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Is Europa Too Prickly To Land On?
astroengine writes "A deadly bed of icy javelins — known as penitentes — could be awaiting any spacecraft that tries to land on some parts of the ice-covered world Europa, say researchers who have carefully modeled the ice processes at work on parts of the Jovian moon to detect features beyond the current low resolution images. If the prediction of long vertical blades of ice is correct, it will not only help engineers design a lander to tame or avoid the sabers, but also help explain a couple of nagging mysteries about the strange moon. 'This is a game changer,' said planetary scientist Don Blankenship of the University of Texas in Austin. Blankenship has been involved in NASA's planning process for sending a reconnaissance spacecraft and eventually a lander to Europa."
What part of "Attempt no landing there" don't you people understand?
I am officially gone from
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace."
They solved breaking up ice years ago. Send the titanic.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Send a nuke as a landing zone herald.
And pray to your diety of choice that 2001 wasn't made in correspondence with aliens.
Come on guys, I was NOT the only one thinking that
"All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there."
NASA first priority needs to be a gravity repulse engine.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Mountaineers are familiar with them. Left to evolve too long, you end up with foot-tall ridges and spires.
Haven't we been using explosives to clear the landing one of tall brush, inconvenient locals, and anything else for at least decades now?
Nothing says 'we come in peace' quite like blasting the site flat before touchdown!
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I, for one, suggest a low altitude detonation of a low-yield thermo-nuclear device at any potential landing sites prior to the landing attempt.
This should glass over the LZ and let any locals know that papa's coming home and he's pissed.
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
as just mean spirited, bureaucratic and bad tempered. Why else would we have been warned against landing?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Zeus handed her a line of bull to land her.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
I now expect at least Samzenpus (if not every Slashdot editor) to turn in their geek card, in addition to the submitter being banned from all further Slashdot submissions. How on earth (or in space) do you make a reference to landing (or not) on Europa and NOT put in a Clarke reference? What kind of geek are these people?
Just drop a M-121 bomb on the LZ to clear things out before landing.
Take that spacecommies!
America, FUCK YEAH!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
... not completely unrelated and not exactly offtopic, but if we ever land there, I'd like the footage to resemble this: Europa Report.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Yes, as soon as we have figured out how to crush ice, we will be ready to land on Europa.
The first idea I had was to hover for a bit and let the engine melt the ice. Aside from being a tricky maneuver, it consumers precious fuel. That's a lot of extra mass to carry. Mass is money. We have no experience with such long hover landings.
My 2nd idea is to have the legs of the lander swivel under robotic control, and aim for the low spots. The legs would have to be longer than the longest spike, to avoid piercing the underside of the lander.
You could also have a hard shell, with the landing package outside. Once you're settled in, you open a porthole in the lander, extend a probe that drills into the ice, and use that to dig a single, deep hole. If it's really just ice, this should be possible. Then you let the ice freeze your foundation into place. Instead of a tripod, you have a single beam with a motorized joint. The beam could straighten itself out then telescope above the field. Maybe it could even go up 10 or 20 meters.
The mass penalty and difficulty of all this is not something I have any real ability to comment on. I think it'd be interesting to see them test some of these ideas in a place where you can get a ready supply of big icicles, like Antarctica. There would be wind there though. At least on Europa there's no almost no atmosphere and thus virtually no wind, right?
From what I read, these ice formations only form at the equator. So....
Don't land at the equator. Problem solved..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I assume Europe is also hard to land on. That would explain why the aliens in Hollywood movies always land in New York or on the front lawn of the White House
And I don't want to tell them how to do their job, but has anyone considered making their space ship out of some sort of "metal"? And maybe put a thing on the bottom that shoots fire out of it?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I put ice javelins in my blender, add some fruit and there you go, a smoothie. So just mount some BlendTec blenders on the bottom of the spacecraft and see if it "will blend". Would be some nice advertisements.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
You throw salt out, hover around a bit, then land. Problem solved. Also, if there is salt left over, use it for the margarita glasses - just be sure to bring fresh limes & decent tequila: obviously you won't need to bring the ice.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
I'm not surprised Europa is a bit prickly at the moment.
Somehow the article neglected to mention the biggest risk of them all ... the local wildlife!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Genetically modified or otherwise. Send seeds, grow teraforming. Obviously there's lots of radiation, but start with something that turns CO2 into C and O2.
Something kind of pretty so people will want it as a background.
Get ideas flowing about how to get it done!
I've been training for this mission since I was 9. I'm ready, put me in coach, I've got this!
I like music
Stay out of Europa !! The hun will kill you and eat your babies alive !!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think the top of Spain is pretty flat. You could probably land there if you can get nestled under that French overhang.
Other than that, though, yeah, that's way too prickly. The next closest viable landing spot is over on that Brazilian ledge, and even then you'd need to make sure you get a firm perch so you don't slip off and fall to the Antarctic floor below.
My first thought after reading the headline was about the Java IDE, not the Jovian satellite.
Can't wait to see TV news showing Neil Patrick Harris stick a probe into the mouth of a brain bug.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Think Europa is prickly? Unless it's freshly shaven, how about Uranus? *badum tish* (gets his coat)
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Missiles. And if that is not enough, nukes.
To everyone suggesting blasting the landing zone flat, have you considered what sort of scientific data we could recover from from a site that's been razed with Earth explosives? If this ice is enough to ruin a spacecraft, then anything capable of dealing with it on a scale needed for a safe landing is going to fling contaminating detritus for probably miles. So we could land, and... then what?
It is doubtful any nation, or nations, has the technology at this time to construct a launch vehicle powerful enough to lift a mass as great as Rosie O'Donnell into orbit.
But that is the payoff. Once we have successfully engineered solutions adequate to meet the requirements needed to meet the goal of lifting the O'Donnell into space the conquest of space will be in reach.
In space O'Donnell will only have mass, send her off on a collision course with Europa and (if the moon survives) the question of 'icy javelins' will be a moot point.
The sphere will offer no resistance once the O'Donnell has had it's way with it.
Prometheus was indeed horrible, but I wouldn't exactly called it "horror in space".
Just saying...
Recent observations have brought to light the fact that a large part of the planet earth is covered by tall sabers of what appears to be carbon based material called trees. "This is a game changer" said some asshole who gets paid to think this shit up.
WTF!
What do I have to do to get a fvcking job making up useless shit.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
How about pretentious-pseudo-philosophic-claiming-to-not-only-reinterpret-mythology-but-also-to-have-it's-own-mythology-but-failing-in-making-any-sense-despite-the-5-pages-long-tutorials-out-there-that-pretend-to-make-sense-of-it-and-instruct-you-in-how-to-watch-it-action movie?
Curiously yours, crip.
90% of /. posts, explained: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
No, slashdot posts are an example of Sturgeon's Law.
Your posts are an example of Dunning-Kruger.
that
clinches
NASA's
repulsion/repulsor
and the comma in the sig.
Some sort of RADAR device may be required for landers.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Hey baby, I'd like to land my spaceship on your moon
What about it didn't make sense? It's entertainment for chrissake!
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Sounds like my second wife - no fucking point landing on her either.
So is Justin Bieber. Stop relativizing everything.