The Planetary Society reports:
Representative John Culberson, an 8-term Texas Republican and staunch supporter of NASA and planetary exploration, lost his re-election bid to Democrat Lizzie Fletcher last week. Many factors played into this outcome, but one bears consideration by space advocates: his support for the scientific search for life at Europa was seen as a weakness and attacked accordingly.
Over the past four years, Culberson used his chairmanship of the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) appropriations subcommittee to increase spending on NASA and missions to search for life on Europa. He directed hundreds of millions of dollars to this effort and played a critical role in getting the Europa Clipper mission officially adopted by NASA and the White House. And he did this without cannibalizing other NASA programs. His motivation was passion, not parochialism, as the prime benefactor of these federal dollars was California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located far outside his Houston-area congressional district.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday November 19 2018, @03:21AM
There may actually be more proof of action at Enceladus.
Hydrogen Emitted by Enceladus, More Evidence of Plumes at Europa [soylentnews.org]
Complex Organic Molecules Found on Enceladus [soylentnews.org]
Europa Plume Sites Lack Expected Heat Signatures [soylentnews.org] (you subbed this one)
The icy crust of Enceladus is supposed to be thinner [arstechnica.com] than that of Europa, which could make it easier to drill through, and easier for it to spew plumes.
On the other hand, Europa's surface is smoother. Europa has a lot more mass then Enceladus, which could provide more material for life to work with.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]