Jeff F. wrote:
I'm fully aware and up to snuff on the time line on technology development, I do it here at Nasa for a living. I know we won't be launching Nuclear spacecraft next year nor 5 years from now, but we have to start somewhere, it has to happen and if it means a sacrificial lamb, so be it.

Alex writes:
Oh, now I get it. You're in "technology development" so delaying a high priority science mission, which can be flown with current technology, for this purpose is OK. So your "sacrificial lamb" comment has less to do with objective merits than protecting and enhancing your own niche? Frankly, that sounds more than a little hypocritical and a lot like the criticism you've been levelling about the planetary scientists who are fighting to save New Horizons. Look, we fly "science" missions first and foremost to collect "science", not as technology demonstrators.

Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii