 Why was the mission of the Pandora initially referred to as a “fool’s errand”?
They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settled unevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed to be restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years from the waiting hordes on Earth. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmen in the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for training as cadets on their twelfth birthday. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of deep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any sign of Hennessy. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, and Gwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back.
 The crew hadn’t found anything new or dangerous.
 The original exploration party had already reported back about the planet.  They had already learned everything they could about the blobs.  They had found Hennessy’s crew.  The crew hadn’t found anything new or dangerous.