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However you will suffer four times as many failures, unless you push the reliability of the design further into 9's. But if you do that then the cost rises... See, there is an optimal design which minimizes the cost and risk, given your priorities. And one-seater is not it. Read more detailed analysis of this issue.

Of course seating one person has it's problems- we probably don't have a rocket that small anymore, so you have to build a smaller rocket.

This is not quite correct. The size of the vehicle depends largely on features such as life support, avionics, engines etc. You can not fly to LEO in a telephone booth (unless you are The Doctor :-)

Read this to find out what knowledgeable people think about the "Smaller Shuttle" idea.

There is an interesting article here that discusses the use of either the OSP or a Soyuz capsule for Hubble maintenance. It would seem like a reasonable proposal, but it probably ain't gonna happen for political and "NASA cultural" reasons

I know that the plane that just made the Atlantic crossing carried 1 gallon of fuel - not sure of the exact weight of a gallon of this fuel, but I imagine that the extra fuel required for a full circumnavigation would pretty much necessitate that the weight exceeded 11 lbs given today's technology. To circumnavigate the globe with an 11 lbs. plane pretty much at this point I think would be an excercise in aerodynamic and propulsion efficiency, or maybe even lightweight materials engineering, not in the technology of autonomous flight and navigation.

On the other hand - if they could adhere to the weight limits by doing autonomous mid-air refuelings, I'd be VERY impressed.

If you want to ignore weight limits, then you get into things like Global Hawk, which successfully flew across the Pacific on its own two years ago. Since Voyager proved that its possible to carry enough fuel to make the trip, it would just be a matter of combining the technologies.

Wouldn't it be great if Shenzhou-5 had a few "undisclosed capabilities" such as planetary landings, and the Chinese decided to shock the world and be the first to Mars. For all of you out there that know more than I about the hardware needed, distances involved and the orbital mechanics of it, would this be within the realm of possibility?

A quick search turned up this article. TECSTAR claims 26.1% efficiency 5 years ago....

According to spacedaily.com the American contestants are having trouble with overwhelming paperwork concerning FAA regulations based on the 100-year old aviation industry. Therefore a coalition of businesses, customers, public interest organizations, and public policy experts have joined together to call on Congress for a clear and stable regulatory environment for suborbital flights to take place.

I found some other older articles discussing the report authors work on-line:
here,
here,
here,
and here.
Looks like they tried to debunk the CO2 theory first, and then they came up with the cosmic ray idea.

While the extra weight of the pies will make lift-off more difficult, these same pies will come into their own when achieving a cushioned landing due to the little-known lard-arse effect.

This will allow for safe landings without the expense and extra testing of a parachute, by the simple principle of landing on a large, well-padded Northern arse.

Although the Americans have 'burger' technology, it is far less advanced in the creation of large, cushioned arses than the well established suet pastry technology of the North.

Even the use of pizzas will not allow the US to leapfrog our specially trained Northern astronauts in this vital space race.

Didn't Voyager and Galileo take advantage of the solar wind to get way out there in a short time?

No (human) spacecraft to date has used the solar wind for propulsion - the solar sail is the only realistic mechanism for doing so, and that's never actually been tried (there was to have been a test of the Cosmos 1 couple of years ago but it suffered a launch failure).

It's actually quite impressive, though our local rocketeer (see link) looks to be a bit ahead of these guys.

Why not send the expendable humans instead?
Oh, wait, it turns out that Lance Bass can't actually afford the ticket. Nevermind

--

I read this op-ed piece and thought much the same as others have stated here - the author is pretty much right-on, and I hope NASA gets the message. There has been far to much "science uber alles" at NASA the last couple of decades, when in reality the reason for humans in space in the small numbers we have done up to now is so we can prepare for humans in space in much larger numbers in the future.

Two recent statements I think are relevant to this discussion NASA must adopt an economic development mindset at SpaceDaily, and a new Space Transportation Policy from the Space Frontier Foundation. It's past time to shake some things up in the US space program...

Well, according to at least one scientist, it is.

