NASA May Deliberately Crash Galileo

rhet writes, "NASA may deliberately crash the $1.5 billion Galileo spacecraft which is exploring Jupiter to avoid contaminating the moon Europa. Scientists believe simple life forms may exist on Europa. There is evidence that Europa has an ocean beneath its ice crust. Read more about it here."

Comments

*Sigh*

[toofast]

I am always amazed to see these new and creative ways to spend our useless tax dollars. 1.5 billion takes what, 2 months to raise? No problem. Once the overtaxed citizens have given up enough of their income, build something else!

Perpetual waste. I give you the Government.

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

But Galileo is going to croak shortly anyway. It won't do any good as a dead and artificial satelite, so why not crash it and possibly see some close up pics?

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand from goverment waste computers were developed for which Linux and Slashdot.org became what they are. Can I assume that you are compaining about those too?!!

-- George

Re:*Sigh*

[sandidge]

Wow... an amazing short-sighted look at the space industry and government. Let's see... if we give money to the space industry, they'll start more projects. As a result more jobs are created. This lets people work and possibly get off wellfare to do the factory work created either directly or indirectly by the NASA projects. Helps our economy and therefore pays for itself. It's people like toofast that should be strapped to next rocket and get a firsthand look at the wonders of outer space.

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

...I don't know of too many rocket scientists on welfare...

Re:*Sigh*

[Monte]

This lets people work and possibly get off wellfare to do the factory work created either directly or indirectly by the NASA projects

That's wonderful! But let's cut out the middle-man and just pay people to sit around and watch TV.

Oh, wait - we already do that. Nevermind.

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Tax money isn't wasted. Why is money better put towards consumerism that is so foreign to human behaviour that billions must be spent on advertising than health care, education, protection of the environment and science?

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we polute that moon. We have poluted earth enough lets start on other planets.

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

I know one on crack.

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe that sandidge sez something which implies no rocket scientists when he sez the could work in "factories". Moron...

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

*COUGH--socialist..COUGH!!*

Re:*Sigh*

[ErikZ]

Two months? What are you talking about? So in a year, the entire US goverment can only raise 9 billion dollars?

Later
Erik Z

Re:*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you! I was hoping I would find someone who pointed that out. $1.2 billion probably takes what, a few hours at most?

Re:*Sigh*

[Seb Rabit]

benn readin Red Dwarf novels again?

Trollin' for Galileo

[Anonymous Coward]

May she rest in peace.


And goddamn what the hell is up with slashdot.org, it's getting slashdotted itself.. it took me 20+ tries to get this friggin page to load without timing out... I'm on ADSL even....

Re:Trollin' for Galileo

[Anonymous Coward]

Attn: Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda:

As a long-time faithful reader of Slash-Dot, I have been increasingly disturbed as of late by the 'Slash-Dot Effect' that seems to have afflicted Slash-Dot its very self!

Please, for the sake of your numerous readers, replace your "Lin-ux" servers and "perl" with Windows 2000 and ASP so that we will no longer need to deal with un-bearable load times.

Thank you.

Nathaniel P. Sloane.

Re:Trollin' for Galileo

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd settle for a slashdot account - I've been through the procedure and I'm supposed to get a password - but how long should this take?

Re:Trollin' for Galileo

[Moray_Reef]

NO WAY DUDE!!!

OS/2 Servers all the way...

How about a beowulf cluster of Timex/Sinclair 1000's?? that would drool, er huh RULE!

permenant orbit?

[Jonavin]

Why can't they just leave it up there orbitting and taking pictures? Is it running out of fuel? The article makes no reference to that. Are we really better off with another piece of space junk, even if it's not orbitting Earth?

Re:permenant orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it will be unable to send back picture shortly. When this was first announced (a couple weeks ago) the standard AP news story discussed this.

Re:permenant orbit?

[Fishstick]

Yep, I think the problem is that they will soon not be able to control it at all and they'd rather just make sure it crashes into Jupiter or Io rather than try to put it into some kind of 'stable/permanent' orbit that might decay over time for some unforeseen reason (passing of an unknown comet) and end up falling into Europa and possibly causing biological contamination. (Yeah, I know but someone already said there is a theory which says it might be possible for bacteria to still be viable, even after 11 years in the frozen vacuum of space.)

Makes sense to me. It's already performed it's original mission and then some so it's not like wasting billions of dollars when this craft is 11 years old and has reached the end of it's useful life anyway. Rather than letting this thing float around as so much space junk, they are thinking about of 'disposing' of it as best they can at this point. Plunge it into Jupiter, take a few snapshots on the way in for the evening news. So what's the diff? Option A) have a dead spacecraft floating around with the extremely small possibility that it might mess up Europa someday, or B) use the remaining fuel to send it into Jupiter where it won't cause any trouble and you might just eek out the last shred of science out of a very successful program. No contest.

Re:permenant orbit?

[Tau Zero]

Why can't they just leave it up there orbitting and taking pictures? Is it running out of fuel?

Yes. It's also running out of radiation tolerance, RTG power and a number of other things. Maneuvering fuel is apparently set to run out first, but the vehicle is not going to last much longer regardless. To prevent it from contaminating Europa (and throwing off any search for life we may do there in the future), it has to be prevented from crashing there. One certain method of doing this is to crash it somewhere else. Crude, but highly effective.
--

Re:permenant orbit?

[msaulters]

Whether it's running out of fuel is not a question of if, but when. It takes numerous bursts of propellant to keep a craft in any kind of decent orbit when dealing with not just the gravity of Europa, but also Jupiter, Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and the other 10 or more smaller satellites of Jupiter. These tend to pull it in so many different directions that it WILL fall out of orbit if not maintained, (though there is a tiny chance it could actually be propelled away by sheer luck). In addition, this project has been extended beyond its original life, and it costs money to maintain a group to monitor & control the satellite. Once it can no longer take pictures, something must quickly be done to avoid wasting money maintaining what has become a piece of space-junk some 45 light-minutes from Earth.

Re:permenant orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

She's going to crash anyway.

Make sure she gets a decent burial, don't leave her up there on her own.

Thank you

Re:permenant orbit?

[cara]

One other option the article mentioned was to point it away from the planets and the moon and send it off. This sounded like a good idea to me. Maybe it is dying anyway, but why kill it off earlier? Who knows what data it might send back, probably nothing spectacular, but you really never know.

Re:permenant orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

What goes up must come down. Unless it has enough fuel to attain escape velocity. (It's called gravity)

If it can't escape the planetary system, crashing it will at least let them decide where it will come down.

Re:permenant orbit?

[Helge Hafting]

We don't want to contaminate Europa so we contaminate jupiter instead... :-/

Re:permenant orbit?

[kampo]

(Yeah, I know but someone already said there is a theory which says it might be possible for bacteria to still be viable, even after 11 years in the frozen vacuum of space.)

This is entirely possible - as part of my work only yesterday I had to find a scientific article relating to leptospira (the pathogenic organism which causes Weil's disease) which survived being dried and kept in a frozen vacuum for 10 years.

Re:permenant orbit?

[Fishstick]

Yeah, but I think the difference is that, apart from the possibility that life might exist on Europa but not on Jupiter, is that Jupiter is so incredibly massive that it is probably a safe bet that Gallileio would be completely incinerated in the atmosphere. I don't know what kind of atmosphere Europa has, but there must be some possibility being considered that dormant microbes could survive re-entry and cause biological contamination. Pretty far-fetched, I agree... but even if the remote possibility exists, why chance it?

NASA And the PR Fiasco.

[PureFiction]

I suppose given their current track record with crash landing expensive satelites and recon vehicales, they figure this is one operation they cannot screw up.

I just hope they dont miss and send it flying off into deep space.

Re:NASA And the PR Fiasco.

[Bryan Andersen]

I suppose given their current track record with crash landing expensive satelites and recon vehicales, they figure this is one operation they cannot screw up.

I just hope they dont miss and send it flying off into deep space.

Murphy will intervene...

Re:NASA And the PR Fiasco.

[erice]

Nah. They'll aim it straight at Ganymede for a crash landing. Somehow Galileo will soft land and NASA won't be able to figure out how to get the thing to shut up.

In other news...

[RedX]

I announced that I'll be purposely crashing my '87 Yugo into Lake Erie to avoid hurting my image. Seriously though, what a waste of taxpayer money. There's no other way to avoid Europa?

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Galileo will soon be dead. Given the choice of having a dead gadget floating in space, or crashing it & getting some cool close up pics, which one is the better idea?

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

read the article?

waste of taxpayer money...sheesh...ppl like you...

Re:In other news...

[aphrael]

what a waste of taxpayer money. There's no other way to avoid Europa?

It's _not_ a waste of taxpayer money --- the ship will stop functioning soon anyway; it's outlived its expected lifetime and is starting to degenerate.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a dead Yugo up in space???

Why?

[jued0001]

Why do they have to crash it at all? I read the article, but I don't recall seeing anything about there being a *need* to crash it...

Re:Why?

[Tau Zero]

If you want to guarantee that it will not crash on Europa, there are two major courses of action: eject it from Jupiter orbit entirely, or crash it somewhere else. I strongly suspect that there isn't enough fuel remaining to escape from Jupiter orbit (if there was, they'd spend it taking more pictures of moons and getting the taxpayers' money's worth out of the machine instead).
--

talk about recycling!

[Anonymous Coward]

let's do the same thing with bill clinton when he retires and throw him into monica lewinski to see if there's intelligent life below the layer of fat.

NEWS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, every news site and it's mother had this story 2 weeks ago. "News for Nerds. Stuff that you read 2 weeks ago somewhere else."

Crash into Jupiter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the upper atmosphere of Jupiter is also considered a possible place for life to exist, maybe dropping into the atmosphere isn't such a good idea. One of the icy moons would be better.

Re:Crash into Jupiter?

[tak amalak]

I know. If there is life on Jupiter, it may be considered an act of war is we start crashing things into it! You sure as hell know we would go ballistic...
--

No! Crash it into Europa!

[grytpype]

I say we crash Galileo into Europa! Show those European fuckers we mean bizniz!

Re:No! Crash it into Europa!

[Anonymous Coward]

No thanks, I'm religious.

--Neddie Seagoon

Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[SgtPepper]

Keep in mind that this craft is 11 years old...it's ancient in terms of spacecraft. It's original 2 year mission was extened another 2 years and is AGAIN being extened 2 more years...so we definatly got our money's worth out of it...and then some. we got 4 extra years out of a space craft that traveled a great distance, don't complain, we should retire it with dignity and honour.


Sgt Pepper
Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from
Fortune:

You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[AntiNorm]

It cost $1.5 billion, yet we got our money's worth? I'm wondering why NASA is so willing to spend that much money on a project that, as SgtPepper stated, was only intended to last two years originally. If it costs that much, it better last for a real long time. Think of what else could have been done with that money.


=================================

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we could've made Waterworld II, III, and IV.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[/dev/niall]

It cost $1.5 billion, yet we got our money's worth? I'm wondering why NASA is so willing to spend that much money on a project that, as SgtPepper stated, was only intended to last two years originally. If it costs that much, it better last for a real long time. Think of what else could have been done with that money.

Galileo has given us invaluable data about our solar system: it's formation, history, what planets are made of and what they look like up close. Pretty much everything we know about our solar system outside of Earth can be attributed to this little space craft. It's well worth $1.5 billion for this knowledge.

<flame> Are you a socialist, or just a luddite? </flame>

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Shadowlion]

How much is science worth to you?

NASA spent that money to design a spacecraft that would spent several years in deep space, resist incredible amounts of radiation (the probe has already managed to go well over twice the amount of radiation it was designed for without serious glitches), computers and software on board the craft to manage all of its systems as well as do diagnostic and preventative capabilities (recongize when an overload of radiation causes the computer to reset itself and automatically correct it), and a vast amount of sensor and communication equipment. Further, it was designed to not explore just *one* world, but Jupiter and many of it's moons - a more complex logistical problem than just dropping an orbiter around, say, Mars.

Given the complexity of the task, NASA built a spacecraft that would be able to do all of the above. They really over-engineered the thing, and then put a *reasonable* cap on the lifespan of the thing (2 years). They were being conservative on the lifespan, and weren't too surprised that it was able to go for another extended mission. That it has lasted this long, though, as they've exposed it to more and more radiation, and has returned the amount and quality of data it has returned, has amazed NASA.

Galileo was one of the last of the big-money space probes, designed to last in inhospital environments and to be quite self-sufficient in case of an emergency. The newer probes, such as the various Mars probes, are much cheaper, but don't have nearly the capabilities as Galileo does - and hence we lose them when a more expensive craft, with redundant systems, diagnostic capabilities, and smarter computers would've survived.

Yes, I think what else could've been done with the money. We could've spent it on the war with drugs, which has turned out to be an exceptional failure that many question was even necessary. We could've spent it on law enforcement - and yet, with places like the LAPD, NYPD, and New Orleans, it doesn't matter how many police we have when the ones we hire are crooked in the first place. We could've built a couple of more fighter planes to add to the military - or maybe we should've just blown that money building a single B-2 bomber.

So maybe you're right - we should've spent that money hiring crooked cops, building implements of destruction, and trying to solve a non-existent drug problem.

I mean, hey, why bother *learning* anything when you can build an aircraft with the radar signature of a bumblebee?

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Monte]

How much is science worth to you?

As much as I'm willing to pay.

Which is not how these projects are being funded, therefore my objection to them. It's "ask" vs. "take".

Hint: If someone held me up, took my money, then used it to find a cure for cancer, I'd still be pissed off that I was robbed. Even more pissed if the robber had said "Listen, I know what's best here, so be a good boy and hand over the wallet before I shoot you". It's one thing to be a thug, another to be an Annointed thug.

Silly principles and all that.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Shadowlion]

>Which is not how these projects are being funded, therefore my objection to them.

So, in other words, you must object to the whole of the United States government, both federal and state. Neither one of them really asks you to pay for anything - they forcibly take it out of you one way or another (taxes, and if you don't pay your taxes, jail time).

Government is the overhead we accept for wanting a more-or-less civilized society. If you want anarchy (and I don't mean rioting, I mean true self-governing), then the United States isn't the place to live. If you choose to live here, either voluntarily or making excuses as to why you can't leave, then you're accepting governmental overhead.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[cara]

Good points, however, we shouldn't retire it just because we got our money's worth out of it. If it is still able to serve, let it serve!

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Ig0r]

The money could've been given to No Such Agency, to build even more privacy-infringing machines.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[RabidMonkey]

It's "ask" vs. "take".

They DID ask you, assuming you decided to do your part as a citizen and vote for a president.

Either way, shut up and deal with your decision.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[kevlar]

We did get a lot of usage out of it, but remember, it did cost $1.5B also. An enormous amount of money considering Pathfinder was in the millions.
Of course Pathfinder was a completely different mission in itself. I still think it was worth paying that much for Galileo. Of course they didn't use any cost-saving measures though.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Restil]

Actually... its quite a bit older than 11 years. It was good to go in 1982 but due to launch delays, then the challenger explosion, it didn't get launched until the late 80's. However, it's only been in space for 11 years.

Truth be told, if it runs out of manuvering fuel, then we'd no longer be able to control it, even though we'd be able to continue communicating with it. There is a possibility, over a period of several hundred years, that the orbit would decay to the point it would crash into one of the moons, or Jupiter itself. Even in Earth's orbit, the sattelites must constantly adjust their orbits. Satellites that don't eventually enter the atmosphere. I do agree that sending it away from the planet is a better plan than crashing it. At the very least, we have an opportunity for a 5th interstellar probe that way, and it could continue to operate as long as the batteries hold out.

One other option is to set it in an orbit that will guarantee a crash in, say, 20 years or so, and keep enough fuel handy to make adjustments every 19 years. This way, we keep the orbiter handy in case another comet decides to crash into jupiter anytime in the near future, or something else interesting happens there. However, if the craft goes dead on us, it will eventually crash into a benign target and we won't have to worry about it.

-Restil

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[slashdot-terminal]

Galileo has given us invaluable data about our solar system: it's formation, history, what planets are made of and what they look like up close. Pretty much everything we know about our solar system outside of Earth can be attributed
to this little space craft. It's well worth $1.5 billion for this knowledge.

