The point is this.
I predict that Kepler shows that Earthlike worlds are found around say roughly 1 in a thousand stars. Kepler Earthlike means roughly Earth sized planet, not a Jovian, orbiting it's star at a distance allowing liquid water.
Since TPF can only image/detect out to MAYBE 50LY, and there are roughly 80 F5-K2 stars in that sphere, therefore the odds of TPF detecting an Earth will be near ZERO. The TPF program therefore will NOT GET FUNDED. The $2Billion will get spent elsewhere as scientists favoring THEIR missions shoot TPF down as totally unlikely to succeed. The public support for TPF finding Earths will evaporate once the futility is known. This has nothing to do with a NASA administrator's enthusiasm for the mission.
-philw
Space/Science » in reply to Why the TPF Mission May Never Fly
Missed the point I was making