He was too weak to travel to California last week for the announcement of the mission's first big success -- the discovery of planet Kepler-22b, a rock with similarities to Earth and a sweet-spot distance from its star that creates temperatures and other conditions that could support life. "From what we have measured so far, we say water could exist. We don't say it's there," Koch said, tempering my excitement over when we get to meet our new neighbors... Doctors made the ALS diagnosis in March 2009, the same month a rocket carried the Kepler telescope into space to begin...