I thought that the Voyager probes I and II did more than Galileo did. Do you have some references?

The original Voyager probe is actually still transmitting data to stations back on earth and giving some interesting data about solar wind dynamics and the structure of deep space.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Esperandi]

Ahh, but by choosing to remain in America, he also chooses to participate in a democratic republic which requires a certain amount of people to do some bitching. So to him I say, bitch on!

Esperandi
P.S. Yes, your tax money is stolen from you, there is no other word for it. Even if you WANT to pay, it is taken involuntarily with the threat of removing your freedom behind it. This is required to maintain a democratic republic, you change it so that if you don't pay the taxes, you get absolutely no benefit from anyone elses payment either.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I think what else could've been done with the money. We could've spent it on the war with drugs, which has turned out to be an exceptional failure that many question was even necessary. We could've spent it on law enforcement - and yet, with places like the LAPD, NYPD, and New Orleans, it doesn't matter how many police we have when the ones we hire are crooked in the first place. We could've built a couple of more fighter planes to add to the military - or maybe we should've just blown that money building a single B-2 bomber.

So maybe you're right - we should've spent that money hiring crooked cops, building implements of destruction, and trying to solve a non-existent drug problem.

I mean, hey, why bother *learning* anything when you can build an aircraft with the radar ignature of a bumblebee?

Hey, I was a bit offended that you left out New York! The mayor is tring very hard to build a racist police force like LA's. He is having some success to.. I mean look at the shootings.

Note: It is pretty trivial to show that science is the best investment a government can make. God forbid the government would actually do anything to make our lives better.

Actually, who needs stealth bombs when you can just dump all the money into real signal analysis and materials research.. and have Stealth bombers be a cheap childs toy in 10 years!

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Weezul]

If someone held me up, took my money, then used it to find a cure for cancer, I'd still be pissed off that I was robbed. Even more pissed if the robber had said "Listen, I know what's best here, so be a good boy and hand over the wallet before I shoot you". It's one thing to be a thug, another to be an Annointed thug.

You have an annointed thug as soon as you have property rights, period. (Unless, you subscribe to an objectivist utopian ideal of everyone not stealing becuase they are objectivists) The truth is we don't know how to live without an annointed thug, period. This leaves you tring to argue that the government taking your hard earned money is somehow diffrent from the government taking away other people's ability to use your property.. an arguemnt that you will ultimatly base on some form of baseless cultural assumption.

Now, I'm not saing the government should nationalize all the buisnesses. Once we have accepted the fact that the government is a nasty thing which needs to take you money to run programs to help everyone (like the programs which allow you to be owner of your property, i.e. the cops) and have thrown out al the philosophical bullshit about property being some form of primitive. Then we are ready to discuss exactly which programs are good and which ones are bad based on practical concerns. Example:

The war on drugs is very very bad because it waists money and takes away people's freedom when they did not do anything which significantly effects another person.

Science is good becuase it is cheap compaired to the benifits and might not get done without some funding.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[B. Samedi]

Hey you're right! Let's have them spend it on some more "meteors" to bombard Mars with because their budget was cut too far back to include redundant systems! Or we can fund the Space Shuttle to put more comsats into orbit so we can broadcast Ishtar to Puerto Rico 24/7! Face it. Space travel and exploration is expensive if you want to do it right.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I was a bit offended that you left out New York!

Duh, what do you think NYPD means?

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way, shut up and deal with your decision

The Majority having Writ and Moved On, the minority should just Shut Up.

You and the horse you rode in on, Sparky.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Once we have accepted the fact that the government is a nasty thing which needs to take you money to run programs to help everyone

Spoken like a true member of the Freeloading Left (TM)!

Excuse me! But the last time I read the Constitution, I didn't see anything in it authorizing the federal government to run programs to help anyone, let alone everyone (see limited and enumerated powers - and this ain't enumerated!). The federal government was constituted for the sole purposes of providing a common defense and regulating trade between the states (see Constitution). Any programs which are designed to assist anyone are legally the domain of the states (see Tenth Amendment). I will point out that the space program was originally under the authority of the military, which is the only agency of government where a space program could legally exist, and it should have been left there. The government has no legal authority for running social(ist) programs, or spending tax payers money on an independant space agency!

So, no, I don't accept that government has a legal right to take my money to help anyone, including me!

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Andar]

Next time you read the Constitution, see "Neccesary and Proper" which has been defined to include nonenumerated powers way back in Marshall's time. It's a legal given that Congress has certain powers that are nonenumerated, and even a strict follower of original intent doctrine, like Clarnece Thomas would have to agree, at least a little. To ignore such is foolishness. What you may think is Neccesary and proper may not agree with someone else's definition, but the governent has legal authority
regardless of what you would like.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time you read the Constitution, see "Neccesary and Proper"

You may wish to consult James Madison concerning the definition of "Neccesary and Proper" (He did, after all, write the Constitution). While I do not have the text handy to quote at the moment, it is clear "Necessary and Proper" was meant to be construed within the restrictions of the enumerated powers, not in addition to or outside of these restrictions.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Weezul]

So, no, I don't accept that government has a legal right to take my money to help anyone, including me!

Ok, I guess this means that you do not accept the government paying for the cops and thus do not accept property rights. This is a position some people take, but it is every bit as utopian a position as the left-wing-commune-drop-outs. (Note: the definition of utopian is untest with a connotation of experence suggesting that it is unlikely to work)

Government exists to do the essential jobs that we can not get the free market or the culture to do. Now, we can discuss intelegently the (a) essentialness of the specific job and (b) the chance that the market will do the specific job.

First, I do not support universal health care. social security, the war on drugs, and others, but the reason I do not support these program is: they don't work and the market dose a better job. This is not some Ayn Rand philosophical mumbo jumbo about how the market *should* do a better job, but real life experence. You can bitch about taxes all you want, but once people realize that you have no real life experence to back up your claim that "we should not have a government" then they will ignore you.. and really prventing stupid programs like univeral health care will fall on those of us who you call the "freeloading left" who can make our arguemnts based on real evidence instead of philosophical bullshit.

Second, I support things like funding of the sciences and education. Why? Well countries who stop funding them seem to go in the shitter pretty quick. Now, we may figure out how to fund these by the private sector someday, but we have not figured it out today.. and experence suggests that to just stop funding them will not cause people to figure out how to privatly fund them.. it will just make people stupid.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[noc]

Or we could spend it on organismal biological research, and answer far more fundemental questions than any space probe could hope to answer.
-A bitter biologist

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[AjR]

Oh for god sakes grow up people.

Look at it this way. The way mankinds population is expanding - it won't be long before we need to look at the planets.

Bitter biologist indeed - more like another luddite who thinks that life would be hunky-dory if we all live in a bloody cave again.

Welcome to the march of progress - if you don't like it tough, its called evolution.

What would mr bloody bitter biologist say if we found life on Europa huh? All of a sudden mr bitter biologist would have something to study.

Sheesh - for "news for nerds" we haven't have got some people stuck in the 17th century

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[lohen]

Hey man, I love obfuscation. Mainly because I'm blatently better at it than my professors - there's nothing like quoting an appallingly written but on-topic sentence to really p*** them off, but leave them nothing within their mark-scheme to touch it. (Like, have you ever heard of 'reverse inversional combinorality'? Stroke of genius.)

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[/dev/niall]

I thought that the Voyager probes I and II did more than Galileo did. Do you have some references?

No, because you are correct. ;) Galileo has provided confirmation and second opinions however, so I felt my statement was true. It has been a part of most of our discoveries.

I got mad at a perceived luddite threat. $1.65 billion divided over the hunrededs of millions of taxpayers who funded it isn't a bad price at all to pay.

My bad for exagerating!

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Bob Uhl]

$1.65 billion divided over the hunrededs of millions of taxpayers who funded it isn't a bad price at all to pay.$1.65 billion divided over the hunrededs of millions of taxpayers who funded it isn't a bad price at all to pay.

Well, by my calculations (assuming that there are 250 million people in this country), that comes out to $6.60 that I could have had. To be quite honest, I wouldn't throw more than about $1 to confirm what other programmes have already found; I'd rather eat a bacon double cheese burger at Burger King. If it's so important let those who care baout it fund it. There is something fundamentally unjust about making someone pay for something he does not want.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Andar]

I don't need to go back to Madison, simply because I have something better, actual Supreme Court decisions. McCullough v. Maryland, in 1819, ruled that Congress could charter corporations, specifically talking about the Second Bank of the United States. There is no specifically enumerated power concerning this in the Constitution, but nothing that denies Congress the ability, either. It was found to fall under the "neccesarry and proper" clause. Whether or not Madison may have liked the decision, it still stands.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[/dev/niall]

Well, by my calculations (assuming that there are 250 million people in this country), that comes out to $6.60 that I could have had. To be quite honest, I wouldn't throw more than about $1 to confirm what other programmes have already found; I'd rather eat a bacon double cheese burger at Burger King. If it's so important let those who care baout it fund it. There is something fundamentally unjust about making someone pay for something he does not want.

I'd rather have $6.60 of my tax dollars spent on this than a program to improve the public's impression of the auto industry. I wish people would put it in perspective. This is $6.60 of your tax dollars that wasn't wasted on something that has NO tanglible results.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no specifically enumerated power concerning this in the Constitution, but nothing that denies Congress the ability, either
Please read the Tenth Amendment.
Whether or not Madison may have liked the decision, it still stands.
So you are essentialy saying: If a branch of government, empowered by the constitution, ursurps the restirictions imposed by that constitution, the transgression becomes legitimate. Let me ask you: If you are falsely convicted of a crime and executed, does the fact that your death "still stands" legitimize your conviction!?

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Upon reviewing the clarification of your views, to my embarrasment, I must apologize for hastely hurling the "Freeloading Left" epithet at you.
I regret the error, and will attempt to be more temperate when shooting off my electronic mouth in the future.
However, please allow me to clarify my views as well:
I guess this means that you do not accept the government paying for the cops and thus do not accept property rights.
What I meant to say was I do not agree the federal government has legal standing to perform these functions. Police protection, I think you will agree, is within the jurisdiction of local authorities.
once people realize that you have no real life experence to back up your claim that "we should not have a government"
I must disagree with this statement on two points: A.) I did not say we should not have a government. My point was the government has exceeded it's legitimate authority in these matters. B.) It is not true there is no real life experience to back up my view: until 1913 a federal income tax was Constitutionaly prohibited. Up until the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, the power of the federal government to meddle in the affairs of the state governments and individuals was indeed limited, as the federal government did not have control of the purse strings up until this time. While the advancements of the 20th century were impressive, they were largely built upon the advancements of the 19th century (consider: between 1800 and 1900 the population of Europe increased 300%, and the United States grew from 13 small coastal colonies to a continent sized nation. The economic, social and technical advances which made this possible were not due to the intervention of the federal government: federal government had little power to intervine until early in the 20th century.)
I support things like funding of the sciences and education. Why? Well countries who stop funding them seem to go in the shitter pretty quick
The percentage of our population which is illiterate today greatly exceeds the percentage which was illiterate in the 19th century, before the advent of public education. I would also submit the technical and scientific advances made between 1800 and 1900 were considerably more drastic than the ones made between 1900 and 2000. See above figures concerning the dramatic increase of population and life expectancy in the 19th century. While moonshots and computers are cute, the 20th century achieved nothing close to the dramatic increases in life expectancy and quality of life in comparison.

P.S. Concerning "Freeloading Left": Being sick and tired of being tarred as the "Religious Right" for believing in limited government and individual liberties (I haven't been near a church in over 30 years - Conservatism/Libertarianism is a political/economic philosophy - not a religious one!), I feel inclined to turn the tables and hang an equally obnoxious (and more frequently accurate!) tag on our Liberal brethern. Although I obviously was a little too quick to apply it to you, I have found it a very effective phrase for irritating people who well deserve to be irritated, and in consequence relish the opportunity use it where ever possible!

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Weezul]

What I meant to say was I do not agree the federal government has legal standing to perform these functions. Police protection, I think you will agree, is within the jurisdiction of local authorities.

Yes, we do need to distinguish between the powers of the federal government and the powers of state governments. We have erroded many of the checks and balances in our consititution. I think both parties have been pretty nasty about this. The two recent ones that the republicans passed were item veto and limitations on the appeals process.

I do not think that our founding fauthers really did that good a job of the federal vs. state balance. The thing you must take into consideration is that local polotics is extreamly oorupt. I think the best balance is to leave implementation of many things to the local governments, but let the federal gorvernment step in and say "no you can not do that" for civil rights situations and interstate commerce situations.

Example: I think *experence* has shown that federal cops, like the DEA, ATF, and FBI, are unaccountable, dangerous, and gernerally a bad idea., but the local cops will be very corupt. I think the solution is not to have federal and local cops taking away people's rights (like we have now), but to have local cops who live in fear of some federal agency like Internal Affairs but with a lot more power. This Internal Affairs would have the power to really ruin a cops life just on a wim, but would not have the power to do shit to a civilian. This agency would be very well funded and would have many agents that harassed the cops who do things like racial profiling (i.e. it would not be like our internal affairs which is only interested in coruption and not civil rights abuses). The key to all of this is that Internal Affairs can not really tell the local cops what to do, only what not to do.

While moonshots and computers are cute, the 20th century achieved nothing close to the dramatic increases in life expectancy and quality of life in comparison.

Life expectancy is not the only measure of uality of life. Computer contribute significantly to our quality of life by allowing one person to magnify how much work they get accomplished. Moonshots will evetually mean we are not vulnerable to being wiped out by a big rock in space. Actually, I think our 20th century advances are much more significant. We can only improve life expectancy so much, but things like computers, cell phones, and airplains increase the effective life expectancy by letting us work more efficently. Now, people here do not take advnatage of the extrea free time.. they just work more.. but that is nott he fault of the technology.. it just provides the extra time. Europeans do take advantage of more of their free time and you could probable show that a good portion of the free time europeans now have comes from 20th century inventions.

No, I'm pretty confident that federal (and local) funding of the all sciences is a really good idea. Unlike these social programs or the federal cops, it dose not cost much money and the return on investment frequently is really high, but the return on investment is difficult to predict, so private industry tends not to fund pure research into many branches of science (like mathematics).

We might find a way to pay for the sciences without government someday and it might generate a LOT more money then government ever could, but it has not been figured out. I do not think that the current patent system could really do it.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[Andar]

I read the Tenth Amendment, and I notice that it doesn't say "expressly" when refering to delegated powers, and this itself supports the idea, as expressed in a case I already mentioned, (which you ignored,) as well as many other cases, such every case involving the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection acts, were upheld. In fact, various Reconstruction policies were more in contradiction with the 10th than an non-military space program, which you somehow see as the fall of the Republic.
There has never been a unified decision on limiting Congressional powers, even back in 1791 regarding the First Bank of the U.S. You seem to posit that the Constitution is a perfect document, and therefore it is being obviously contradicted by nefarious powers.
Decisions go back and forth, and while the current Court is moving towards a limiting of Congrssional power, there is no movement for restricting Congress to only expressly enumerated powers, because Congress NEVER was limited to in that way, contrary to your belief. It has been a matter of record, for the most part, that Congress is allowed to exercise unenumerated powers in the act of carrying out powers expressely constitutionally delegated.

>So you are essentialy saying: If a branch of >government, empowered by the constitution, >ursurps the restirictions imposed by that >constitution, the transgression becomes >legitimate. Let me ask you: If you are falsely >convicted of a crime and executed, does the fact >that your death "still stands" legitimize your >conviction!?

As for this, this is such an obvious twisting of my words as not to be even commented on. I obviously do not agree with you that unenumerated powers are unconstitutional, so please do not say that I think so.

Congress did not suddenly one day start to pass acts that violated the Constitution, there is plenty of precedent dating back to the founding of the nation, that interpert the consittution this way. So far, all I've seen is a refernce to the 10th amendment. Please, give me something more useful to back up your notions.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting the money

[noc]

Luddite, my ass. Biology is where physics was at the turn of the 19-20th centuries, and chemistry at mid-century. It's gonna explode. We're currently researching fundemental questions in biology, and we ought to be spending amounts of money on it that reflect that. I'm all for continuing to spend money on physics, astrophysics, etc, research. However, biological research is horribly underfunded. It might be sexier to send probes to Europa, but I'd rather clear up things like the importance of female sexual selection. That's the evolutionary equivilant of still not understanding the mechanism of bromination!

start life

[Dr Fgets]

I think that they should crash it into a life supporting planet/moon to see what happens. I think that would be an interesting experiment by itself.

