Space.com has an article with several mission ideas that may go nuclear and launch before JIMO. The idea is, if the technology works and is ready to roll, why wait until 2015 to launch JIMO when there are several other missions that could benefit from it.

I like the communication orbiter missions to the Moon and Mars, and the asteroid mission. Long term communication assets will be invaluable to future lander missions to both worlds, and any mission that hops from asteroid to asteroid, possibly even dropping landers, is a good idea to me. Call it Super-NEAR.

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...and we'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere; and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys...

That sounds good to me too. I think that understanding the structure and mineral resources on asteroids is one of the most valuable short-term things we could be doing right now.

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Forming opinions as we speak

The next generation communication project sounds most exciting. And given the enormous amounts of information we learned from the NEAR mission, doing another, improved version of that would be just as worth while.

Given the present situation in regards to funding for space research, with NASA having to stretch each of their precious dollars, I just cannot beleive the first suggestion was even suggested- "with no specific science goal or destination." ??? What on Earth (or 'any other non-specific planetary body', in their case) were they thinking?

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~ cogito cogito ergo cogito sum ~

Nothing in life is good nor bad; thinking makes it so.