To me, this mission has the greatest potential for truly advancing space science of anything we've seen in a while: direct measurements of extrasolar planets.

I'm really pumped about this launch. Let's keep our fingers crossed that everything goes okay. It could truly change at a gut level the average man's view of how he fits into the universe.

Agreed, this is the best project in a while that might not necessarily produce amazing scientific results (I think theres a lot more projects on earth that will reveal more about the universe, namely the LHC), however this will potentially change how everyone sees space science again.

I mean this has the potential to bring funding to space agencies like landing on the moon did. This could finally bring the money into the space agencies that they can do both science and manned missions, not one or the other.

IMO all the knowledge of the universe is useless if humanity is never going to get out of our dirt wallow and explore it. Not to mention, avoiding the whole cataclysmic failure of our planet will be a plus.

I hope this doesn't fall back to Earth like the carbon observatory did.