[X] My Assistant

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

...that is, the Nov. 2-4 meeting of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Lunar and Planetary Exploration which advises NASA on mission selection, to do a print article on it for "Astronomy" magazine.

The meeting's agenda is at http://www4.nas.edu/webcr.nsf/MeetingDispl...-D?OpenDocument ; it looks extremely interesting. Anyone have anything they'd especially like me to ask about while I'm there?

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I'm back, and I do have news. I'd tell it to you all now, but unfortunately I'd have to kill you. (Either that or give up my $1500 from "Astronomy" -- and if murder is necessary for me to retain that, I am not going to let mere squeamishness stand in my way.)

I WILL say that the biggest news is that the first post-Griffin architecture for the Mars program was revealed, and that it has some intriguing changes which seem, at least to me, to make eminent sense -- although one lesser point puzzles me. There were quite a few other lesser tidbits, too -- some of which you can see for yourselves in the report from the OPAG October meeting, which was released while I was at the COMPLEX meeting ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/oct_05_meetin...ting_report.pdf ). As for the other stuff, I'll see whether I can safely leak any of it to you over the next few days. It contains at least two new scandals, but all in all the planetary exploration program seems to me to be adjusting pretty well to the new funding limitations. The fact that NASA now actually has an administrator with a 3-digit IQ has doubtless helped.

Meanwhile, I see that Hayabusa screwed up its practice landing (for reasons which JAXA has not yet seen fit to tell us), and that the PFS on Mars Express has been fixed (a pleasant surprise; I only heard a fuzzy rumor that the situation had "improved" while I was at the meeting). I can also safely tell you right now that there will be very interesting results from MARSIS released at the Fall AGU meeting -- I can tell you this because we weren't told anything else about those results.