of course you need a good proposition to get fundings. And my question is retorical more than anything.
I just find it disturbing when I read assumptions that life is more probable in certain conditions rather than others...
Heck, I have a picture of a tiny little green plant growing on a field of black lava rocks... where life shouldn't be possible. That picture just reminds me how little we really know and how hypocrit it is to assume that life only happens in other circumstances.
I guess I really don't believe in the word "Impossible".
It was impossible for a Giant planet to be forming and orbiting closest to its star... well it looks like we where wrong.
Also, we don't need to go to Europa to find extra terrestial life... we hardly looked at all in closer (cheaper) planets/satellites.
The race to the moon is just a political showoff competition... until they start building something over there to push us further deeper in space exploration... but yet we still get all the fundings for that mission....

serendipity

that's what we all hope for afterall.... like the mission to Titan had a little taste of it... we where not too sure what we would end up finding there... and we still did go... and I think the picture of those methane rivers are worth 1000 words...