Re:start life

[Alorelith]

Or...maybe we should crash it into some moon that might have some chance of supporting any possible microbe (Ganyemede or maybe Titan?) Maybe we could START life then...

Maybe it's for the best

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's for the best. They will more than likely crash it anyway, they seem to lose a large number of vehicles this way.

A piece of history

[Glytch]

I think they should try put it into a solar orbit, so that it could be salvaged and put on display a century or two from now. Let's face it: Galileo is one of the most successful space probes ever built. Sure, it was expensive, but look at what we learned from it, despite the major malfunctions it faced early on.

And let's not forget exactly where all that money it cost goes to: paying people's paychecks. The dollars aren't used as rocket fuel, y'know.

Re:A piece of history

[Tau Zero]

I think they should try put it into a solar orbit, so that it could be salvaged and put on display a century or two from now. The difficulty of finding a passive speck in the vastness of the Solar system notwithstanding, if you had the fuel to get Galileo out of the Jupiter system would you rather spend it saving something for a museum piece in the far future beyond the life of anyone living today, or would you rather use it to get data now? Just the pictures of the Io volcanoes are making history, and the entire world can all enjoy them now; a defunct machine in a museum only benefits those who can make the time to go see it.
--

Re:A piece of history

[Zan Thrax]

Could it still get there? Surely there's not enough fuel to get it away from Jupiter's influence and then to stabilize it's eventual orbit? Plus, how long would it take? Presumably, it would have to go pretty slow with what fuel it has left.

Re:A piece of history

[Shadowmist]

Only problem with that thought is that Galileo doesn't have enough delta-v left to do anything but adjust it's orbit. There's no chance of it escaping Jupiter's gravity.

I wonder how many of our now derelict space craft are kept under track. There's also the Apollo 10 and 11 ascent stages that are out there as well. (They were shot into solar orbit when their missions were completed. The ascent modules from 12,14 and up were deliberately impacted for seismic experimentation.

Black Plague

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we'll have a bunch of conspiracy theories about the black plague being caused by alien spacecrafts carrying microbes to earth. Sure, the government wants you to think it was the rats, but we know the real truth.

Let there be Life

[rawdograwdograwdog]

Some scientists theorize that an astroid strike initiated the development of life of Earth. Maybe they SHOULD let it hit the moon after all....

Too timid

[DerMarlboro]

Damnation, if we ever do find life anywhere else in the universe, we're going to be too timid to study it. This craft has been in the vacuum of space for what, 10 years? And bathed in poisonous radiation most all of that time. I highly doubt that the craft is carrying a microbe that can live in a vacuum, live in radiation, survive a supersonic crash, and live in ice cold water. That would have to be one helluva amoeba.

On the contrary, I'd see how low I could get Galileo to orbit Europa. Then I'd try to edge lower and lower until it crashed.

Re:Too timid

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, scientists have found microbes surviving comet crashes and all that. So this super amoeba does exist.

Faith in NASA...

[phossie]

I'm impressed that they're considering that course of action - it shows some real foresight. Europa, if inhabited (by any life) could be enormously useful ('uncontaminated') by virtue of being a huge, somewhat isolated biosphere. In addition, this is some real respect for the universe, a big thing we don't quite understand. Let's not mess up another rock if we don't need to. And why would we need to?

Re:Faith in NASA...

[SaltireUSA]

Europa, if inhabited (by any life) could be enormously useful ('uncontaminated') by virtue of being a huge, somewhat isolated biosphere.

Are we forgetting that little but not insignificant variation of Heisenburg's uncertainty principle? Even if we avoid contaminating Europa this time, what makes us think it won't get contaminated when we visit the place on purpose? You mean we can make sure no little microbes hitch a ride with us on our next trip, be it manned or unmanned?

Crash Galileo into Europa as Pre-Emptive Strike

[Savage Henry Matisse]

Scientists warn we shouldn't rev ourselves into a tizzy over this. Any life on Europa, they assure us, is of the single-celled variety, at best. Of course, such a declaration is clearly just a smokescreen to prevent us from reaching the obvious conclusion: At this very moment, super-intelligent giant squid have their siege-rockets poised beneath Europa?s half-mile ice shell, ready to launch their imperialist onslaught. These sub-mariner beasts intend to take control of our peace-loving planet and mine us for the rich iron supplies stored in our hemoglobin. Yes, the jovian devil-fish plan to render our blood for precious structural iron, needed to build more of their planet-hoppers. Their ultimate plan: To flood the canals of Mars as a space-squid vacation resort.

At night I can hear the transmissions from their communications satellites resonating in my fillings; the hideous, scheming clacking of their beaks has rendered sleep an unattainable fantasy. They intend to devour our dogs whole and use our sports-utility vehicles as punch-bowls for their post-conquest banquet. They monitor our radio transmissions, love our mariachi music, and yet despise our hip-hop. These are truly monsters.

How long will the scientific community continue to feign ignorance of this exo-cephalopodic threat looming under Europa?s dark plutonian shores? And how long will it be until our own squid-- trusted friend and snack-- turn on us? As the first earth-dweller to fully recognize the very real threat of worldwide Europan conquest, I enjoin you: We must take up arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing, end it.

Who's with me?

Re:Crash Galileo into Europa as Pre-Emptive Strike

[Ralph Wiggam]

I need to step up and congratulate you on your use of the word "exo-cephalopodic". Very nicely done. Also, stop bogartin the weed.

-B

Re:Crash Galileo into Europa as Pre-Emptive Strike

[Anonymous Coward]

Down with Architeuthis!

Pass the Fried Calamari!

Re:Crash Galileo into Europa as Pre-Emptive Strike

[Acy James Stapp]

To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler at this time to suffer the squids and rockets of Europa's oceans, or take arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing, end it.

politics [humor]

[Signal 11]

Well, after we threw that Mars Polar Lander over to the Martians, I bet those Europians are mighty upset - they want some samples of our technology too. We might start an interplanetary war otherwise - I mean.. Jupiterians are a minority group that hasn't been well represented compared the rich and influencial Europians...

It's all about politics...

Re:politics [humor]

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, it's a good thing you put [humor] in the subject line, because i NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY. dork.

Re:politics [humor]

[Anonymous Coward]

This one was actually funny. . .a troll?

Missed Chance

[SamThePondScum]

Too bad they didn't put Galileo into quarantine or clean her up before sending her off, it'd be at least as interesting to see what we could find out about Europa (by crashing Galileo into it) as whatever we learn about whatever moon/planet we do end up crashing it into (if any).

I'm going to have to agree.

[TRoLL.]

While it's sad to junk a spacecraft like this, it is important to do so to make sure any future experiments involving Europa have more validity.

I'd rank the value of the spacecraft less than any experiment that shows that there is indeed life on that moon. But then again, how can we be completely sure that the spacecraft which may eventually search for organisms on Europa is completely sterile? It's an interesting dillemma.

Re:I'm going to have to agree.

[yuriwho]

You are very correct, we have no way of knowing if we have contaminated a foreign body after landing a craft on it. In fact it has recently been shown that of all the organisms in soil, we can only get about 1% of them to grow under laboratory conditions. We know know this because when we sequence the DNA present in a soil sample only 1% of the DNA sequences comes up as known or similar to known sequences.

Now take all of our sterilization techniques for example. We test them by their ability to prevent organisms from surviving the procedure........what about the ones we can't detect because we don't know how to culture them?? We can't access their ability to survive a given procedure.

So to be sure, we just irradiate the shit out of anything we plan to land on the surface of another potentially life bearing planet...guess what our scientists have found a strange organism called Deinococcus Radiodurans (for obvious reasons) that can thrives in radiation, in fact it would be happy at ground zero in Chernyobyl. This is but one of the mystery 99% of organisms.

NASA is right on the money on this decision. Now we just have to figure out a way to remote-sense life on the planet cause we'll never be sure we arn't contaminating it when landing spacecraft on the planet.

My 3 cents

ps. I usually hate trolls but you were the first to nail the issue as far as I'm concerned

Martian Chronicles for Galileo???

[PsychoSpunk]

I think that moving Galileo out of the range of Jupiter would be the most commendable thing. First off, it is still capable of gathering/sending information. Secondly, we've lost two of the three Mars missions. Question is then can Galileo properly do those missions?

If scientists can successfully bring it back through the asteroid belt and in tact to complete at least on of those failed missions, then it shows the versatility of the "new NASA". Galileo has already proven its ability in completing various missions, why not one more before it gets destroyed.

Personally, if saving Galileo is a priority and bringing it back would work, I believe that NASA could save face and return hope to the Mars priority it's been running with these past few years. Plus I'd like to be around when "The Martian Chronicles" begins to actually come to pass.

I guess you might say that's my two cents.

Re:Martian Chronicles for Galileo???

[Tau Zero]

Question is then can Galileo properly do those missions?

Nope. There's no fuel for that kind of maneuvering. Now, if Galileo had something like the ion engines of Deep Space 1, it might be different. But it doesn't (ion drives weren't proven well enough to bet a big mission on them), so it can't.
--

believe me...galileo is contaminated

[Anonymous Coward]

I read an article recently in which scientists have conducted numerous experiments to test the hypothesis that life started on Mars and was caried to Earth as bacteria lodged in a meteorite. The conclusion? That there are plenty of strains of bacteria here on earth that can survive the trip from Mars to earth, surviving even all that nasty radiation that we once thought would kill off the bacteria. Now think of a man-made space probe with all kinds of nice nooks and crannies for bacteria to hide in. It IS contaminated, and could be disasterous for life forms it should come in contact with.

Re:believe me...galileo is contaminated

[Anonymous Coward]

We contaminate the Earth daily, threatening extinction of many species. Why care about Europa and the life it *might* have, when we could focus on not endangering the life that *is* here on Earth now? (OTOH, fsck Europa; WE WILL CONQUER YOU!!!)

Re:believe me...galileo is contaminated

[DavidTC]

Because we'd actually like to know if there is life there, before we put some there.

-David T. C.

Crash it into what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jupiter? And kill a couple of alien gasbags on the way down? NASA always likes crashing things. In fact they are getting real good at it lately. My favourite was where you tried to kill some australians with skylab.

Re:Crash it into what?

[Monte]

NASA always likes crashing things. In fact they are getting real good at it lately.

If they could get the tech and bandwidth going to relay back high-res 5000fps video (so you can later savor every frame in super slo-mo) on the way down they'd have some killer pay-per-view potential there. Great potential revenue stream.

I know I'd pay US$40.00 to watch a piece of space junk slam into a planet. Earth, even

Re:Crash it into what?

[zi0n]

Not a bad idea there... Then they could use that to fund another crash!

Re:Crash it into what?

[Moray_Reef]

I'd only pay $40 if they were going to crash it into a major city, and even then only if they target it to hit something like say, a nuclear power plant, an elementary school, major sporting event, school for blind orphans (Preferably one run by nuns...) You know, a happy place. I do like happy events. 8-)

This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[Tenement]

This Headline implies that NASA it wasting money on 'shooting' probes out just to crash them now.

Remember that Galileo has done it's purpose and to avoid a possible extraterrestrial contamination of another celestial body that possibly may supporting life, they decided to crash it into another planet that (most likely) does not support any life.

NASA isn't in the habit of building something just to throw it away for no good reason. Sure, they make mistakes, but NASA is still ran by humans, and humans make 'human errors.' The technological feats that they have done (and are still doing) boggles the mind. (I'd like to see you calculate the exact vector to break orbit and travel to Jupiter over the course of 2 years with only 2 minutes of burn-time)

NASA is still going strong and I feel quite happy that my tax-dollars are being pourned into it. (Besides they brought us TANG! ;-) )

Cheers.
--

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[chewbca]

love the sig... black hole was one of my FAVES
growing up.. what DID V.I.N.C.E.N.T stand for again.. i remember reading a kids book based on
the flim and it said what it was..

:)

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[rde]

what DID V.I.N.C.E.N.T stand for again...

Vital Information Necessary, CENTralised. Twenty years later, and I still remember one of the worst acronyms ever.

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[El Kevbo]

I'd like to see you calculate the exact vector to break orbit and travel to Jupiter over the course of 2 years with only 2 minutes of burn-time

Would you like that answer in metric, english, or an odd mixture of the two? :)

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[khanate]

Remember that Galileo has done it's purpose and to avoid a possible extraterrestrial contamination of another celestial body that possibly may supporting life, they decided to crash it into another planet that (most likely) does not support any life.

But what's the point? Life is not sacred. We kill it all the time. Millions of Americans don't care if by carelessly running they kill an ant. Few tears are shed for the poor help plants burned as weeds every year, or the billions of e. coli bacteria cruelly killed each year to save a few human lives. There are concerted efforts to commit genocide upon "alien" species in California, the Greak Lakes, and other locals.

What sort of weird mixture of elitism ("Oh, as scientists we can spend billions to protect miniscule life forms from a vague threat"), hypocracy ("But the reason we still land on Mars is.... But the reason we're still planning on sending a probe to Europa's Ocean is....") and extreme altruism ("Earth life isn't good enough") concoted this zany scheme?

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[Improper Gesture]

Actually, NASA does throw away the empty shuttle fuel container after every launch. These are air-tight containers that could be used for low-orbit construction, but they're sent back to burn up in the atmosphere.

I'm sure that NASA has what they consider to be a good reason for doing this but it seems short-sighted to me. There have been aerospace engineers who have suggested that these tanks be used in the construction of a space station. Apparently, the construction tasks involved are prohibitively difficult to do, especially when compared to the effort of assembling prefabricated space station components.

Maybe once the International Space Station is functional and manned, this will be revisited...

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[JerkBoB]

You're silly. They want to avoid contaminating Europa so that if they DO find lifeforms, they can say that they didn't get there when Galileo crashed into Europa.

Posting before thinking again, are we?

--
A host is a host from coast to coast...

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[StarFace]

Not only that, but you are confusing the fact that what NASA does has nothing to do with what Collective Human Stupidity is capabile of doing. A small group of humans can be quite rational about the preservation of our ecosystem, and the checks and balances there. But collective humanity as a whole is quite greedy and not really ready to think on the long term scale yet. Sad but true.

Re:This Headline implies that NASA it wasting....

[StarFace]

They would quickly amass a large quanity of these containers, floating around in orbit. It would take too long to get a program together to collect them and do something constructive with them. There is no feasible way to get them back to earth, and in the meantime they would really clutter up the orbit.

Alien lifeforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmm, if there really are alien lifeforms, why are we going to waste our tax dollars? It's not like we haven't already wiped out several species of animals and exterminated several human populations, so why save them?

Visions of 2010...

[EricWright]

All these worlds are yours except Europa... attempt no landing there.

Only we're there 10 years early!

Eric

Re:Visions of 2010...

[chewbca]

heh heh.. yeah i still get a little weirded out
thinking about just what it was that Max
"encountered" down there..

hmm.. just a thought.. i wonder how difficult it would be, considering galileo's present position
to use Juptier to slingshot itself out of the
plane of the ecliptic... (shrug)

"my god it's full of stars.."

Re:Visions of 2010...

[Alorelith]

Yeah...that probably IS the reason NASA doesn't want to crash Galileo on Europa...they fear retribution! I did a research paper on Europa not too long ago and I have some links about Europa if anyone is interested.

here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
and here!
sorry if this drags on...some links may not be that great.

Re:Visions of 2010...

[Mawbid]

I take it you haven't read the book. It's a lot clearer than the movie. I recommend it.
--

Re:Visions of 2010...

[chewbca]

it's funny.. that's the only book out of the series that i haven't read.. 2001/2061/3001 i did.. hmmm guess i'll just have to go back and read it..

Re:Visions of 2010...

[Tayknight]

You gotta remember the whole thing... All these worlds are yours except Europa. Use them together Use them in peace Attempt no landing there.

Re:Visions of 2010...

