Nasa should 'focus energy on new £1bn telescope to find alien planets'.

A billion pound space telescope that can see dark matter and can identify Earth-like planets should be Nasa’s priority over the next decade, a panel of influential scientists said.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7948050/Nasa-should-focus-energy-on-new-1bn-telescope-to-find-alien-planets.html

I might be remotely sarcastic here, but do you think the panel of "influential scientists" would include any of the researchers who would be given the $1B grant for the research?

I'm pretty sure, given the restriction of life-saving cancer drugs to patients because they are too costly, there might be better public areas to spend the money than to see if alien planets are out there!