I'm back from the Europa Focus Group meeting... Options

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I wouldn't say it was my FAVORITE hobbyhorse; just my favorite one where the NH flyby of Jupiter is concerned. Yeah, I've abandoned it. (I'm also backing away from two of my much bigger Europa hobbyhorses simultaneously, in case you didn't notice -- although I haven't quite given up on either of those. I am not, however, going to back away from my belief that NASA should be "balkanized", as you put it, and that space-science spending should then compete on an equal level with other types of governmentally funded science spending. Cost effectiveness is cost effectiveness.)

Orlando, by the way, agrees with Spencer that the salts in Europa's ice are "flash-frozen" and therefore amorphous in structure, rather than crystalline. I don't think Dalton had anything to say one way or the other.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

There's a short description (and external picture) of the Icy Moons Impactor (aka the "Bowling Ball lander") at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/jimo2003/pdf/9043.pdf .