You definitely should've mentioned Scandinavia being way ahead of US technologically. Those robot vacuum cleaners are available in all major stores here. Nordea used to be world's largest e-bank for several years in a row (and has been pioneering in real life Internet payment systems). I really haven't used cash money at all during the past 2 years. Cell phone network coverage is 100% here. Public transportation system just works (and applies cool technology, such as smart cards, SMS tickets, natural gas buses, automatic route planning, ultra-high speed electrical trains, freely available bikes, GSM coverage in the subway). Someone already mentioned CPUs in washing machines, but tell you what; we have CPUs even in the kitchen sink. We've had an official citizen's electronic ID (smart card, certificate) for a few years. Theres's tunnel for cross-country skiing enthusiasts.
We're planning to build more nuclear power.

Yes, Americans have bigger houses, cheaper gas, longer distance to closest neighbour and stuff, but that these things can hardly be considered as technological advances.

I completety agree with you on the better quality of life in most parts of Western Europe.

If anybody's interested, here's some more links:

Discovery Channel
Sky News
Space Daily
Voice of America
BBC News

Currently everyone is afraid of US hegemony.

The driving force between the Chinese space program is the fear of US dominance. It's in their interest (and in the interest of everyone else) that no single nation has significantly more power than others; that means world wide and concerning a small region.

That's why China sold the nukes to Pakistan. One nation being significantly more powerful than everyone around them is a recipe for instability and desaster. It's the same axiom by which the US and Israel governments act as well, when they give Taiwan weapons or access to espionage satellites.

The only detail that is not obvious about this is why the world has let the US become so dominant in the first place. Maybe because there was nobody powerful enough to stop them?

Currently everyone is afraid of US hegemony.

The driving force between the Chinese space program is the fear of US dominance. It's in their interest (and in the interest of everyone else) that no single nation has significantly more power than others; that means world wide and concerning a small region.

That's why China sold the nukes to Pakistan. One nation being significantly more powerful than everyone around them is a recipe for instability and desaster. It's the same axiom by which the US and Israel governments act as well, when they give Taiwan weapons or access to espionage satellites.

The only detail that is not obvious about this is why the world has let the US become so dominant in the first place. Maybe because there was nobody powerful enough to stop them?

Currently everyone is afraid of US hegemony.

The driving force between the Chinese space program is the fear of US dominance. It's in their interest (and in the interest of everyone else) that no single nation has significantly more power than others; that means world wide and concerning a small region.

That's why China sold the nukes to Pakistan. One nation being significantly more powerful than everyone around them is a recipe for instability and desaster. It's the same axiom by which the US and Israel governments act as well, when they give Taiwan weapons or access to espionage satellites.

The only detail that is not obvious about this is why the world has let the US become so dominant in the first place. Maybe because there was nobody powerful enough to stop them?

Along these lines, SpaceDaily carries an excellent opinion piece today: "The Failure of NASA: And A Way Out"

Here's the theme: NASA's human space flight efforts have been going downhill since the end of the big Apollo budget bubble (1966) and need to be replaced by an agency that concentrates on enabling private sector human space flight.

Best quote: " After wasting three decades (and a perfectly good Cold War), frustrating the dreams of a whole generation of space enthusiasts, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars, NASA's net achievement is a space station that has no definable purpose except to serve as a destination for shuttle flights.

We would not need the shuttle missions if we did not have the station, and we would not need the station if we did not need something for the shuttles to do. The entire human spaceflight program has thus become an exercise in futility."

I take this with a grain of salt: There's money to be made, maybe, doing things in LEO and on the moon, but we'll still need someone to fund and operate the necessary but unprofitable initial human explorations of the planets. An analogy might be drawn to the efforts directed by Prince Henry the Navigator.

While you can easily do this sort of research yourself with an obscure tool known as "Google", I'll help you.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/011004/011004-8.html
http://www.sciencenews.org/20020323/bob9.asp
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2001/split/558-2 .html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/blackhole-01b.html

These reputable enough? They're all on the first page of results when searching for "large hadron collider" "black hole".

You shouldn't judge a newspaper by its name; the Christian Science Monitor is actually one of the best English language papers there is, and in my experience, their science reporting is much better than average.

Here is some info about dark matter and extra dimensions.

With regards to "There's also an interesting piece on testimony given by the first Shuttle program manager.", the author of this op ed is well known for wanting to scrap all human in space activities. This should be considered when reading the article.

One of the problems with current situation is that craft seem to be designed by committee according to specifications drafted by politicians eager to bring to their districts as much business as possible (and line their own pockets with 'campaign contributions'). Efficiency, cost and (unless people die and it hits the news) safety do not seem to be important.

