Kepler space telescope, or how to spend $600 million

This is about a millions times kewler of a way to spend $600 million dollars than this (Okay, admittedly development and purchases of the latter is more in the $2 Billion+ range, but ... you understand what I'm getting at.)

See also here. and/or here.

I'm totally convinced *finding* a for sure earth like planet will drive the search for FTL.  But I've probably read too much science fiction.