[EricWright]

OK, thanks Tayknight. I was at work and didn't have the book handy. It's been a long time since I read or watched 2010... I didn't even notice that this article was filed under the all-these-worlds-are-yours-except-Europa dept. until about an hour later.

Eric

so?

[typ0]

if you read the article: galileo has been around since '89.. it has completed it's mission..

and they evaluating scenarios to ensure europa won't be contamined.. one of them being to deliberatly crash an old spacecraft..

don't start nagging again that the US government is wasting money..
it would be a much greater loss to lose/blur evidence about alien lifeforms on europa.

Science over Politics

[Chris Pimlott]

This is very refreshing news. That fact that they are willing and seem to be very committed to sacrificing this very expensive satellite in order to keep Europa pristine shows that it is science, and not politics, that rules the show at NASA. And this is _exactly_ as it should be.

And to those who complain of waste, Galileo is over 10 years old. It has already accomplished its original mission as well as a two year extension. I think this noble-minded idea is a fit end to its career.

A.C.Clarke

[cswan]

About time those damned scientists took Mr. Clarke's warning about landing there seriously :)

redirect it

[348]

Why couldn't they just redirect it when the Millennium Mission is complete in February 2001? With such a success, (NASA needs a few) why crash it in to Jupiter, there has to be some value the old warhorse can provide. It'd be a shame to end this program.

Space junk

[tjwhaynes]

Nice to see that NASA has finally woken up to the problem of space rubbish around other planets. If Gallileo does have Earth-born bacteria on it which have survived in space (there are various theories about life spreading from planet to planet by this method) it would be extremely frustrating to disrupt any current ecosystem on Europa. On the other hand, this concern will make the job of examining Europa in the future more tricky, regardless of what they do with Galileo (dropping it into the Jovian atmosphere or crashing it into Io both sound like possibilities to gain interesting data on either planet/moon). If we are going to go explore Europa for signs of life, we are almost certainly going to have to do it remotely with 'sterilized' equipment - sending a few astronauts down to have look isn't going to help in the attempts to not disrupt any life already there.

Of course, our own orbit is now strewn with bits of satellites and rocket boosters - thankfully it all tends to wander around at the same speeds as the spacecraft in orbit, but it gets a little bit unnerving to wonder about the future of colonizing the galaxy when you have to dodge the last 100 years of waste products in getting started.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

Cosmic Radiation Sterilisation

[_Gnubie_]

Wouldn't any microbes from earth that made it onto the spacecraft by now have been killed by cosmic radiation? The craft has been in space for several years now. Even the most hardy microbes should have perished by now?

Even if microbes did make it through space and survice an impact what is the chances that any alien life would be compatible with ours?

Re:Cosmic Radiation Sterilisation

[Anonymous Coward]

Its been shown that microbes can and have endured many more times the radiation than what we thought they could.

Re:Cosmic Radiation Sterilisation

[Bearpaw]

Wouldn't any microbes from earth that made it onto the spacecraft by now have been killed by cosmic radiation? The craft has been in space for several years now. Even the most hardy microbes should have perished by now?

We don't know. That's the point.

Even if microbes did make it through space and survice an impact what is the chances that any alien life would be compatible with ours?

We don't know. That's the point. There is no basis (yet) on which to judge those odds. Anyone who says otherwise is indulging in a WAG whether they admit it or not.

Why take any chance? Though it's functioned way beyond it's expected time, the craft is nearing the end of its usefulness. It's time to clean up after ourselves. For a change.

I am!

[Anonymous Coward]

Right after you pass the bong.

Of COURSE we're crashing the probe ...

[Mike Schiraldi]

Good for NASA. We don't want to take any chances of accidentally pissing off some aliens. You saw what they did to Jupiter.

"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."

Re:Of COURSE we're crashing the probe ...

[Tau Zero]

You saw what they did to Jupiter.

Yeah, Shoemaker-Levy 9 should be a warning to everyone.

What Jupiter would have said if it could talk:
"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!"
--

Why not?

[zpengo]

What's a few million here and there? It probably won't make a serious dent in NASA's budget, and if anything will help them explain why they should get more money next year.

Seriously, though, what would happen if we get there and all we find is a single alien village with a lot of corpses and a wrecked satellite?

Oops!

Do they really have a choice? I know a lot of us are pissed off that three cents of our tax money is going toward possibly saving a lifeform other than humans, but isn't that -- objectively speaking -- the wisest decision?

You will probably find as much money between the cushions on your sofa as you have invested into this project. Chill out, people.

ICQ: 49636524
snowphoton@mindspring.com

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, it will burn up the atmosphere, Einstein.

Sounds like a good idea

[Bearpaw]

It's too late for the Earth to remain uncontaiminated, but perhaps it's not too late for Europa. ;-> for the humor-impaired.

Seriously, this makes sense. Once they've squeezed the last bit of use out of it, why not?

Nice to see someone thinking a little ahead for once.

(ObRef: "All these worlds are yours-- except Europa. Attempt no landings there.")

Nothing being wasted, mission objective finished

[vor]

Since the main objective will be already completed (observing Jupiter), the probe served it's usefulness already. They have nothing to lose if they do crash it, but a very very slim chance that Europa is contaminated if they don't. If by some chance it does crash on Europa, when a future mission explorers the moon for life, it would be difficult to say with scientific certainty what was observed did not come from this probe. If it doesn't crash, it will just continue on into blackness as other NASA probes have in the past. Nothing is going to be wasted.

ya

[Anonymous Coward]

What about contaminating the place where they crash it? First of all, they have NO IDEA if life exists out there or not. So why chance it by sending it where they don't 'think' it is? They found they can do one thing sucessfully, and that is crash into a planet. It even took them a few tries to get that right. As I recall, in the 60's they tried to crash a few into the moon, and it took 4 tries to finally do it.

life Follows Art

[Anonymous Coward]

does no one else remember 2010 ALL THESE PLANETS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA - ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE...ALL THESE PLANETS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA - ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE...ALL THESE PLANETS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA - ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE...ALL THESE PLANETS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA - ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE... I think NASA is confusing Real Life wth previous art... ezeller@ericzeller.nospam.com (too lazy to register, remove nospam to e-mail)

We have made contact!

[dominion]

Superior: Do you see anything?

Subordinate: Sir, I'm starting to get an image.

Superior: See if you can focus it. We want to know if there's any real life on Europa. We don't want to contaminate it.

Subordinate: Sir, I'm seeing something. It looks like... Like a...

Superior: Yes?

Subordinate: My God... We won't have to worry about contaminating Europa, sir.

Superior: Dammit, what is it?!?

Subordinate: It's a Starbucks, sir.

--

"This is a revolution, dammit! We're going to have to offend SOMEBODY!" - John Adams

Michael Chisari

How we screwed that up

[DonkPunch]

Project "Re-enter Oz" failed due to a NASA miscalculation. While urban legend contends that it was an english-to-metric error, it wasn't.

Actually, NASA forgot that a multi-ton satellite re-entering earth's atmosphere in the southern hemisphere spins COUNTERclockwise.

Re:How we screwed that up

[Glytch]

Ooh! Battle of the anime references!

Here's a challenge: "I just love walls. Isn't this a lovely wall?!"

I have the answer

[macdaddy]

Blame Canada!!

Bang per buck?

[cbustapeck]

I an not a scientist, so I do not claim to understand the specific problems involved with this situation. I leave the control of this spacecraft in the hands of those who actually understand the situation.

As for the cost, yes, $1.5 billion is a lot of money. But divided equally amoung the population of the USA, it comes out to about $5 per person (figuring 300 million people). This project has already done quite a bit. I think it has been worth my $5.

has the environmental movement gone too far?

[Rev.LoveJoy]

I cannot imagine what thoughts must be traversing the neural pathways of the good people at NASA / JPL. Do they really, honestly and truly believe that a couple thousand pounds of irradiated metal and silicon could really have an impact on Europa? Puhleeeze.

Now the real question in my mind, when the slam Galileo into Jupiter, will I be able to get it on Pay Per View?

- RLJ

Re:has the environmental movement gone too far?

[Bryan Andersen]

Unfortunatly it isn't the ton of metal and silicon they are worried about. It's the micro gram of flesh along for the ride.

Fear of Lawyers

[Dhericean]

That may be a good official reason but we all know the real reason.

NASA is afraid of the class action suit that some spaceprobe-chasing lawyers would start on behalf of all the non-terrestrial life-forms that the crash had affected.

Is it true NASA stands for Not Another Space Accident?

Re:Fear of Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Need Another Seven Astronauts (remember the Challenger?)

HAL and Bowman's message

[fence]

All these worlds are yours - except Europa, attempt no landings there.

Evolution = Crash

[WillAffleck]

Excuse me? Why not crash it into Europa? Cataclysmic events have been responsible for most evolutionary jumps on Earth - why not give Europa a chance to develop life more progressed than simple lifeforms, so that at least one body in this solar system develops an intelligence that can become star-faring?

After all, with the NASA budget shrinking every year, this rock will die when the moon crashes into the surface anyway.

Re:Evolution = Crash

[Tau Zero]

...this rock will die when the moon crashes into the surface anyway.

You mean Earth? Luna is never going to crash into Earth; it is getting farther away every year, as it acquires energy and angular momentum it saps from Earth's rotation via the tides. Long ago there were 400 days per year, compared to 365 now; days are always getting longer, though not fast enough to satisfy most geeks.
--

Foresight?

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

I agree that this is a wise course of action (or at least wise to consider), but I don't agree that it shows foresight. Quite the opposite.

REAL foresight would have been sending the probe out clean to begin with so that contamination would never be an issue. You may argue that they had no idea Galileo would make it this far. I have two responses to that:

1) "We'll never need more than 640KB of RAM"
2) Even if you never made it to Europa, why risk contaminating space itself? There are a lot of people studying space-borne life and having microbe-infested spaceships zooming around probably doesn't help much.
--
Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.

MODERATE UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, this comment is 1) funny and 2) more ontopic than most of the crap posted so far.

monkeys

[forty_two]

Just because we're moderately advanced versions of good old-fashioned chimpanzees doesn't give us the exclusive rights to destroy life wherever we discover it. And has anyone considered the possibility that, if there is single-celled life on Europa, it may very well be quite deadly to humans? Single celled life forms that coexist with us peacefully only do so after millions of years of coevolution... a good parasite never kills its host. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Not that it matters, really, since we aren't sending people there. Yet.

I'm wondering if we can turn this into a big experiment... try to closely recreate the conditions on Earth that led to the evolution of intelligent life. Gently tip the scales of evolution so that, in a few hundred million years (after we have long been extinct), a new race of intelligent creatures will rise up and discover the remains of our civilization. Our people would be sort of cosmic parents. Or not.

Re:monkeys

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just because we're moderately advanced versions of good old-fashioned chimpanzees doesn't give us the exclusive rights to destroy life wherever we discover it." Apart from the biological stupidity of this statement, it's morally meaningless. If I say that humans are apes i'm not entitled to draw any moral conclusions from that statement alone. idiot.

Re:Hear me out on this

[Anonymous Coward]

yer a fuckin idiot!! You propably want to make miscarriages into a crime. There are way too many humans as it is. Get off your high horse.

Funnier posts

[Anonymous Coward]

I said it before, and i'll say it again: Moderation just doesn't work. Stupid posts like this get high ratings thanks to karma bonuses, while meanwhile, good posts like this one and this one starve at 1, where no moderators ever see them.

Re:Hear me out on this

[bubbasatan]

Hmmm...maybe you've noticed that our planet isn't exactly empty. You know, those six billion or so multi-billion celled organisms called humans that can't even feed themselves. Hey, if we want to kill ourselves off, that's our business. But it is not our business to kill off what might the only other known indigenous life in the solar system, galaxy, etc. Maybe one day Europa will be colonized by humans. If it's got an ocean, that's a hell of a start. Just think back to your days swimming in the primordial ooze. If you can't remember your little flagellum, maybe you should take a dip in Europa's ocean for a refresher course.

What about the Prime Directive?

[Bad Mojo]

Unless those are faster than light capable life forms?

(You mean Star Trek isn't real?)


Bad Mojo

Re:What about the Prime Directive?

[Glytch]

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I *KNEW* that someone would bring up the Prime Directive... :)

Incoming message...

[drivers]

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER, USE THEM IN PEACE.

thank you.

Re:Incoming message...

[emerson]

Yes, thank you. Good thing you read the from-the-xxx-department line of this article.


--

Re:Incoming message...

[drivers]

I am the first one to get the whole quote in. Do not question my authority.

I didn't notice the department line though. Thanks for pointing that out. (Cock.)

Re:Incoming message...

[AndyL]

Why did this get "informative"? For one thing it's just a quote from a work of fiction so it can't possibly be informative. Second everyone else has already posted it. Third he should have quoted the book not the movie anyway.

Re:Incoming message...

[drivers]

I love it. 1 informative (true, weird), 1 insightful, and 1 overrated. Everyone else has posted the same quote but they didn't put the whole thing (the use it in peace stuff). One other guy (post 77) posted the exact same thing, but one post and one minute after I did. I haven't read the book and even if I did all I did was a search on the net for the quote. And I flamed a guy who sarcastically flamed me, so I lost one point for a troll. So I guess it all balances out, except between all the messages we have added about... oh... six extraneous messages and wasted quite a few moderation points. :)

Re:Incoming message...

[six809]

Oh so that's where the "Use them together..." malarky came from. I tend to remember the book better anyway.

Thought for the day

[msaulters]

Let's see if I remember... Ah yes,

All these worlds are yours... Except Europa.
Attempt no landing there. Use them together.
Use them in peace.

Re:Thought for the day

[drivers]

Sorry man, I beat you by one post and one minute (see #76). :) No one else had the complete quote before us/me.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/03/02/12362 58&cid=76

Re:Thought for the day

[msaulters]

Wow, we simultaneously had the same thought & the same urge to post it. Shame I got my ass kicked by the /./. effect. What is going on with the site today??? I just wish I'd gotten in first. (I need the karma)

Oh come on we all know what happened

[MosesJones]

Nasa Scientist A: I'm getting bored at looking at Jupiter

Nasa Scientist B: I know what you mean, same old same odl

A: Mind you those comets that smashed into it were pretty cool
B: Yeah, 11 years watching and its all clouds and methane, where is the fun in that ?
A: We need to do something exciting.

Enter Military Man C

C: Hi Guys, anything new ?
A: Nope, just a big red dot and a possible ocean.
B: And of course the black bits.
C: Okay I'll be off.
A: Hang On, we're just wondering how to make this job more interesting, any ideas ?
C: Well you could take the military approach...
B: Which is ?
C: If it costs over a billion dollars, make sure it crashes, we did it with the Stealth Fighters and Bombers, its the whole purpose of the ICBMs. And they make WAY cool noises and pretty lights when they go up.
A: You mean you crash these things on purpose ?
C: Sure sometimes, but we video everything just incase we get lucky by accident.

And that ladies and gentlemen was how the plan was formed.

I know, I was coffee mug D.

Re:Hear me out on this

[jpatokal]

Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies?

I couldn't agree more. Criminalize masturbation NOW!

This is incredibly stupid.

At least you got one thing right.

Cheers,
-j.

Re:Hear me out on this

[Anonymous Coward]

YER the fuckin idiot!! You probably want to make using antibiotics a crime. There are way too many single-celled life forms as it is. Get off your high horse.

Humans to Europa

[Bob Kopp]

Sending astronauts to Europa wouldn't be a good idea, anyways. Europa (along with Io) are well within Jupiter's radiation belts. Any humans travelling there without a lot of protection would die very quickly.

A trip to Ganeymede would significantly increases one's risk of cancer, but would not be immediately fatal. Callisto, of all the Galilean moons, is the only one with human-safe levels of radiation.

In addition, any life on Europa would probably be in Europa's ocean, which is probably buried underneath approximately 100 km of ice.

Bob Kopp

the UFP would be proud

[Sjev]

Cool. NASA follows the Prime Directive better than Kirk, Picard or Janeway ever did!

--

And the aliens throw it back?

[egregious]

I suspect the Europans (subtle difference from Europeans) will just throw it back. They'll get all pissy like in Planet of the Apes... Why don't we crash it into that Ape Planet?