The rest of this post is mostly about launching satelites, but it probably also applies to manned launches.

Another problem is that of economics. There currently aren't enough launches per year to allow economy of scale to play any role. If, for instance, one were to design, build and launch a particular booster type twice weekly for three years (ca. 300 launches total), the unit cost would be a lot lower than if that same booster type were launched every other month (18 launches or so) or even monthly (36 launches) over the same period. The former case makes an assembly line affordable, the latter would not. The higher schedule would also allow more opportunities to test and phase in new equipment like electronics, pumps and engines.

A (somewhat extreme) example of this can be found in the history of the World War II A4 missile, better known as the V2. At peak production it is estimated that the Mittelwerke produced hundreds of the things, even under wartime conditions. Of those launched, about 80% worked as designed. Without bombing and slave labor and with better materials, quality control and manufacturing methods, mass-building a booster capable of lofting 2 tons or more to low orbit for under $4 million apiece and with a success rate of 95% or better should be quite possible. Since it isn't designed for maximum throw weight (like an ICBM) somewhat cheaper (and heavier) materials can be used to keep costs down. More on the V2's history and its application to modern launches can be found at this location. Cheers, Coward

Until it gets there and works, we don't know that your fisrt sentence necessarily leads to your second. The fact they built it at greater cost and with a much more lavish set of features may mean that one simple problem could be devastating, whereas the cheaper model at least might spread the risk around by sending several more task-specific probes. To wit:

...the European Space Agency admitted a serious and embarrassing problem due to a a glaring design error which no one had caught during years of design reviews and ground tests.

It now turns out that the Huygens data receiver on Cassini isn't properly adjusted to the Doppler change in the frequency of Huygens' received signal caused by the fact that Cassini will be barreling toward Titan (and Huygens) at over 21,000 km per hour during its listening period.

-- Space Daily March 21, 2001

For those loathing to click on msnbc, here is a less Microsoft-profiting and more insightful article at space daily:

Pushing "wrong button" may have caused Soyuz space landing error

The head of the Energiya Space Corporation Yury Semenov said that all possible causes of the inaccurate landing were being examined.

"We must examine all causes. ... There was a version (of events) that (flight commander) Nikolai Budarin pushed a button on the control panel," he told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Go figger...the events to follow should be interesting.

Except NASA is forbidden, by law, from doing this.

I'd heard this several times, but this is the only current reference to the law I can find (see the fourth and fifth paragraphs). Here is an older article about the restriction before it was passed.

Well, sounds like someone might actually build a spacecraft. Scaled Composites has designed a sub-orbital spacecraft launched from the belly of the plane. It is in testing now. They're trying to win the $10 million X-prize, by builing a re-usable spacecraft that can send three people to space (100km) and return them safely. Looks like a neat design, and these guys are for real. Passengers would have a 5-minute micro-gravity environment during the flight. Sounds really cool. Space.com has an excellent write-up.

In other news, the Columbia investigation continues, and Space Daily has a real good (but long) write-up.

But NASA soldiers on. They have 2 Mars missions scheduled for this summer, plus the launch of SIRTF (infra-red telescope), which was recently delayed. Check out Spaceflight Now for details, and the best space coverage, in general.

Oh hell, almost missed this one. Apparently, the founder of PayPal is trying to get into the "microsatellite" launch business, although 1000 pounds is a bit bigger than micro. The company, SpaceX, is based in El Segundo. But, I think these guys are biting off more than they can chew, essentially trying to compete with Boeing, Lockheed, and everyone else. I think Scaled Composites is for real, though; they might pull it off.

The idea of nuclear pulsed propulsion goes all the way back to Stanislaw Ulam in the 1950's. An investigation into the idea was called Project Orion and was headed by Freeman Dyson. One brief writeup can be found here.

It makes sense. Combining two different nations in a space program might look good for the media, but from an efficiency and productivity point of view, it's very poor. You end up with compromises at every stage of the process, with the result that noone is truly satisfied with the outcome.

Bear in mind Russia has a huge advantage over the US in both long term space missions (Cosmonauts in Mir hold the endurance record for space 'flight'), and it also has far superior heavy lift capabilities. The Energia launch vehicle is capable of orbiting a payload of 100 tons - far more than than the 30 tons capable of being lifted by the shuttle. While there have been plans for US heavy lift systems (cf. the 'Shuttle-C' cargo container, or the Ares booster) which could increase payload weight to 121 tons, the Russians designed a system (Volcano) derived from Energia which could loft over 200 tons of cargo!

