Hello, Alex.

Please note my careful choice of the words: "seems to be a 'go'"

Excellent article by Mr. Moomaw. He covered all important issues very well. I liked his take on Mercury (I've often thought the same) and the points he made on astrobiology, KBO's, etc... excellent!

Saw this piece toward the bottom of that page:

[whether to launch a Pluto flyby mission in the near future (so that it can utilize a gravity-assist flyby of Jupiter to be confident of reaching Pluto before the imminent freeze-out of the planet's thin air as it moves farther away from the Sun on its eccentric orbit ), or to delay it in favor of first launching a much more expensive and technically sophisticated mission to orbit Europa in preparation for later biological studies of that Jovian moon, thus very likely giving up the last chance for 250 years to study Pluto's atmosphere, as well as to see a good deal of its surface which is starting to fall into 125-year-long continual shadow due to the planet's greatly tilted spin axis.]

I know, it's now an old battle, but honestly, both missions becon and are important, but the flight to Pluto takes precedence doesn't it: Opportunity and time.

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That said, the Plutophiles (aka Pluto Underground, which includes myself) will probably be fighting hard to lobby for this mission in the coming months.

Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii

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Strength and eloquence to you, Alex.

Marcia