Wait.. That was earth. What did you do to earth, you bastards!

galileo

[Anonymous Coward]

GALILEO
galileo
GALILEO
figaro
BEELZEBUB
HAD A DEVIL FOR A SIDEBOARD

Re:Hear me out on this

[Anonymous Coward]

>There are no life forms on any of those moons. This is incredibly stupid.

And you know this for a fact?

As Jack Handley said

[gargle]

"IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988"

If I had a space ship, I don't think I'll just crash it into Jupiter. There's got to be a better way.

Re:As Jack Handley said

[e-gold]

If I had a space ship, I don't think I'll just crash it into Jupiter. There's got to be a better way.

I agree. Maybe it's possible to take a close enough pass through the atmosphere to:
1. Find out something interesting by getting that near?
2. Raise the whole spacecraft temperature to above boiling, sterilizing it?

Disclaimers: I'm not a space scientist. Maybe it's not possible (or silly if it IS possible?) or maybe in the process if pasteurizing the hypothetical beasties on the spacecraft they'd cook the spacecraft into uselessness, too? Probably someone thought of this before, if it's a good idea after all? I don't know. Just an idea.
JMR

Re:Hear me out on this

[iCEBaLM]

Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?

Well, first of all with the cost argument, the space craft is 11 years old, was only intended to be used for 2 years, so in essence, you got 9 years free, can't beat that deal...

I know you're going after the abortion deal, which is really disturbing, whether or not you believe abortion should be legal (I really don't, with some exceptions) you must keep in mind, these are OUR offspring, any life on another planet is NOT ours, and therefore we have more right to destroy our stuff then their stuff. I know it sounds draconian but really thats the way it is.

There are no life forms on any of those moons. This is incredibly stupid.

So I take it you've been there, right?

-- iCEBaLM

Okay, so what if......

[Accipiter]

A member of the Galileo imaging team says NASA are considering crashing the spacecraft into Jupiter or one of its icy moons in 2002 because it might still contain microbes from Earth.

Great. So those microbes take a plunge on to a new planet. Fast forward 5 billion years, and those microbes have populated Jupiter and have created life on an otherwise lifeless planet. We've just infected Jupiter!

"Just to be sure, they want to get rid of it and make sure it doesn't go into Europa, where we have a possible habitat of some kind of extraterrestrial life."

Soooooo.....What happens if the crash site is currently occupied with Life Forms that we DON'T suspect, hmm? So in an ironic ending to the life of Galileo, it crashes into a planet with life forms and introduces extra-Jupiterian life to divide and conquer.

Or, we could send it off into deep space, and discover it 300 years from now as a tremendous space probe named G'leo.

-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

Re:Okay, so what if......

[/]

If your post was meant to be funny, it didn't contain enough hyperbole to be blatently tongue-in-cheek. So I'll just treat it as ignorance.

You know what Jupiter's made of, right? 92% hydrogen, 7% helium, mostly methane for the rest, those sorts of things. At the upper atmosphere, it's more than a thousand degrees celcius, and it's all whipping about rather harshly. And oh yeah, no water. If there is life there, it doesn't resemble anything we have on earth, and whatever we bring from earth wouldn't be able to survive if it got there. And then there's the little problem about how the spacecraft will burn up once it enters the planet's atmosphere, which is after all, all of it (except perhaps for the metalic hydrogen core, which if it exists wouldn't make a lick of difference here). This is in stark contrast to Europa, which doesn't have an appreciable atmosphere and so if we lob something at it, it'll remain intact until it hits the surface.

Soooooo.....What happens if the crash site is currently occupied with Life Forms that we DON'T suspect, hmm? So in an ironic ending to the life of Galileo, it crashes into a planet with life forms and introduces extra-Jupiterian life to divide and conquer.

Yes, it'd be perfeclty ironic, since it'd crap all over lots of our biological and astronomical theories, but that doesn't mean it's possible. You're also forgetting the little bit about how there is no "landing site" per se -- just a spot floating in the outer atmosphere.

Or, we could send it off into deep space, and discover it 300 years from now as a tremendous space probe named G'leo.

Except the whole problem in the first place is that this thing doesn't have any extra fuel lying around for such a purpose. If we could just go ahead and send it off into deep space, it'd still be useful and we'd use it for that. Heck, the Voyager 2 is still sending back data from outside the solar system, and we're praying it'll last another twenty years and make it to measure the helioshock out there. But escaping the gravity of Jupiter is not a simple thing to do without any propulsion. Have you stopped to wonder why Jupiter has so many moons and trojan asteroids in the first place?

Re:Okay, so what if......

[Accipiter]

You know what Jupiter's made of, right?

Yes. It's mostly gaseous. (Which if you consider it, would kind of eliminate the idea of 'crashing')

If there is life there, it doesn't resemble anything we have on earth

Of course it doesn't. Which is why the search for life shouldn't be based SOLELY on the search for water. Yeah, it's a great starting point, but there is no guarantee that life everywhere NEEDS water to survive.

whatever we bring from earth wouldn't be able to survive if it got there.

Prove it. Do you know for sure? If you do, what do you base your proof on? How do you know 100% that Earth-based life would not/could not survive on Jupiter?

it'd crap all over lots of our biological and astronomical theories

There are only 2 absolute results to all theories. They're either proven, or broken.

that doesn't mean it's possible.

It doesn't mean it's impossible either.

By the way, that last part was a joke. Haven't you ever seen Star Trek: The motion picture? (God, I HATE explaining jokes.)

-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

Re:Okay, so what if......

[Glytch]

>and it's all whipping about rather harshly.
I have this sudden mental image of Jupiter wearing red leather S&M gear, transmitting a message back to Earth demanding to be called the Queen.

Re:Okay, so what if......

[lohen]

>There are only 2 absolute results to all >theories. They're either proven, or broken

I actually agree with the importance of proving/disproving theories, but it must be pointed out that there is no absolute proof or disproof - and don't try reductio ad absurdum, we've heard it all before.

I say we should try Io - the chances of our bacteria surviving there are just as slim, and I like what I've seen of it so far. However, jupiter has the preferential argument that some of our bacteria might well have got there already anyway, and not just from the probe we dropped into it a while back. Earth has been leaking bacteria into space for 100s of millions of years (at the very least) and Jupiter has a very big gravity well. Admittedly, these bacteria will have had to survive for a lot longer in space, but some varieties might just have been tough enough.

Hell, Europa could have been contaminated the same way too although it's a smaller gravity well. If it has been though, it would be fascinating to know that bacteria are capable of that kind of inter-planetary travel, so there's still no reason to contaminate it. And Jupiter is not a good subject for such study, mainly because of that prior probe.

Did you say `crash?'

[Philip Marlowe]

If NASA needs to crash Galileo, shouldn't they turn to the real experts? I'm sure Micro$oft would take Galileo off their hands for a hefty fee and then cause Galileo to crash very nicely---after two or three service packs, of course.

Crash Galileo into Io as Pre-Emptive Strike

[SkulkCU]

The giant squids of Europa are our friends! We can easily co-exist with intelligent sea creatures. After all, most of earth is water. They have no interest in the land we occupy.

I'm worried about the hideous lava-feeding giant worms of Io. The recent volcanic eruptions in the Philippines are beckoning them! There is no doubt that our planet's core could be heated, causing our puny land-crust to melt. They're the ones driving this global warming thing, too. But nobody believes it!

We've heard the squids, but the eerie silence of Io is the true threat. They /want/ us to think they're not there. We must take up arms before they can erupt in anger, and by opposing them, end the revolt before it can begin.

Dignity and honor?

[/]

I can see the conversation between NASA and the spacecraft now:

Galileo: Well, I've put in my long hard years for the company, and after having put it off for a few years, I think it's time to retire and start collecting social security.

NASA: That's good, because we were coming up with a spectacular retirement package for you.

Galileo: Great, so what does my golden parachute look like?

NASA: [whispers into Galileo's ear]

Galileo: A MASSIVE HELLISH FIREBALL?!?!

Re:Dignity and honor?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what they did to Marvin.

:)

That story for the elite.

[Anonymous Coward]

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Pionner 10 turns 28 !

[Frederic54]

Everyone know Pionner 10, well, this "old" thing has been launch in March 2nd, 1972, so it has 28 years old today, happy birthday Pionner 10!
--
BeDevId 15453
Download BeOS R5 Lite free!

Kinda like the Prime Directive in Star-Trek huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

They gota put this on Fox!! "When Good Probes Go Bad" ;-)

[a link] Pionner 10 turns 28 !

[Frederic54]

http://spacepr ojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNStat. html
--
BeDevId 15453
Download BeOS R5 Lite free!

An NASA Employee reveals everything!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

even if some of you might think im a troll or flamebait, i really am a a longterm employee of NASA and i feel urged to reveal the true facts about crashing Galileo.

We don't do it because it's neccesary, but to get more funding. That sounds stupid at first.. but think about it:

if we waste a lot of money, we can say: 'hey, we just got rid of a lot of money, give us more'.. and they do give us more.

it's all about strategy.

Thank you,

smg

Actually, it's probably a coverup.

[Xzzy]

NASA folks have probably detected some bug in the Galileo code that will, in a year or so, result in them losing contact with the craft.

Due to limitations in the spacecraft's hardware, they are unable to transmit new code to patch this bug.

So, in an effort to save some face, NASA decides to tell people they're going to just destroy the thing because they don't want to risk running into a moon that might have some life on it.

Works darn well. Not only does their error get a nice coverup, but NASA gets billed as "responsible" for trying to protect life on other celestial bodies. Plus, they get to point the Hubble at the moon they decide to plow Galileo into, and attempt to calculate how big a fireball the sucker makes.

(note to the humor impaired: piss off)

So, they're gonna crash another one.

[dkh2]

Gut reaction: this is a front story to cover the fact that NASA has lost guidance on this thing and they can't stop it from crashing.

Second take: So they're concerned about contaminating another possibly life bearing orb with bio-material from Earth. Gee, how honorable of them. Sure, any life found there would be microscopic but, if we're ever going to get a chance to study it we have to be sure we didn't munge the research. It's a bit like keeping food, beverages, and cigarettes out of your chem lab.

"Really professor, I mixed two units of phenylalylcryonic acid with six units of mononucleoalanine and about half a Snickers (TM) bar and this is what I got!"

Now my real question is, can they target the impact so we can all watch it happen?

Re:Hear me out on this

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think NASA has much to do with abortion legislation.

1) not like they just spent 1.5 solely to crash it. craft has far surpassed its expectations.
2) nothing to do with rights - good science
3) human children unborn babies (just mho)

Re:Hear me out on this

[Petethelate]

There are no life forms on any of those moons. This is incredibly stupid.

For the sake of argument, I'll assume that your second sentance was not intended to apply to the first.

In my reading, I've seen nowhere in the Bible where God said "You are unique--no other bacteria anywhere, not even on that Jovian moon." Gimmie a break, the last time I looked, the Bible was written a long time before people realized that Jupiter was more that a light in the sky and that there were worlds circling around it. Hell, at that time, people hadn't even seen Europa, nor the other major moons.

I'm going to skip any discussion on abortion--in a story about NASA, it's a wee bit offtopic....

oh great

[Nastard]

``It was never put into quarantine or cleaned up before it left the Earth, though I can't imagine any bugs would be alive on it after all the radiation it's been exposed to,'' Kitt Peak astronomer Michael Belton said Wednesday.

This is just what we need. A bunch of Pissed Off Radioactive Mutant Aliens From Europa(tm) coming down to kick our asses in 20 years.

The lifeforms could be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

They may not have come from a truely Open environment. We need DNA samples to check that they are coming from an Open Environment.

If they dont, and if they dont use Linux, NUKE THE BASTARDS

some think this will cause Jupiter

[Anonymous Coward]

to start to burn like a new sun

2010ish kind of thing

Microsoft may Deliberately Crash Windows

[xant]

Microsoft may deliberately crash the $200 Windows 2000 OS which is exploring software stores and computers worldwide at this moment to avoid contaminating system memory. MS Programmers believe simple life forms may exist in your motherboard, as evidenced by the system "bus" which they obviously must use for transportation. An MS spokesman made a statement: "If our OS didn't crash so much, these simple creatures wouldn't be able to survive in your computer. Stable, free OS's run too long, not allowing the bus creatures to come up for air often enough. We're just doing the humane thing."

Re:Hear me out on this

[chialea]

Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?

whoa, whoa. calm, cool, collected.

1. this is space garbage. the mission was judged to be worth whatever they spent on it. then they got three times as much use out of it as was in the original mission guidelines. as much as we litter our own orbits and ecosphere, I hope you haven't gotten the idea that it's a good idea.
   
2. they can gain valuable data by doing a suicide mission into Jupiter or Io. don't get the idea that they picked these targets randomly.
   
3. *sigh* I really wasn't in the mood for an abortion fight, so I'm just going to say a few things, since it's offtopic:
   
   • one prospective member of one (overcrowded) species != wiping out the entire moon's worth of life (and/or) spoiling all future studies and knowledge we might gain from Europa
     
   • unborn baby != child
     
   • incest
     
   • rape
     
   • extreme threat to mother's health
     
   • babies in plastic bags in dumpsters. why? guess.
     
   • many, many abused, unhappy, neglected children
     
   
   

Re:Hear me out on this

[djoham]

Interesting point. OK, I'll discuss.

I think these are two separate issues. NASA is not in a position to debate (or even take a position on) the abortion issue. It is their job to consider the repercussions of their actions on a cosmic scale. At home, we can debate the relative merits (or lack thereof) of more human matters.

I'd like to rephrase your last question,

"Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children"

to something a little different.

What right do we have as a species to pollute and possibly contaminate the children of other worlds? Do they not have the same rights as human children?

NASA spent 1.5 billion dollars for a two year mission. That mission is now in its 5th year. We're getting our money's worth.

If there is *any* chance that there may be life on Europa, it would be very rude (at the very least) of us to start depositing our space junk in their back yards. Not to mention scientifically ill-advised.

I don't know if there is any life on Europe. You don't *know* there's no life on Europa. Ending the mission by sending Galileo off into space or down into Jupiter is prudent and the morally correct thing to do.

Best regards

David

I'd recognize that hyphenation style anywhere!

[arthurs_sidekick]

T. Herman Zweibel has started reading /. !!!

This is a Good Thing(tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

There is ample evidence that life exists in Europa and we should not go poking around in there.

NASA is doing the right thing.

History Repeating

[SEWilco]

First of all, Earth bacteria survived three years on the Moon. So we know it already happened. Earth bacteria can survive in space.

I don't really want a bacteria which survives that environment back on Earth, but it does not matter much. Earth bacteria get blown off the top of the atmosphere all the time. Gravity pulls some to the Moon or Sun, while the solar wind tends to push them away from the Sun. Some will hit rocks and get carried in random directions, including back to Earth.

It doesn't matter how small the probabilities. Some bacteria has probably already survived a round trip back to us. And if Galileo is ever recovered, it will be in a society with so much space travel taking place that we'll have a lot of life wandering in and out of space.

Re:History Repeating

[crush]

I don't really want a bacteria which survives that environment back on Earth

Well, there are lots of extremophiles here already that survive very "harsh" conditions. Large numbers of microbes are anaerobic, possibly the earliest life here was anaerobic. Geologists and evolutionists get all excited over the presence of oxidized iron because they believe that it's the result of the emergence of microbes that produced the stuff and then other ones emerged that were able to use it. There are bacteria Deinoccus radiodurans that are very happy in strongly radioactive environments, bacteria that eat "poisonous" contaminants. That's all apparently home-grown without any need to postulate microbes hitchhiking in on space debris.
That last point is why it's so darn important NOT to contaminate Europa - supposing we find life there after possible contamination. We look at it and it's similar to Earth microbes - cool! That means that there are only a limited number of paths for evolution to take to produce single-celled life, it's independent convergence[*}.....oh, wait no, didn't we just smash a possibly contaminated spaceprobe in here about 20 years ago? {*} Yeah, I know it's damned unlikely to get the same combination of bases/nucleotides at the sequence level necessary for the _true_ definition of convergence, but let's just think even about similar phenotypic morphology - wouldn't it be neat if they had flagella?

