David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
perlmand@sfgate.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/
1999/02/02/MN83437.DTL
To quote in part:
The agency's space science missions would be
financed with nearly $2.2 billion in the NASA budget
request. In NASA's ambitious prose, it would include
efforts to "solve mysteries of the universe, explore
the solar system, discover planets around other stars,
search for life beyond Earth."
Included in the space science ventures are a
half-dozen missions to analyze the icy dust of comets
that may be carrying the spores of living organisms.
There will be more missions to Jupiter, and especially
to its ice-encrusted moon Europa, where evidence
suggests a warm ocean may lie beneath the
fractured surface.
It's even possible, Goldin said, that one day NASA
would send a submarine to Europa to pick up
samples of that ocean water in another search for
long-hidden extraterrestrial life.
http://eis.jpl.nasa.gov/roadmap/site/missions/B/europa_lander_network.html
http://www.mae.cornell.edu/classes/europa/
http://www2.astrobiology.com/astro/europa/ice.clipper.html
...
In Mountain View yesterday, the Ames Research
Center's "delighted" director, Henry McDonald, said
NASA's budget proposals include an allocation of
$625 million for Ames, with $150 million of that
devoted to the new Astrobiology Institute, which
coordinates research at 11 universities and NASA
centers into the origin of life and its existence
elsewhere in the universe.
http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/home.html