Hello, Robert.

I had typed a nice compact response on this yesterday, only to find that after I hit 'post', I had been disconnected from the net. :( I thought that maybe our DSL service had hit overload from all the women on line while the guys were watching the superbowl.

Anyways, yes, absolutely a petition is a good idea... they worked for the Pluto-Kuiper Express mission and maybe even Galileo's last flyby of Io (it's the principle that counted in that last and unfortunate that that flyby had hardware problems.... I still hope that they were able to retrieve some data/pics).

I remember seeing somewhat larger versions of robotics in mind to retrieve Martian soil/rocks and even atmosphere to bring back to Earth for study. Maybe those two could also be combined to save time, dollars and fuel.

Cheers,

Marcia