Challenges:
Improved methods of actually communicating instead of just talking back and forth
Finding relevant information in a pile of crap (I'm not opposed to having the net full of crap, I just want a way of not wasting my own time on it).
Locating authoritative sources other than self-proclaimed experts. Any time you have an open discussion forum, obscurantists are going to set up a soap box and megaphone, because, you know, like, everything they have to say is, like, you know, all wise and stuff.
Methods of cross-checking or otherwise verifying information
Improved pedagogical delivery and environments
Instrumentation (i.e. measuring stuff, real data means we don't have to accept the obvious revealed "truths" proffered by the philosophical pontificators)
Better HCI (human-computer interfaces)
It's not clear to me that we need to look at these as missions, per se. The kinds of activities that these things support are things that people have always tried to do, but it was always more difficult. The technology is just enabling stuff that we have always wanted to do.
