And I thought my to-do list was long... For those not suffering from feline-induced insomnia and trolling the InterGoogles for news,1 NASA has its marching orders thanks to a new report, "Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022."

The National Academy of Science's National Research Council formed a Committee on the Planetary Science Decadal Survey reviewed the status of planetary science in the U.S. and developed a comprehensive strategy to continue those advances in the coming decade.2 Top of list are bringing back sedimentary rocks from Mars (instead of those useless igneous ones), an in-depth exploration of Jupiter's moon Europa (apparently Voyager and Galileo were slackers and left too many questions unanswered), and, sure to spawn endless jokes, exploring and probing Uranus.3 Saturn and Jupiter, the gas giants, are old hat, but the ice giants Uranus and Neptune are "one of the great remaining unknowns in the solar system." After assessing the two, the committee considered Uranus the "favored" one.

The various missions outlined in the report were selected using four criteria: science return per dollar, programmatic balance, technological readiness and availability of trajectory opportunities.

From what I've read so far, the report is actually readable and interesting. I'll follow up in 2022 and let you know how NASA did.

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1 Here's a fun game you can play in the wee hours of the night: set up a timer next to your bed. When 16 pounds of furry kitty love and happiness jumps on your head while you are in a dead sleep because he wants to play, see how long it takes for your heart to resume normal rhythm. Or, how long it takes you to give up on getting back to sleep.
2 See the report here.
3 Not gonna lie, I laughed when I read this. You know that NASA is just waiting in dread for the ensuing late-night talk show jokes to start. "Hey, let's bury this as the third objective and maybe people won't get that far and see it!"