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In solar system exploration we do not build and launch an expensive spacecraft and then decide where we want to go and what we want to do when we get there! Also we do not want to be answering scientific questions that could be more easily and less expensively done from groundbased facilities, laboratories or a researcher's office. Planetary research programs provide the foundation upon which our nation's solar system exploration program is built. Having committed to the robotic exploration of the solar system, these programs are the 'homework' we do to determine what we can learn about the population, history, and processes ongoing elsewhere in order to identify those problems that can be best and most cost-effectively addressed by actually going there. Planetary research programs also provide the critical context within which we learn from the data sent back by our spacecraft and leverage additional knowledge from it. Far more than from the immediate splash of new pictures and press releases, it is here that the tax-payer reaps the benefit on their investment in our robotic exploration program. Just like an engineer will wring out a new car engine on a race track, planetary scientists take our understanding and models of how atmospheres work, how geological processes are manifest, how things move, what kind of impact and radiation environment we live in, and endless other questions that have practical consequences when applied to our everyday lives, and wring them out on the race track of the solar system - using spacecraft, groundbased telescopes, laboratories and paper and pencil in an office. These programs are also a principal source of funding for training graduate students and postdoctoral scientists. They allow us to maintain the critical skills and capabilities to continue American leadership in solar system exploration. |