Join the Efforts of a Manned Mission To Jovian Moon Europa

Kristian vonBengtson writes "Objective Europa aims to send human beings to Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, on a one way mission in search of extraterrestrial life while expanding the borders of exploration and knowledge for all mankind. The starting point of Objective Europa is purely theoretical (Phase I) but will move into more advanced phases including prototyping, technology try-outs, and eventually a crewed launch. Objective Europa is a crowd-researched project made up of an international team of volunteers. Many people from a wide range of backgrounds have already joined and become a vital part of the mission. ... [Europa's] deep ocean and active geology provide a solid platform for extraterrestrial life, making Europa one of the most enticing locations to explore in the solar system. The 600-day flight required to reach Europa is manageable with today's technology, and the many challenges of such a mission pose a perfect starting point for new research and innovative thinking."

Comments

FFS

[geek]

"Objective Europa aims to send human beings to Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, on a one way mission in search of extraterrestrial life"

Seriously, before you throw your lives away, at least get a minimal amount of evidence that life exists there. I'm sure lots of "special" people will apply for this but none of them will be the types we actually want going there.

Just send a fucking probe. Don't BE a probe.

Re:FFS

[Charliemopps]

There are conditions on Europa very similar to the conditions in certain places on earth that contain life. There are large chunks of shit that have been flying back and forth between there and here for billions of years. They've retrieved man made objects that have been in space for decades with bacteria on it that survived and re-animated after being thawed on earth. It would be more astonishing if there we didn't find life on Europa... and pretty much every other planetary body in our system.

Re:FFS

[Beardo the Bearded]

Yep, $25 application fee, get 100k applications, screen out all but 100 applicants, make them do some impossible tasks until they flunk, then oh well, you all fail.

Thanks for the moneeies.

Re:FFS

[jdschulteis]

If we go by Arthur C Clarke (and really, why shouldn't we?) it would be Europan which has a nice ring to it.

If we go by Arthur C. Clarke, we should attempt no landings there.

Re:FFS

[turbidostato]

"why not send a nuclear submarine that could use its reactor to melt through all the ice and then navigate the sea beneath?"

Because submarines' flying abilities, even when nuclear, compete in the same league as pigs.

Re:FFS

[Teancum]

Considering that Neil & Buzz landed on the Moon with only 8 seconds of fuel remaining in their landing engine, they came pretty close to becoming permanent residents on the Moon anyway... not to mention that the original landing site was horrible as well (Neil Armstrong deliberately avoided that spot and traveled a couple more miles down range for a better spot... hence why the fuel was so low). They were real engineering test pilots that day in July of 1969, which is part of why they deserved the recognition they got too.

It is also an example of why you don't want to have necessarily ordinary folks with no training or qualifications on a "first trip" to some place exotic like Europa. You can do that once the trip to that location is ordinary and boring.... sort of like the places Space Adventures sends people now. Sadly, customers for Space Adventures still need to spend six months at Star City in Russia before they go into space, but at least it is mostly ordinary (although rich) people who go.

Re:Whyd do we need to send humans?

[Dr. Spork]

So what's a human supposed to do on Europa? Operate a hammer and icepick? That doesn't sound very productive. That 45-second figure on Mars sounds hyperbolic, since on good days, the rovers can actually go pretty far and take lots of pictures.

But here's what I don't get about people who make comments like yours: Instead of looking at current missions and wishing that humans were there to do it better, why not instead ask what humans would do in space, and wish for (and design) machines that could do it as well. I mean, be concrete. For all the mission specific objectives (beyond: what happens to a person there?) that manned missions have - whether it's reconnaissance, construction, experimentation, etc. - I am pretty sure that it would be less expensive and less risky to make robots that could preform them equally well, less expensively and more safely. I think that's been the case since basically the Apollo era, when human lives were cheap and autonomous systems were miserable. That's the good reason why the Apollo era ended in 1972. The NASA home run of the 70's was the Voyager program. Then we pissed away the 80's shuttling people to LEO for no very good reason.

And if you compare the primitive rovers of today to manned missions, keep in mind also that the latter would be several orders of magnitude more expensive, and what amazing advances we could make if those budgets were going to robotics and autonomous systems. Maybe those robots really could do in 45 seconds what yesterday's rovers take a day to do. I mean, for fuck's sake. We have cars that can drive better than my mom.