It won't be as cool as Pluto-Kuiper Express would've been, but at least we're still going to Pluto. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> I love robotic space exploration. It stretches our horizons so far beyond what we're used to. It'll be hard waiting all those years while New Horizons cruises out to Pluto, but it'll be well worth the wait.<br /><br />There will be exciting things to watch for in the intervening years, however. In 2011, MESSENGER will become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, after its own very long cruise and multiple gravity assists to drop its orbit down. There should also be new rovers on Mars this decade, and of course Cassini won't finish it's primary mission until 2008 -- which means we can reasonably expect it to still be studying the Saturn system throughout the rest of the decade. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>