Re:History Repeating

[SEWilco]

Yes, as long as we have control of Galileo we may as well prevent contamination. But Earth has been leaking stuff for a long time, so the neighborhood is already contaminated. Let's not be messy, but we also won't be surprised if nearby life is related to us.

We already know that Mars had water, so it's already in doubt as to whether Mars or Earth started contaminating the neighborhood first...or maybe we got contaminated from Europa, if it cooled from red-hot iron first.

Re:History Repeating

[Anonymous Coward]

Er..the earliest life here *was* anaerobic. The oxygen in our atmosphere is courtesy of the oxygenic photosynthesisers. Took them about a billion years to get enough oh-two into the atmosphere to enable aerobic respiration. There's a still of lot strict anaerobes out there btw..the merest whiff of oxygen can be toxic to these bugs.

Re:History Repeating

[crush]

Er..the earliest life here *was* anaerobic. The oxygen in our atmosphere is courtesy of the oxygenic photosynthesisers

Yes, that's what I was saying. Hence the "possibly the earliest life was anaerobic " line and the point about ferrous oxides.
Cheers
--Crush

It won't crash, someone else will pick it up...

[stienman]

I doubt they'll crash it when the millenium project is done. Many projects, such as this, get swiped by someone else who needs them. Some researcher, right now, is contacting NASA saying, "Hey, I've got this great project which can use your ship. I know it's only 30% functional, but that is acceptable to me, and the gov't will fund my project if I can bring the cost down. By using your ship instead of sending a new one, I'm shaving 10 years and 100 million off my project."

In fact, many researchers are sending their proposals in all the time for space equiment which is nearing its life cycle. This is how it works in that industry. Who knows, we may even sell it to another country who doesn't have the ability to send stuff into space.

-Adam

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" - Albert Einstein

God only created life on Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that God created life on Earth, not Europa or any other moon/planet. Sheesh. Pick up a bible people!

Re:God only created life on Earth

[linux_wannabe]

That's rather narrow minded. At what point in any bible does it say that God only created life here? The ones I've read state that God created the heaven, the stars, the sun, and all life on this planet, but I don't remember reading anything about this being the only place he put life.

Oh Please Stop ....

[linux_wannabe]

At what point do we stop with the attitude, that we (humans) and our eco-system prevail over the entire universe? Assuming ANYTHING survived through all the radiation that the probe has been exposed to, what makes us think that it would survive in a hostile environment such as Europa? It's like the Antartica around the whole moon! Unless we built Galileo in the same type of environment as it would be exposed to on Europa, chances are everything would die the second it was exposed to the atmosphere. Not that I'm a biologist, but if an organism from earth were to come in direct and violent contact with an enviroment such as Europa (ie, the probe crashes into the oceans or Europa) it wouldn't be given any time to adapt to its environment and I would think it would go into shock and die. I mean: 1. It would have to survive the 11 year journey from earth and all the exposure of space. 2. It would have to survive a crash landing of a probe into the oceans of Europa. 3. It would have to be able to adapt to the harsh environment of a completely alien environment instantly. Sound possible to anyone....except in the movies? And by the way NASA, if you built a spacecraft specifically meant to find life on other planets, wouldn't you have taken the time to make sure that it wouldn't carry anything that would be considered a hazard to another enviorment? We spent 1.5 billion dollars on something that they now want to crash? They'll then want to build another one that will be 'sterile'! Oy Vay!....

Re:Oh Please Stop ....

[Shadowmist]

When the Apollo 12 astronauts took back some pieces of Surveyer 3 that had landed there a couple of years earler, live bacteria were found.

Galileo was "sterilised" and kept in a "clean" environment. This is mainly to eliminate the slight risk of contamination that might still remain. Bacteria and viri are tough survivors.

Re:Hear me out on this

[MAXOMENOS]

Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?

First off, the $1.5G spacecraft is almost at the end of its life as it is. By crashing it into Jupiter, we can at least collect some last bits of data on the planet..which is what Galileo was intended to do anyways. And it's not like that money is going to waste, it's being circulated through the economy just like any other money.

Secondly, the abortion debate aside, if there is a living ecosystem on Europa (not likely but possible -- and by the way, if you can prove that there's no life on Europa, please do so), it would be incredibly stupid and reckless of us to disrupt it. Even in Christian theology, we are the stewards of creation; this implies that we have a responsibility to protect creation, given to us by God. That aside, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from examining Europa directly. If life already exists there, then we have a chance to examine extraterrestrial life...based on an entirely different ecosystem...directly. Otherwise, we have the possibility, for the first time, to introduce terrestrial life to a whole new environment. Both experiments have terribly important implications in biology.

Re:Hear me out on this

[Fishstick]

>Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment ...

No, I don't agree. First, they are not crashing $1.5 billion worth of anything. The cost of the program was $1.5 billion. The residual value of the 'equipment' that will wind up its work Feb 2001 is about $0. The incremental cost to work out what to do with it and send whatever instructions to the vehicle and then monitor what happens at the end has to be marginal.

>Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?

No more, no less - IMO. All life is valuable, precious and rare and deserving of respect and any protection that is resonably possible. It's all relative. I won't even begin an argument on the "right to (choice/life)" debate here. I have my opinion just like everyone else. I really don't see what it has to do with the topic of Gallileo.

>There are no life forms on any of those moons.

And how can you know that (for sure)? Yeah, it's very unlikely that there is anything there, and that even if it were, that Gallileo crashing into Europa would really cause any harm, but it costs very little (I would assume) to take this simple precaution.

>This is incredibly stupid.

No, I think this is very prudent.

Sure it will be on purpose.....

[BiggestPOS]

I'm assuming NASA did some math wrong and its already about to crash. They are just trying to put some good spin on it.

Then again, maybe there is life on Eurpoa, and maybe this is our chance to discover it. Then again, Does it really matter ?

Re:Sure it will be on purpose.....

[criticalrealist]

Interesting, but probably wrong. According to space.com, NASA anticipates the crash occurring in 2002. It seems unlikely that they made a mistake that puts it in an orbit that meets up with Jupiter in 2 years. But hey, I could be wrong.

Re:Sure it will be on purpose.....

[BiggestPOS]

Ummm, I was kidding.

Given NASA's current luck with anything past the moon, a joke about their reliability seems appropraite. Granted, putting something on mars ain't easy.......

I'm a simple life form...

[Ron Harwood]

...and NASA has never once worried about contaminating me.

OT: Good Sig

[Anonymous Coward]

:)

Re:OT: Good Sig

[Anonymous Coward]

:(

Re:Space junk: we already have alien contamination

[pq]

I agree that "ethical" space exploration will require sterilized probes where there might be significant chances for indigenous life...

However, we have already been contaminated by, and have contaminated, most of our inner solar system - through metorites. Simulations show that good sized impacts or volcanic eruptions can fling some material into outer space, and then they cross from planet to planet in mere tens of thousands of years, not millions as previously thought. Turns out that there are dynamically stable / unstable regions which can collect and eject matter - the earth crossing asteroids (Apollos, Amors, Atens, Trojans? I forget which is which) produce signifant meteorites on earth, as do Mars and the moon.

So chances are, we've already "contaminated" other planets, even before our space probes tracked mud in all over the kitchen floor... Europa, because of its ice cover insulating a possible biosphere, is of course unique.

Fergie Doesn't Like Grits

[Anonymous Coward]

The Story is Here

She's probably never had a hot bowl of them poured down her pants. Thank you.

Troll487

life on europa

[romco]

If there is life anywhere else in our solar system then it is most likely that life is common in the universe. In light of this would be very irresponsable of NASA to take a chance of contaminating europa.

In just a few years (<25?) we will be able to explore without contaminating it if we want to.

History shows that we are always sorry when we desimate historical and important finds just because we don't have the technolgy to do it right.

Good for NASA

You're absolutely right...

[jd]

...except that smashing the probe into teensy little pieces doesn't sound very dignified to me.

Now, if they were able to get the probe back to Earth, and put it in a museum, THAT would be dignified.

My personal view is that they've discovered it's on a collision course with Jupiter, there's not enough fuel to change course, and they're trying a different tactic to their usual "it just vanished" routine.

(If their probes "vanished" as often as they've always claimed, the Loch Ness Monster sat next to me at lunch and offered me an autographed photo of the Yeti. If anyone at NASA wants a copy, I'll trade it for a fully-fuelled Saturn V rocket.)

Re:You're absolutely right...

[ralphclark]

Smashing it into pieces right where we can see it sounds just fine.

If we just let it zoom off into space it'll only get damaged by a meteor collision, get sucked through a black hole, drift aimlessly for two hundred years, get picked up and repaired by an race of alien robots and then return to destroy the Earth. And you know it.

PS. I know we have two Voyager craft that run a similar same risk. But one of those is bound to go through a wormhole and get lost in the Delta Quadrant. Or something.

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

2001

[Anonymous Coward]

CUE WAGNER MUSIC...I am waiting for it to be crashed into Jupiter, causing a nuclear reaction. This will turn Jupiter into a new sun. The heat will then melt the ice covering the life-rich Europa oceans. And some of us, who remember a time when there was only 1 sun in the sky, will bear witness to a new planet. All these worlds are ours except for Europa.... Thank You. - TDutton

Learning From History

[Psycho S. Illusion]

I for one am glad to see this sort of logic. There have been way too many incidents in our (Humanity's) past similar to:
Explorer1> Look, an indiginous people. We should make an attempt to learn from them, to peacefully coexist with their...WOW, they've got GOLD! Fsck 'em! [sounds of machine guns firing]

This sort of foreward thinking is refreshing. As long as the Europans don't have gold or oil or something, perhaps we'd leave them alone. (Sidenote: fossil fuels on Europa - wouldn't THAT screw with a few theories..)

Of course I'm way too cynical to actually believe any of that, but its a nice thought.

PsI

lick, lick, lick

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked the first post best!

Of course the real joke...

[Andrey]

...would be if Jupiter turns out to support life instead of Europa.

She doesn't like to EAT grits

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure she enjoys grits down her pants, or, as they said in Britain, "a good gritsy pantsing." Thank you.

where to send it...

[xeroh]

take the probe, turn it sideways...

send it off the ecliptic. we'll need to give those klingons target practice some time from now.

Re:Before everyone goes off on wasting (flame,0)

[Anonymous Coward]

>>was only intended to last two years originally. If it costs that much, it better last for a real long time. Think of what else could have been done with that money.

[Flame]last a long time... or capture interesting data. God damn, you must be the dumbest..... gaaaaa!!! [/Flame]

As for what else could have been done, well, they could have added like, .001% to the DoD's budget.

sod off

I could see Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live Now.

[Belboz]

This would make a great sketch if Lovitz were still on the show.

They would have the "Liar Guy" come out in a NASA press conference.

The press would hound him about another NASA loss in the space program.

He would say. "Yeah, we meant to crash into Jupiter. Yeah thats the ticket. We found life on Europa and didn't want the spacecraft to fall on one of the aliens by accident. Yeah. The idea came from my wife.... Natalie Portman... Yeah thats the ticket"

Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[joshamania]

If they don't want to contaminate Europa, what about Mars? Recent discoveries of what may or may not be life on Mars might lead us to believe that the same policies would apply to both planets. Is NASA taking extra precautions with the space junk they are crashing into Mars, the Moon, Venus, yada, yada, yada? Okay, no yada, yada, yada, but several countries are sending probes out to the inner reaches of the Solar System. The U.S.S.R sent a probe to Venus and Mars, Japan is going to send a probe to the moon, the U.S.A. has sent all kinds of junk into space, and this is the first time I've ever heard of anyone worrying about contaminating another planet.

What's so special about Europa? Are these scientists too scared of big black monoliths that tell them to stay the fsck away from Europa? Please, NASA, don't publish this rubbish. If you were truly concerned about contaminating other planets, this would have been addressed years ago.

Re:Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is NASA taking extra precautions with the space junk they are crashing into Mars, the Moon, Venus, yada, yada, yada?

It WAS mentioned in the article that Galileo did not undergo qaurantine or be cleaned up. This probably implies that all newer spacecraft do.

What's so special about Europa?

Water, they've found water. This is a lot better than they have found anywhere else. And it might make a great experimental site in the future. Say in 500 years we manage to get scientists up there, to look at a possible ecosystem, or evolve one of their own (SimEarth?), only to find that some dumbasses crashed a craft full of bacteria 500 years before, completely ruining the place.

Unless you can come up with a better plan (And they do say they are looking at other plans) there is no reason to risk this scenario.

(Maybe we should just open a wormhole and bring it back before it runs out of fuel. Oh, darnit, I've been watching too much TV again)

Re:Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[joshamania]

You'll understand that I feel just because they said Galileo didn't undergo decontamination doesn't mean that other spacecraft have. Certainly Viking had not, if this is only a modern phenomenon.

Personally, I doubt that crashing Galileo into Europa is going to make a hill-of-beans difference to any ecosystem that may exist there. It is extrememly unlikely that any microbes on Galileo survived the trip, especially after the passes over Io.

I guess my point in my previous post is that the statment made by NASA about Europa is mostly usless rubbish/propaganda. It's like saying, "I ain't never been to jail," when all of one's siblings are in jail. What do they want, a cookie? (sorry, blatant Chris Rock rip-off there) So NASA gets to fire a thruster on the side of Galileo for a few seconds and send it hurtling into Jupiter. They talked about that last week describing how they would be able to get good research data from the drop into the atmosphere of Jupiter before Galileo was crushed or burned up. They made no mention of this, "We better miss Europa or we may cause major ecological damage," line.

This remark is little better than posturing on NASA's part. I feel if they were truly concerned about space pollution, they would be doing something about all the crap that is up in Earth orbit. Also, they have probes all over the place now, from Mars Surveyor, to Pioneer, Voyager, blah, blah, blah. NEAR might hit Eros, but they haven't mentioned that there might be life there, as far as NASA knows.

Re:Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[tesserae]

You'll understand that I feel just because they said Galileo didn't undergo decontamination doesn't mean that other spacecraft have. Certainly Viking had not, if this is only a modern phenomenon.

Actually, you're wrong. The Viking spacecraft were decontaminated before launch, expressly to avoid introducing terrestrial life to Mars (they also had life-detecting experiments which they ran on Mars, with results which have been controversial ever since).

The more recent landers (Pathfinder and the ill-fated Polar Lander) weren't as rigorously decontaminated as the Viking spacecraft, but they were still decontaminated.

BTW, just to forestall complaints: I happen to know this, because I worked on the Pathfinder spacecraft as a consultant. During that work, I had access to plenty of data from the Viking project -- the sterilization procedures for Viking were serious enough that parts of the system (the parachutes, for example) had to be specially designed to survive that alone!

This is not "posturing on NASA's part." NASA might have some problems, but they don't lack employees who are knowledgeable, aware, and concerned. There are few places in the Solar system where life might exist, and Mars (and now Europa) is among them. NASA pays attention to this.

I'd like to note that stuff like the preceeding post really don't deserve being moderated up; if you're going to moderate, do it on something you have knowledge of. Otherwise, you're wasting your points...

---

Re:Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[joshamania]

Did you even read the sentence you quoted from me? Certainly Viking had not, if this is only a modern phenomenon. Did you miss the qualifier, "if this is only a modern phenomenon"?

I think you also missed why my comment was moderated up. The comment was moderated as "insightful" not "informative". The American Heritage dictionary's defintion of insight is "The act or outcome of grasping the inward or hidden nature of things or of perceiving in an intuitive manner." It says nothing about facts or truth. I made no claim as to knowing facts about the Galileo mission or the Viking mission (remember? if this is only a modern phenomenon?>`).

My argument is about NASA posturing about something that really isn't very likely to happen. Making big news about a course correction is posturing . They aren't going to crash Galileo into Jupiter because they want to miss Europa, they are going to do it because the probe is almost dead, and they want to get the most use out of it while they can still control it. If they just wanted to miss Europa, they should just point the thing out into space, crash it into Saturn and get some pictures and research data from there...or somewhere else. They would not destroy a $1.5billion USD spacecraft without good reason, and research of the kind that they will be able to do by sending Galileo hurtling down into Jupiter's atmosphere is a better reason then missing Europa.

