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Galileo Amalthea Flyby Threatened
vince writes "The Galileo spacecraft will fly by Jupiter's moon Amalthea on November 5th. This is the *only* close flyby of this moon Galileo will make, but (as currently planned) it will not return any images, in order to save a paltry $1m - $1.5m. Looks like a grassroots campaign is going to be necessary to save the flyby."
I agree!
I am sick of that space station sucking up all the science money.
It is the first black hole ever witnessed up close by humans. A money-hole that is.
Table-ized A.I.
Because there are no comfortable parking orbits in the Jovian system. There are too many bodies to provide a system we can solve over longer-term. (For a Jovian orbit, that means say a few hundred orbits. Each orbits is of order days, so we're talking a few years.) Beyond any short term, the perturbations to the orbit add up and thanks to the chaotic nature of the orbits, we lose the ability to predict where Galileo will be. Thanks to an almost non-existant fuel supply, nothing can be done to prevent this.
So we lose control of the orbit, so what? So what is that they don't want it to crash into a moon like Europa. While the RTG is relatively safe, it's still warm and would probably work its way down through the ice, saith NASA analysts. (Even if it doesn't, there is a fair chance that the anything on the surface will eventually end up inside the moon.) Once inside, there is the risk of contaminating the moon with not only the radioactive plutonium but also any terrestrial microorganisms that might be left on Galileo. (The spacecraft was not cleaned to the levels that would be required of a lander.) Either way, that runs the risk of contaiminating the whole moon.
Is the risk small? Yes. But the last thing anyone wants is to ruin any extraterrestrial ecosystems for study. Once you contaminate them, all subsequent research is going to be of questionable value.
There is also the risk that Galileo could be ejcted from the system. This has the potential to be bad, as well, as it could (very long term, admittedly) come back and smack Earth. I know, low probability. I was incredulous when I heard the NASA folks worry about that, but it is a risk. And so that's why they're not getting it out of Jupiter orbit, in fact.
Ultimately, I suspect that everyone at NASA would dearly love to save poor Galileo. It's been a trooper and deserves to be enshrined in the Smithsonian. (No offense, but given the choice between that and a few tons of scrap metal and outdate technology, I'd pray they'd bring it home.) But the risks, small though they are, are deemed too great.