NASA is at serious risk of falling further and further behind, and becoming largely irrelevant in space exploration. Mars Express (from the ESA) is a clear example of how quality research can be performed at a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA mission. Pathfinder cost 'just' $200M - compare this to the British built 'Beagle' rover, which is more capable, and cost just £10M (~ $16M) to develop! Mars Express, the overall project of which Beagle is part, cost just 203M. Compare this to the $800M cost of the latest US mission to Mars.

If NASA is to succeed in the long term, and to shine at research, it has to learn hard lessons from several sources. Satellites can be optimally placed with cheap boosters, not expensive manned shuttle missions. Productivity needs to get back, at the very least, to Pathfinder mission standards. Using proven engineering, and modularity of design, you can massively reduce failures, and costs.

For more information on Mars Express, check here and the official ESA project page here.

But they *did* take an image while it was up there.

I found a link to such an image

As I understand it, quantum theory does not call for time and space to be quantized. It allows for it, but the two ideas (quantum theory and quantized space-time) are distinguishable.

I just read a "Spacedaily" article that seems clear enough on the point:

"Using two HST images, astronomers from Italy and Germany looked for but did not find evidence supporting a prevailing scientific theory that says time, space and gravity are composed of tiny quantum bits.

"'You can say,' said Ragazzoni, 'that this measurement constrains the quantum gravity theory to certain parameters.'"

"The Planck-scale quantum theories of time, space and gravity were derived from attempts to calculate the theoretical limits to electromagnetic energy, according to a UAH physicist, Dr. Richard Lieu.

"In his theory of general relativity, Einstein theorized that time, space and gravity are different manifestations of the same phenomenon, much as light and thunder are signatures of the electrical discharge in lightning. If time is made up of quantum bits, that would also mean space and gravity should also be composed of quantum units.

"Since the expected blurring 'signature' of quantum space time isn't seen, however, it might mean that time isn't made of quantum bits, and neither are space or gravity."

Spacedaily: Astronomers Deal Blow To Quantum Theories Of Time, Space, Gravity

I know a lot of smug geeks who used to like to insist we all contemplate ideas of, for example, quantum time, as if just thinking of such things meant they were better people than everyone else. Hah! I guess this will show 'em!

"The next scheduled Venus fly-by will be in 2004 and 2006 by the Johns Hopkins/Goddard Messenger spacecraft on its four-year mission to study Mercury."

Will a spacecraft even last 4 years that close to the sun? Does it plan on staying on the "dark side" of Mercury?

I mean, the article says that "The frame for Messenger's signature sunshade - which will protect the craft and its instruments from the intense heat at Mercury - is due to arrive this week from GenCorp Aerojet. Layers of ceramic fabric will be added to the frame at APL over the next two months." but will that be enough? I mean it is the sun after all. I'd be surprised if it didn't fry as soon as it got within Mercury's gravitational field.

"The next scheduled Venus fly-by will be in 2004 and 2006 by the Johns Hopkins/Goddard Messenger spacecraft on its four-year mission to study Mercury."

Will a spacecraft even last 4 years that close to the sun? Does it plan on staying on the "dark side" of Mercury?

I mean, the article says that "The frame for Messenger's signature sunshade - which will protect the craft and its instruments from the intense heat at Mercury - is due to arrive this week from GenCorp Aerojet. Layers of ceramic fabric will be added to the frame at APL over the next two months." but will that be enough? I mean it is the sun after all. I'd be surprised if it didn't fry as soon as it got within Mercury's gravitational field.

You're absolutely right. I'll admit I was wrong about that. I had thought that I had read that Iraq only did "active targeting" of planes, and that the only times they fired were on planes that were not in the no-fly zones. I sincerely thank you for straightening me out on that.

Do you believe these targetings justify war? Moreso, do you believe this Administration is using these acts as justification for war? This is the first I've heard of it.

Then you can add blue tooth so you can fire it remotely...just make sure it doesn't get hacked

Like Roboguard?