Re:Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[tesserae]

I read your post carefully; that's why I commented on it. You based your analysis of NASA's motives partly on the assumption that you guessed correctly about the Viking probes not being decontaminated.

I think you misunderstand the situation Galileo faces in Jovian orbit. Doing what they're presently doing with the probe is gaining us good information, and NASA can keep doing it for very little cost as long as things keep working. Problem is, they can't predict when a critical breakdown will take place and they'll lose control of the spacecraft. And if Galileo is no longer controlled, where it will wander in the Jovian system is anybody's guess. Collision with one of the four major moons has a higher probability, simply because they are the bigger targets.

They can't "just point the thing out into space" -- it doesn't have the fuel for an escape orbit. And if they relied on only gravitational slingshot maneuvers for an escape trajectory, they'd be flying very close to the moons, repeatedly, all the while risking collisions and expending plenty of fuel for midcourse corrections (and they still need to have control, while the failure clock is ticking). Besides, this would be a lengthy maneuver, and they'd waste observation time doing it.

Further, Galileo is crippled when it comes to transmitting data back to us -- remember, the high-gain antenna never deployed, so they're storing the data and beaming it back slowly, over extended periods of time, long after the observations are made. So if they deliberately send Galileo into Jupiter's atmosphere, it will take its data down with it when it burns... we'll never know what the instruments find, because there won't be time to send it back.

So there truly is no other reason to sacrifice the probe before its final hardware failure ends communication and control, except to protect Europa from possible contamination. And from NASA's point of view, this is a good reason to destroy the $1.5B spacecraft, which was my point. They take extraterrestrial life very seriously.

I understand the definition of "insight." Go back and re-read what you wrote: the concept of "truth" is inherent in "the inward or hidden nature of things." I also understand that your comment was moderated up as "insightful" -- clearly, you don't work for NASA and don't know first-hand why they're proposing this maneuver, which would be required for it to be "informative." You were just wrong when it came to your guess.

I'll also admit to being a little harsh -- but this is an area dear to my heart, because I don't get my hands on spacecraft often enough to satisfy me. So I'll apologize for busting your butt, if you'll recognize that my comment was mostly directed at the moderator instead of at you. Okay?

---

Re:Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[joshamania]

Fair enough. In my own defense, I cannot tolerate an illogical argument. I can tolerate being uninformed, but putting together an argument without proper justification for your premises is tanamount to saying, "you are wrong because I say so".

Your most recent post however, is much more well thought out, and has the necessary information to back up your argument.

As to my guessing about the status of the Viking lander, I may not have made my own point clear. I didn't mean to say that the Viking lander had not been decontaminated, but that just by making a point of saying that Galileo had not been, is not equivalent to saying that other probes had.

Please pardon my stubbornness, I hate being wrong. I'm also a karma whore, and do not like my "up" moderations being questioned. ;-)

Question for you, since you follow this much more closely than I: Does NASA know why the high gain antenna did not deploy? If so, why? I earlier read an article saying that even though the data stream would be slow, information could still be derived while Galileo was plummeting to it's death.

Re:Don't contaminate Europa...Mars?

[tesserae]

Thanks for being cool about it...

...saying that Galileo had not been [decontaminated], is not equivalent to saying that other probes had.

True -- NASA only decontaminates probes which go places they might plausibly expect life to exist, and not many people really thought that Europa would turn out to be one of those places (Arthur C. Clarke aside...). Now we know better. So far, not many probes have been decontaminated.

Does NASA know why the high gain antenna did not deploy? If so, why?

The reason for the failure isn't truly known -- Galileo was 37 million miles away when it occurred, a bit far to eyeball it -- but the best guess is that three of the 18 ribs of the antenna (it's an umbrella-like configuration) failed to deploy. They think that the standoff pins in the middle of the ribs became cocked, and locked in their sockets. I've heard speculation that it had to do with loss of dry lubricant due to vibration, since the spacecraft was transported around much more than was intended (Galileo was originally going to be launched shortly after the ill-fated Challenger mission, but was warehoused for years before Shuttle flew again; it also had a different transstage fitted, since part of the fallout from Challenger was that the original liquid-fuel rocket which would have injected Galileo into the transfer trajectory was redefined as too dangerous to fly on Shuttle, and they substituted a solid rocket system which delivered a smaller impulse; Galileo had to make multiple gravitational-whip maneuvers and take years longer to get to Jupiter).

See the High Gain Antenna FAQ for some info on this; there are good links for more detail within the FAQ.

I earlier read an article saying that even though the data stream would be slow, information could still be derived while Galileo was plummeting to it's death.

True; the real-time data rate now is three orders of magnitude lower than the high-gain antenna would have delivered (160 bps vs. 134.4 Kbps max rates), but at least some data might come back. The problem is, JPL did a hack where they now use the onboard processors to compress much of the science data before sending it through the low-gain antenna, and this takes time (the computers are old -- early 80's tech -- and can't do the compression real-time; it was never planned for the high-gain antenna transmission). Actual (uncompressed) data rates are probably more like 80 bps at this point, which means the data would be very sparse. I don't know what format the science data comes in, but I'll bet it's in at least 16-bit words, maybe 32-bit...

---

Re:Hear me out on this

[Pike]

Well, I should have made it clear that the whole idea that life exists on some other planet's moon isn't stupid because of anything the Bible says or doesn't say...it's stupid because it's stupid. It's the longest long shot anyone could come up with.

Geez, I KNOW we've "gotten our money's worth" out of this billion-dollar tin can, but given the sheer, incredibly gargantuan odds that anything like a life form exists on Jupiter's moon seems like a big ol' waste to me.

My choice for crash sites....

[Rantage]

...is Mars. It seems to be gathering a fine collection of NASA equipment, why not a little more? :)

Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org.

Re:My choice for crash sites....

[ender-]

..is Mars. It seems to be gathering a fine collection of NASA equipment, why not a little more? :)

I agree. Besides, the martians really seem to like our nice crunchy satellites... And maybe if we keep feeding them they'll be nice to us when we finally arrive in person. At the very least they won't be as hungry [g]

Ender

Way to go SLASHDOTERS

[Minupla]

Allow me to be the first to congratulate all of you on being above the mean. I clicked on this article dreading the expected, "My tax dollars at waste, I want my cup of coffee instead!" torrent of posts.

I was pleasently suprised to see most of the posts if not coming out in favor of NASA's exact plan, proposing other plans that would also result in a near 0 chance of contanimating the Europian biosphere.

It is truely encouraging to know that there is a group of people out there with more enlightenment then your average 6 o'clock news show.

Give yourselves a big pat on the back.

Re:Way to go SLASHDOTERS

[Anonymous Coward]

Give yourselves a big pat on the back
Perhaps a bowl of grits down ones pants would provide a better sign of gratitude.

Put Galileo in a Museum?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, if they were able to get the probe back to Earth, and put it in a museum, THAT would be dignified

If it were only possible, then I'd be totally in favor of returning Galileo to Earth. Unfortunately, it barely has enough fuel to maintain its orbit around Jupter, let alone enough fuel to get all the way back to Earth. Furthermore, any vehicle coming to Earth from Jupiter is gonna be going damn fast when it gets here, and Galileo does not have any method of slowing down (no fuel, no aerobraking).

Galileo may also be somewhat radioactive after 11 years in space and multiple high-radiaion banzai runs past Io. Not the sort of object you'd want to hang up in the Smithsonian.

By the way, we've got a complete Saturn V with zero milage up on blocks by the front gate here. She's a bit run down and the serial numbers don't all match. You'll need to supply your own fuel, too, sorry.

-- a real Person From NASA(tm)

Re:Put Galileo in a Museum?

[komet]

Given the current financial situation of NASA, wouldn't it be best to return the probe to Earth, auction it off at eBay and use the money to fund the next mission?

Fuel almost certainly doesn't permit that.

[Tau Zero]

One other option the article mentioned was to point it away from the planets and the moon and send it off.

This would require using a lot of the remaining fuel for the Jupiter-escape maneuver instead of science.

Maybe it is dying anyway, but why kill it off earlier?

It doesn't have the fuel to get to another body of interest, and its sensors aren't useful at long distances (we can see some things very well from here with Hubble). That means that the decision to leave Jupiter orbit would end the science mission just as certainly and irrevocably as a crash, only sooner.
--

Amalthea

[ChristTrekker]

I say put it into a close orbit of Amalthea. For those that don't know, Amalthea is one of the minor moons that orbits just inwards of Io and the other Galilean satellites. I've always thought it interesting because it is a peculiar red color, possibly because of material ejected from Io. This would be a good reason to get closer, to find out why! It would have to be quite close, in fact, because it's gravity would be very very weak. But heck, if it crashes, they were planning to do that anyway!

Enlightenment

[DonkPunch]

It is truely encouraging to know that there is a group of people out there with more enlightenment then your average 6 o'clock news show.

Hell, if the 6 o'clock news is your standard, you can beat that hanging around most day care centers.

Re:Running on fumes?? Was Martian Chronicles

[PsychoSpunk]

You'll have to pardon my ignorance, but why not a few good orbits around Jupiter to build up momentum? Is the fuel all gone? Or is there enough just to make the minor corrections to "hop over" the asteroid belt?

This sort of project (even if unsuccessful) would teach NASA how to use unfueled satellites efficiently. IANARS (Rocket Scientist), but it seems that besides the few rocks that it may encounter, those laws of Newton would be very nice. Assuming that "solar winds" don't hinder return trips into the inner planets, they would have the benefit of working in a near (if not perfect) vacuum system, so pesky little things like friction aren't major players in reduction of momentum.

Just seems to me that all they need is enough fuel to set the course in motion with an angle to "hop" the asteroid belt, then enough fuel to correct the flight path, and finally enough to slow it down enough to be grabbed into orbit. Of course, if there's no fuel, there's no way. But if there is a minute amount left, who cares if it takes a couple years to get there, because if it does get there, that in itself is a success.

yah

[Anonymous Coward]

JAPAN ROOLES, AMERCANS SUCKS!

1.5 billion - for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

god I hate nasa. what a waste. think of putting that much into the school systems, justice systems, or homeless programs.

What about contaminating Jupiter?

[Kupek]

Why aren't they worried about contaminating Jupiter? One very simple reason: It's a giant ball of gas. I don't think you're going to find any water there, and I certainly don't think you're going to find any life. It's essentially a star that almost-was.

Re:What about contaminating Jupiter?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how do YOU know that there isn't life there?

Re:What about contaminating Jupiter?

[Kupek]

If there is a lifeform that can survive in Jupiter, I don't think some microbes from a dinky spacecraft are going to do it much harm.

Re:What about contaminating Jupiter?

[DavidTC]

Even if there is life, it will be blatently different then earth life, and the microbes won't survive anyway.

-David T. C.

Re:Hear me out on this

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I don't think the issue is so much killing Europan lifeforms as it is maintaing validity of scientific data. As a few other people mentioned already, we're probably going to search for life on Europa someday, and we don't want any Earth microbes from a crashed Galileo screwing up our findings... otherwise, any data we find there won't hold up as well under scientific scrutiny due to prior contamination.

They needn't worry.

[Potatoswatter]

The thought that your puny microbes could harm proud Europa is ridiculous. We Europans can whip your sorry Earthling ass any day, just try and take your probe a little bit closer.

Where is my mind?
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

Let's imagine the conversation at NASA:

[JudgePagLIVR]

"hey Bob?"

"Yeah Frank"

"Remember that metrics/english conversion we didn't make, how it made the martian thingy crash?"

"Yeah Frank, I remember that. Why do you ask?"

Well, the jupiter thingy has the same error. I think it's gonna crash too"

"Jehosephat, Bob! Quick! Release a press statement that we're going to do it on purpose in order to... um... um... Save The Environment! yeah, that's the trick"

"I wish I were smart like you, Frank."

Re:Injust Allegations in Jarterville, Kentucky

[Anonymous Coward]

oh come on this one was funny and only slightly offtopic

gogeek

The definition

[Potatoswatter]

That means that it walks on its external brain, right?

Where is my mind?
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

Re:Running on fumes?? Was Martian Chronicles

[Tau Zero]

..why not a few good orbits around Jupiter to build up momentum?

I lack the time to go into detail about this, and Slashdot isn't the place to try to deliver a tutorial in orbital mechanics anyway (even if I was expert enough to teach such a thing, which I'm not). So the short answers are:

• It doesn't work like that.
• Momentum is conserved, it has to come from somewhere, and there's no available source other than the on-board rocket motors. "Winding up" won't boost anything any more than Earth will fling itself into interstellar space as a result of 4.3 billion circles around Sol.
• The kind of celestial billiard shots which got Galileo to Jupiter in the first place (first Venus, then Earth, then Earth again; the so-called VEEGA) require massive bodies to apply the kicks (gravity is the mediating force). This also requires being in roughly the same orbital plane... I think. The moons of Jupiter are too small to apply big enough kicks, and Galileo is in a nearly-polar orbit which cannot take good advantage of them anyway.

So that's my take on the issue.

This sort of project (even if unsuccessful) would teach NASA how to use unfueled satellites efficiently.

NASA/JPL has been doing this since before you were born. Just getting Galileo to Jupiter without the Centaur booster originally specified for the purpose (NASA refused to allow hydrogen-fuelled rockets in the Shuttle cargo bay after Challenger) required wizardry and finesse beyond your dreams. See this link for more information on the VEEGA maneuver, and this for data on the Venus-Venus-Earth-Jupiter slingshot used to get Cassini to Saturn.
--

Using similar logic on earth

[wardk]

I am flat out amazed that NASA would consider crashing the craft to keep it from contaminating potential life on Europa. This is a highly resonsible decision that will be surely railed as wasteful and stupid by many.

Now if only we could get the rest of the worlds governments to take this approach. Perhaps take such similar measures as to not (further) contaminate life on EARTH.

Re: The dreaded nightmare God

[jjohn]

I fear you are correct. The sanity-blasting truth of these multi-tendriled fascist space monsters is known to me all too dearly. At certain ghoulish times of the year, my sleep is haunted by the dreams of slime covered, cyclopean columns which mark out a dead alien city. Shadowy figures shuffle along its centuried streets. How many aeons have past since those enormous walls were formed I dare not ponder. Even in the bright light of day, I fear I hear the horrible clicking of their hellish maws at the very limit of perception.

A first stike? I think the war is lost before the first volley of arms. I will no more be reading Slashdot because I now do what must be done. I go to the sea the follow the ancient call of our nightmare God.

AI! Cthulhu F'htagn!!

$1.5b?

[Anonymous Shepherd]

What would you suggest we do with it, anyway?

-AS

Re:$1.5b?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... well that WOULD buy a lot of hot grits...

Re:$1.5b?

[Esperandi]

I would bet money that he believes the money should be given to people who hate money and people with money which is where it came from in the first place...

Some people don't quite understand the point of taxes unless it's taking from the rich and giving to the poor, forcing the rich to subsidize the people who hate them the most (and the poor hate the rich because the rich subsidize them, its a nasty cycle)..

personally, I wish my money could go towards more Mars probes and such, the promising speeches I've heard of terraforming and all those sorts of neato things we might be able to do on Mars have really gotten me jazzed up. Hell, I'll pay even more to be one of the first million colonists as long as they don't decide on a socialist-based form of government! For free! (I'm guessing they'll have to pay, most people wouldn't want to leave everyone they know to live on another planet...)

Russia != Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Or do you live on that *European* part of Russia?

Wow. Nice troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely got its share of responses. Good work.

Money's hardly a factor; don't trash the subject!

[Tau Zero]

The point of the crashing maneuver is to prevent Galileo from crashing into Europa and possibly contaminating it with Earth organisms, thereby making it difficult or impossible to determine if life arose there naturally. Galileo's mission is almost done, but the value of future missions is at stake here. We sterilized the Viking probes to avoid just this scenario.
--

I see a FOX special here...

[Master of Kode Fu]

I read that a FOX executive came up with an idea for a show at a brainstorming session: What if we crashed a decommissioned 747 into the Mojave desert? The idea was passed up in favour for Who wants to marry a millionaire instead.

