nasa next mission
You can think of NASA's Discovery program as a sort of outer-space American Idol: every few years the agency invites scientists to propose unmanned planetary missions. The projects have to address some sort of fundamental science question, and (this is the tough part) they have to be relatively cheap to pull off - say, half a billion dollars or so. Then the proposals go through a grueling competition before judges who aren't as nasty as Simon Cowell but who are every bit as tough. The one left standing at the end gets the equivalent of a recording contract: NASA supplies the funding and the launch vehicle, and away the winner goes - to orbit Mercury, as the Messenger spacecraft is doing right now; or to rendezvous with a couple of asteroids, as the Dawn mission will start doing this July; or to smash into a comet on purpose, a feat achieved by Deep Impact in 2005, a mission not to be confused with the movie of the same name.
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