For automatic operation, Roboguard is fitted with infrared sensors that allow it to track people as they move. Sooraksa has password-protected the "fire" command for when the robot is operated over the Internet. "We think the decision to fire should always be a human decision," he says. "Otherwise it could kill people."

This is a very big fantasy some people have.

There are a couple of reasons Mars has an atmosphere 1/100th of our own.

One reason is because Mars has less mass than the Earth. Hence there is less gravity to "hold" onto a thick atmosphere like what we have on Earth.

Secondly, Mars did have a denser atmosphere at one time, but was probably eroded away by the solar wind. The loss of a strong magnetic field probably didn't help things either.

To prevent the erosion of some future atmosphere, you probably would need to restart the magnetic field. Maybe you could drill down to the core and plant a big bomb to restart it.

So terraforming is still (extremely) hard after all. I didn't get into the astronomical amount of energy required to do it either.

So it looks like that if you wanna live on Mars you're gonna have to strap on some airtanks.

And don't forget the long-johns either, because it's cold there too.

I read this story and my first thought was "Is mars still volcanically active?" Not by earth standards, but supposedly, it is.

As somebody already pointed out, the ABL weapon is a COIL laser, and the C stands for chemical. Each shot uses up a noticeable chunk of the on-board chemicals. The 747-400F version of the laser will be good for, oh, something like a dozen shots. I don't remember the exact number they are throwing around, but it is on that order. Since there are no satellites anywhere near the size of a 747, a satellite version of this would be good for only a couple shots, tops. Spending the money it takes to launch a satellite that will be good for precisely one (1) operational use is not a very good idea...

Also, if you note the earlier post quoting from the ABL website, it is a theater missile defense asset, not a National Missile Defense (NMD) tool. The targeting suite that will go on ABL depends upon the relatively slow speeds, and relatively large target, of a ballistic missile during boost phase. Hitting an exoatmospheric re-entry vehicle of an ICBM is a whole different shooting match (so to speak...).

The ABL as envisioned is something that would be perfect for the current North Korea aituation. You have a potential belligerent with a couple of nukes to put on short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. You park an ABL at 40k feet a hundred+ miles off the peninsula and look for thermal blooms. See a missile go up, lase it to target, then whack it with the megawatt class main weapon, which, by the way, is turret mounted so the limited maneuverability of a trash-hauler like the 747 turns out not to be such a limitation.

For those who are interested in this, Northrop Grumman has already delivered BILL, the kilowatt class Beacon Illumination Laser which will be used for ranging and targeting on the ABL.

CJW

FAS: Airborne Laser

"Lockheed Martin Space Systems, a member of Team Airborne Laser (ABL), has begun fabrication of the revolutionary, high-energy laser weapon system's turret assembly at its Sunnyvale, Calif., facility.

"The turret assembly, located on the nose of the system's modified 747-400 Freighter aircraft, houses a rotating 1.5-meter telescope designed to locate hostile missiles while in their boost phase."

SpaceDaily: LockMart Begins Building Airborne Laser Turret

Here is a better page with a link to the actual paper, and here is another one To actually get the published paper, it requires free registration though...

Though space.com has good articles, I think http://www.spacer.com (also going by the name spacedaily.com) has some very nice write-ups. Check out the following three articles on the Chinese space ventures -
i. China to shoot for the moon after sending man into orbit - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030302075956.spawz6 fq.html
ii. China may launch unmanned moon mission in 2005 - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030303030843.54odg9 c7.html
iii. Shenzhou's Changing Face - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-03j.html

Suhit

Though space.com has good articles, I think http://www.spacer.com (also going by the name spacedaily.com) has some very nice write-ups. Check out the following three articles on the Chinese space ventures -
i. China to shoot for the moon after sending man into orbit - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030302075956.spawz6 fq.html
ii. China may launch unmanned moon mission in 2005 - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030303030843.54odg9 c7.html
iii. Shenzhou's Changing Face - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-03j.html

Suhit

Though space.com has good articles, I think http://www.spacer.com (also going by the name spacedaily.com) has some very nice write-ups. Check out the following three articles on the Chinese space ventures -
i. China to shoot for the moon after sending man into orbit - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030302075956.spawz6 fq.html
ii. China may launch unmanned moon mission in 2005 - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030303030843.54odg9 c7.html
iii. Shenzhou's Changing Face - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-03j.html

Suhit

Corporates always choose the cheapest way, if it is blasting something from Kazakhistan steps, that must be allowed.