I'd much rather have seen the plane crash, but a satellite crash should be even more spectacular. I see them getting Johnathan "I used to be Commander Riker, and I need cash" Frakes as the host, guest commentary from Stephen Hawking and John Glenn, and what the hell, Bob Dole, since he seems to be appearing on just about everything these days. I can see him now:

"Sattelite crash? What does Bob Dole think of that? Bob Dole thinks you should watch When Satellites Go Down on FOX!

How oddly Star-Trekian this is...

[mdwyer]

I credit (or blame) Star Trek as being the impetus for many of the inventions we take for granted now days. I'm talking things like cell phones and PDAs.

So, I guess I really shouldn't be surpised to read this. It rather smacks of the Prime Directive, doesn't it? If you find life, be nice to it? Something like that?

I think its kind of cool.

PS: Kudos to the ObRef to Arthur C Clarke!

Re:How oddly Star-Trekian this is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, too bad it couldn't be applied to human and other life here on this rock.

No! WAIT! DON'T DO THAT!!!!

[criticalrealist]

Do NOT shoot that nuclear powered space craft into the gas giant Jupiter. It'll light that sucker up like the biggest firecracker you ever seen!!!

And in other news..

[drwiii]

..Microsoft stock jumped over 2 points today following NASA's announcement.

Crash it!

[HiredMan]

Crash it into Europa!

We've always been at war with Europa!

=tkk

Has everyone forgotten the 1st Star Trek movie?

[SethJohnson]

Remember what happened with that Voyager satellite causing all the trouble for the Enterprise? We need to nip this thing in the bud before it builds a huge electrified cloud and returns to earth to zap people while they have sex.

Re:Has everyone forgotten the 1st Star Trek movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, only losers watch Star Trek.. Losers like Jon Katz, who posted this article which is NOT news for nerds nor stuff that matters. Thank you.

Re:Has everyone forgotten the 1st Star Trek movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

OH shut up you childish luddites and go back to your insular turned in world where you can complain about your tax dollars wasted and live shallow empty lives and never turn to wonder about the world and sit at home and feel all smug because your an "open source" whore and when the rest of the world makes a difference bitch about Europe and how we are all bloody foreigners....

Grow up

I completely agree...

[geeKing]

but at least we know more about the *outer limits* ... I guess...

Re:Money's hardly a factor; don't trash the subjec

[Esperandi]

Is this a plausible scenario (polluting Europa I mean) considering all the radiation the probe has endured? Shouldn't all organic organisms be completely destroyed?

Esperandi
Are viruses immune to radiation? Considering we've never been able to cure a single one (go ahead, do the research, we can't kill the buggers) I'm guessing that they are...

They can't be all bad.. then again...

[Esperandi]

Well, they hate hip-hop so they can't be hardly that bad... but then again, their choice is mariachi music which is almost as bad... damn, between a rock and a hard place.

Tell me where they stand on technology issues, maybe then you can get me to hate them ;)

Esperandi
They can eat my dog, they can take my neighbors SUV, they can even take my hemoglobin, as long as they promise to beat the hell out of the AT&T execs until I get a motherfucking cable modem!

You signed the social contract

[ToastyKen]

You're not being forced to do anything.
You voluntarily signed yourself into the social contract of the world.
By entering into this contract, you get the benefits, but you also are expected to hold up your end of the bargain.
If you DON'T want to pay for medical research, you can always wander off to Antarctica, found your own little country, and cut off all links to the outside world.

Re:Hear me out on this

[Maurice]

First let me make it clear that I don't support this guy's argument about cost. BUT... You say that we have no right to destroy "their stuff". I believe we do, just like we think we have the right to kill (execute) other humans. That is, if we benefit from destroying something, we would destroy it. That is why we are human. Learn to live with it. I am pretty sure you are human too, so you have the concept of destruction deeply embedded in your genetical makeup. Deal with it.

Re:Money's hardly a factor; don't trash the subjec

[kaphka]

Look at it this way... Let's say we let Galileo crash into Europa. (Isn't that extraordinarily unlikely, anyway?) Thirty years later, we land a probe on Europa, and it discovers a colony of organisms near the Galileo crash site. What's the most plausible explanation?

The first scientists to announce the discovery of living extraterrestrial organisms are going to want to be damn sure they've covered all the other possibilities first. We may as well prevent Galileo from becoming an issue in the first place.

Re:i hope we get pictures!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wreck it, buy a new one.

This has been predicted...

[jonnystiles]

Popular conspiracy nut William Cooper talks about Project Jason in his book "Behold a Pale Horse" and how they planned this from the very beginning of the Galileo project. The probe will be crashed into Jupiter creating a new star. Look for the book at Amazon. Here's a cached version of an article - search the page for plutonium. Another link. Information all the way at the bottom

Cheech and Chong

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I vote for crashing it into Io. Why Io? You ask why, I only say why not. Nothing like going out in a blaze of glory. But, all this discussion has reminded me of an old Cheech and Chong record. The two are watching some old WWII movie. (Paraphrasing the skit)

Japanese General: You, Miyamoto! Fly high and crash into American battleship. Nakamura san. Crash into aircraft carrier. Any question? Yes, Yamamoto in the back.

Yamamoto: General! Are you out of your f*cking mind?

"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS...

[Anonymous Coward]

... EXCEPT FOR EUROPA."

Are you sure Arthur C. Clarke isn't involved somehow in this scheme?

Re:Money's hardly a factor; don't trash the subjec

[JerkBoB]

Is this a plausible scenario (polluting Europa I mean) considering all the radiation the probe has endured? Shouldn't all organic organisms be completely destroyed?

One would think so, yes. However, I can see why they would rather be SURE that any life forms they may find in the future aren't due to pollution from Galileo if it were to crash.

Are viruses immune to radiation? Considering we've never been able to cure a single one (go ahead, do the research, we can't kill the buggers) I'm guessing that they are...

Basically, viruses are strands of RNA. These strands have evolved to be good at fooling their way into healthy cells, re-writing those cells' DNA with their own instructions, and churning out copies of themselves. You can't kill a virus because techinically it's not alive (though there are some who would argue that they meet a loose definition of life). You can, however, destroy it or render it incapable of doing its dirty work.

The answer to your second question is that no, they are not immune to radiation. Ionizing radiation will have basically the same effect on a virus as it would on DNA. It will probably be scrambled and not work correctly.

--
A host is a host from coast to coast...

Sorry for being so anal, but that movie sucked.

[Glytch]

This comment, and also this one, make the mistake of quoting the movie, which was a pretty rotten version of the book. The real quote, from the (much better) original book, is just the first eleven words.

Why don't they crash the probe into Uranus?

[Wag]

Then we wouldn't have to deal with folks like me going for cheap laughs with this old hackneyed joke.

Bahaha. :)

Re:Why don't they crash the probe into Uranus?

[INSURDATA]

That was really funny! Good one! Insur

Hot atmosphere? Piffle and Pshaw.

[Anarchofascist]

At the upper atmosphere, it's more than a thousand degrees celcius, and it's all whipping about rather harshly

Thousand degrees? Well, technically yes, but it's at a billionth of an atmosphere. From the same link, notice that at about 10 atmospheres the temperature is about 50 degrees F. Nice and comfy.. if you can live without water, handle 400kmh winds which blow north, south, east, west and up and down (alternatively taking you into space or down into the crushing depths), handle the incredible radiation levels, the planet-sized storm systems...

Anyway, all this talk of contaminating the planet Jupiter is academic (we've already sent a probe into the atmosphere) it's the moons that we're worried about.

Poor thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Crash it? It's a historical artifact. Why don't we send a $3 Billion spacecraft to pick it up and return it to earth. As Indy would say: That satellite belongs in a museum!

Now is the time to go crazy

[Anarchofascist]

Did you know the main antenna on Galileo is screwed? Did you know they were once trying to fix it?

"...just about every idea suggested below--no matter how unusual--was included on a long list of proposed solutions. That doesn't mean that everything is tried, because the Galileo engineers working on the antenna anomaly are guided by two basic principles:

• The Health and Safety of the Spacecraft Must Be Safeguarded
• Nothing Shall Be Done That May Seriously Threaten Probe Relay, Jupiter Orbit Insertion (JOI), or the Orbital Tour

Well, surely now is the time to go wild! Let's try some aerobraking, spin that sucka, bash it about, kick it a few times, see what happens!

Now is the time to go crazy 2.0

[Anarchofascist]

Sorry about the blockquote in my last post, I was a bit too quick on the Submit button...

Did you know the main antenna on Galileo is screwed? Did you know they were once trying to fix it?

"...just about every idea suggested below--no matter how unusual--was included on a long list of proposed solutions. That doesn't mean that everything is tried, because the Galileo engineers working on the antenna anomaly are guided by two basic principles:

• The Health and Safety of the Spacecraft Must Be Safeguarded
• Nothing Shall Be Done That May Seriously Threaten Probe Relay, Jupiter Orbit Insertion (JOI), or the Orbital Tour"

Well, surely now is the time to go wild! Let's try some aerobraking, spin that sucka, bash it about, kick it a few times, see what happens!

Accepting it

[Monte]

So, in other words, you must object to the whole of the United States government, both federal and state.

I'm not aware of any of my state taxes undwriting NASA projects, so I'll leave them out of this. As to the Federales -

On one hand I have all the goods and services that the federal government has blessed me with this year. On the other I have $0.28 out of every single fscking dollar I earned.

This is a trick question, right?

If you choose to live here, either voluntarily or making excuses as to why you can't leave, then you're accepting governmental overhead.

I sure am! I'm "accepting" it bigtime, cheeks spread. But asking me to smile while I "accept" is a bit much, I think. Please grant me the small indulgence of a pitiful whimper now and again.

Europa Untouched?

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the end of 2010 "everything is yours except europa, do not attempt any means of contact there" or something like that, I can't remember the exact quote. I wonder what Arthur c. Clarke will think of this.

Arthur C. Clarke story

[crayz]

I remember an Arthur C. Clarke short story about the scientists who went to (IIRC) Europa, and found a lifeform there, and accidently killed all life on the planet because of bringing germs from Earth.

Anyone else remember it(and was it Europa)?

Re:MODERATE THIS UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you moderators even read the posts before you apply your points?

VA LINUX SUCKS.
SLASHDOT SUCKS.
LINUX SUX.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Re:Money's hardly a factor; don't trash the subjec

[Anonymous Coward]

Are viruses immune to radiation? Considering we've never been able to cure a single one (go ahead, do the research, we can't kill the buggers) I'm guessing that they are...

WTF does our ability to cure a virus have to do with their immunity to radiation? Have we tried using radiation therapy to cure viruses? No? Then why are you drawing a connection between the two?

You aren't real good at this "thinking before I open my fat yap" thing, are you? But then, I seem to recall you advocating a libertarian political position on another thread, so I suppose I should be unsurprised.

One word commentary

[ahde]

pinoneer

2010-Odessey 2

[skelly]

"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Use then together, Use them in peace." I think someone or something has the fear of God in them over at NASA to maybe not spoil another pristine worl with our junk. Beside the mission has bee a success for over a decade. Wasted tax dollars? I think not!

Re:Hear me out on this

[iCEBaLM]

No, I don't think ethically we do. If we just merely benifit from it no, not a chance. Now if it comes down to survival, then yes, its us or them.

-- iCEBaLM

Monolith's

[geoffeg]

Six words: "My god, its full of stars."

Three word rebuttal

[Jesus Christ]

Learn to spell.

I am the Lord.

Re:Hear me out on this

[Microlith]

...it's stupid because it's stupid

That's about as good a reason as "Because I said so", which doesn't work because there is always a chance that there is life on some planet (go look at the tough bacteria here on earth. tell me they couldn't possibly survive on europa).

The odds are probably a LOT lower than you think, probably 1 in 2 (there either is or isn't life there), and I'll bet you that there IS, especially with all of that water (and heat from it's core. don't tell me it's totally frozen. Look at Io as proof that Jupiter does to Europa's core what it does to all of Io). Go read 3001 for an idea Clarke has on how life could possibly survive. Good book too (clarke said it could have been better tho...)

Re:Crash it into...MEXICO and Latino Land

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn those greasy spics. They need to go straight to hell the damn Roman Catholics they are.

Letter to NASA

[Waldo]

Dear NASA:
My name is Waldo and I live at #2 Microsoft Way, Redmond WA. I own a small scrap yard across the street (Waldo's Recycling). Business used to be pretty good. We were recycling hundreds of old computers a day for years. Lately, these Linux guys have been taking all the old computers and building Beowulf clusters. This has really hurt my business. As I understand it, you guys started this whole Beowulf thing. Since you guys don't need this Galileo thing anymore, please drop it in the yard for me. It would really help make up for the lost business.
Thanks,
Waldo

An American point of view?

[Anonymous Coward]

'...Europa, where scientists believe simple life forms may exist.' ;-)

Re: The dreaded nightmare God

[decomp]

Get back into your coffin, you undead narrator! No more cetacean tales from you!

______________________(
// ///#\)

Jupiter?

[Perdo]

What if Jupiter has life too? Archaebacterium (vent bacteria) digests sulfur and live in rock at extremely high temperatures. I have spun a bacteria culture at 100g. The bacteria's life processes continued. Due to evaporation of the culture, the centrifuge knocked itself out of balance after 3 weeks. So, bacteria can exist in chemically diverse, high temperature and high gravity environments. Can't NASA crash it into IO, a highly volcanic and radioactive moon instead of risking either Jupiter or Europa's environments?

slightly misguiding

[larva]

>There is evidence that Europa has an ocean >beneath its ice crust.

Well, the article only states that many scientists belive there is an ocean beneath the ice, but there is no evidence of the fact.

The reason Europa is belived to have a ocean despite its cold core is jupiters enormous gravitation forces, it squeezes the moons and that is what makes the warm ones insainly hot and the cold ones (hopefully) warm enough to substain flowing water.

This is all theory though - no tests have been done to make sure yet.

Now you went and got me all exited over nothing :)

Now this is really getting to me.

[Potatoswatter]

This is fscking FLAMEBAIT?!? Well, serves you right - a bug in the Slashcode raised my karma by 4 points w/ this moderation!

I should really write a larger rant. People at sid=moderation take notice!

Where is my mind?
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

reminds me of...

[Devil Ducky]

A spacecraft that is real old, the mission objectives have been changed numerous times, and the replacement rate is negligible...

*HINT* The official name of this type of craft is "Orbiter".

could it be the shuttle fleet?

They were originally designed to go up only a few times to build a space station and then they were to go into a permanent orbit...

Of course, what Space Station? And Mir (sp?) doesn't count.

I agree

[lohen]

>Just the pictures of the Io volcanoes are making
>history, and the entire world can all enjoy them
>now;

I agree - the pictures are amazing, so let's got some close-ups with a kamikaze crash landing. Plus there seems to be little enough chance of life in that habitat, and if there is, our bacteria won't contaminate it because they'll be toast.

ROFLMAOPMP

[Lispy]

...you made my day! I was just having a cup of coffe at work when I read your comment...and I nearly spoiled it over the keyboard...damn, youre right! ;-)

Life on europa, doesn't that remind you of 2061?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Author who wrote 2001 and 2010 wrote another book called 2061 which was along the same lines of 2001/2010, same characters and whatnot different ship different story. it was written to explain the events that occured after 2010 and lucifer emerged...
Very Kewl book a little boring but worth it...
The crew from that ship finds Life on europa under the ice caps...
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (if you've read the book you get that reference)
--Cyron

Jammed antenna

[Feng]

Nobody mentioned what's one of the more interesting things about the Galileo.

Shortly after launching the probe it was discovered that the high-gain antenna which unfurls like an umbrella was jammed, effectively making high-gain transmission impossible.

As a workaround, the craft was reprogrammed to process and compress data a higher level before sending it back to earth via its low-gain antenna (which transmitted at a much slower rate). Receiving stations back at earth were reconfigured to receive a signal 10,000 times less than what the high-gain antenna would have put out.

As a result, little scientific data was lost.

goodbye

[JimFromJersey]

Farewell brave Galileo, fair winds and following seas my friend.

Re: NASA May Deliberately Crash Galileo

[kilroy2000]

I believe this is just a cover up. They have already lost control of the craft and they know it. They just don't want another embarassment after the Mars explorer fiasco. "Galileo crashed on Jupiter? Uh, yeah, we meant to do that...."