fund future missions to Mars, and gave the go-ahead for a probe to orbit Europa."

Pluto's great but Europa's better!

[wnknisely]

Delighted space scientists have hailed the approval of missions to Pluto and Jupiter's moon Europa, on which there could be life.

As exciting as the news is that we're finally going to try to hook up with Pluto - the idea that we're going to look more closely at Europa is probably going to be more important scientifically in the long run.

Assume Pluto is just a particularly large denizen of the Kuiper belt - interesting primarily because of its close relationship with Charon, an object roughly its size... We can see something like this basically anytime we get a comet in our neighborhood.

Europa, on the other hand, if it truly has liquid H20 under that ice on the surface might well be the best near candidate for life in the solar system.

I figure if life can survive at the sulfer vents deep in the mid-ocean trenches, Europa should be a relative sure bet.

If there is life - and it isn't terribly similar to ours, then we win (life is likely in the Universe, and the Copernican principle is upheld). If there is life - and it's similar to terrestial life - then we have good support for a pan-spermia theory and we can get off our duffs and start looking harder for other life in the Universe.

Excellent news.