Just to protect "American interests", USA alone prevents the mankind's dream. Go taikonauts go!

It is not expensive to put a man in space. Developing the technology is. On the other hand most of the technology is already more than 40 years old and most of it has already been forgotten. It can be said that USA has forgot more than Russians ever knew about getting a man in space.

What happened to this "know how"? It wasn't transferred to the "public" domain or even wasn't sold to other companies for money, just for the sake of "national security". Countries like India are penalized because they want an independent space program and they bought the know-how from Russia, until USA prevented Russia by blackmailing them.

You Americans only think of yourselves, highways, national defence... How many billions do you spend annually for national defence? 380 billion $$ was last year's budget. Mitra knows how much was spent from undercover budgets. And total cost of NASA? Only a couple of billions and they spend most of the money for the sake of keeping their croonies in aviation business happy.

Hmmm....intersting idea, except the radio-iso-thermo-electric generators depended on heating thermocouples with nuclear decay. I don't think we'll get as good a temperature differential in our lovely atmosphere at sea level as there is in the near-vacuum of inter-steller/planetary space. And there is the whole radiation problem of decaying unstable matter.

But these people with their
quantum nucleonic reactor might be able to do it. While based on X-ray induced gamma ray emission of halfium isomers , rather than (I think) thorium isotope-decay powered thermocouples, it still sounds cool (which we all know means its better.) Besides, with a throttle-able power supply with which you could save the juice your not using at any given moment, your probe - unlike poineer - could be still tickin' away.

Ummm... no. Over time Jupiter and Saturn's gravity knock asteroids which are happily orbiting in the asteroid belt into earth-crossing orbits.

So because we haven't had a planet killer asteroid impact in 300,000 years means that we're in the clear? I'll have to take that logic to the craps table next time I'm in Vegas. "Well, haven't seen a 7 in 5 rolls, they must not exist!".

And besides "earth killer" impacts, we are susceptable to impacts which can cause "serious regional damage" about once per century. I for one am glad that some rational people are "obsessing" over it.

Mars also contains CO2 in its soil. This is in two forms: (1) CO2 directly adsorbed onto the (porous) rocks and dirt, and (2) CO2 in ice form mixed into the soil, possibly mixed with water ice as well.

Read here to learn more.

The extent of these soil deposits is almost completely unknown and difficult to estimate. Nevertheless, if the surface temperature were raised then some portion of this trapped CO2 would outgas. (This would be akin to obtaining liquid/vapor water by heating a section of Siberian permafrost.) Because CO2 is such a good greenhouse gas, there might therefore exist a temperature threshold beyond which the outgassing of CO2 and subsequent greenhouse heating would push the planet into a self-sustaining "hot" mode.

Or it may be the case that too much of the CO2 on Mars has either been lost to space, or is chemically locked up in carbonate rocks. This is a numerical question that won't get answered until we have the ability to bore into the surface and measure the free CO2 content.

I'm personally doubtful of these "heat it up and it will automatically fix itself" scenarios. If Mars did sustain a liquid water ocean at some point (an amazingly we still don't know the answer to that for sure), then something dramatic must have happened to make it shift into the cold, dry climate that exists today. My likeliest candidate would be the cooling and freezing of the planet's core, and the subsequent cessation of volcanic activity. Without volcanos, CO2 gets locked up in carbonate rocks and it never cycles back into gaseous CO2. The same thing could happen to the Earth someday, but fortunately the Sun will have long since gone supergiant and vaporized us in our tracks.

Your idea is a valid one and scientists are currently thinking that the best chance to find life in our solar system will be on Jupitor's moon, Europa. However, it is actually extremely difficult to keep the robot probe itself from carrying contamination since modern electronics can't take the extreme heat needed to kill resilient strains which could possibly destroy any life on that planet. Recently scientists have been putting more effort into trying to figure out how to explore Europa without contamination.

Contamination has already been shown to occur easily. The first Apollo mission found the moon to be sterile, but later Apollo missions found strep bacteria from previous missions. Deeply buried in ancient Antarctic ice, Lake Vostok is an enviroment that is thought to contain ancient life forms, but scientists are reluctant to explore the lake until contamination can be prevented. Bacteria has already been found in drilling to just above the top of the buried lake.