Crunch time for NASA

Image(s) of the Day: Pluto or Pluto and Charon
Term of the Day: Kuiper Belt and Astronomical Unit


NASA administrators, working under the latest presidential directive to broaden exploration efforts in our Solar System, are trying to determine the best course of action.
At stake are missions to several interesting Jovian moons; Scientists theorize Europa and Io are hiding environments that support some form of life, albeit most likely microbial, but we'll never know if we don't go.
Also under consideration are missions to the "outer planets", resting comfortably in the Kuiper Belt. Scientists disagree whether these celestial bodies are actually planets, or just big chunks of rock and ice bound together by gravity and locked into a wide orbit around the Sun. There is very little light that far out and very little hope any of these bodies harbor life. But they might hold much more.
Hidden in the Kuiper Belt could be a giant chunk of water ice, a planet of Dark Matter, or possibly something we haven't even thought of yet.
That's the best part about exploration: Christopher Columbus was stoked not to sail off the edge of the world, but he was even more excited at the sight of a new land mass. (Not that we should follow in the footsteps of an explorer who's actions led to the decimation of an entire culture within his lifetime, but you get the point.)
Our Solar System is a big place, full of wonders we have yet to imagine. Let's hope the findings of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board are seriously considered, so we can first figure out what mission we want to do, and then successfully accomplish that mission in the most cost effective and productive way.