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NASA Laying Foundation For Jupiter Moon Space Mission
coondoggie (973519) writes "NASA recently began laying out the groundwork for the technology it will need to fly an unmanned mission to Jupiter's intriguing moon Europa. Scientists say Europa — which orbits the planet Jupiter about 778 million km (484 million miles) from the Sun — could support life because it might have an ocean of liquid water under its miles-thick frozen crust. NASA said in December the Hubble Space Telescope observed water vapor above the frigid south polar region of Jupiter's moon Europa, providing the first strong evidence of water plumes erupting off the moon's surface."
Probably the best chance of finding LIFE in the solar system and NASA is still tipping over rocks on Mars.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Hmmm, what's the black rectangle....
They still don't have the money for this, just a congressional mandate.
NASAs most expensive mission over $3B. The highest ranked was a Mars sample return, which would likely involve three rockets. No flagship missions are funded for 2010s.
I have the feeling at every new news report from or about NASA, that its all about "finding life somewhere else". Of course, there is much more to it and this is only the perception.
Still, this seems to be the main message/theme/goal. How about bringing life somewhere else?
How about engineering goals and challenges? Why not "because we want to see if we can"?
I known these are harder to "sell", but thats also the outreach job of NASA. If they cannot sell the importance of developing new technologies, them who can?
Im not implying not development is being made. Its just not set as a goal. And I can only wish for more and more diversifiied goals them.
Things didn't go well!
**Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen Europa Report!**
I thought the idea of a radiation producing organism a pretty interesting concept. Also, 4-D Space Whales from Futurama.
We should just nuke it, along with the moon.
Someone you trust is one of us.
All these worlds are yours
EXCEPT EUROPA.
Use them together.
Use them in peace.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Huh? The most expensive was $3B?
The James Webb Space Telescope is estimated to be just under $8B to make and launch, then another ~$800M for operations.
An article from 2011 suggested that they had already spent $5B (or maybe it was just that they had only planned on it costing $5B at that point). An FAQ from JPL states that as of 2011, they had spent $3.5B.
If they're smart on this Europa mission, they won't design the mission around low TRL technology.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
We'll never get through the thick ice layer. So your idea is to putz around on the surface, hoping that something was expelled by an ice volcano? Or did you watch this movie one too many times?
Have you ever actually read anything about Europa? There are fracture points all along its surface where the ocean might be very close to the surface.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
it's a space station
NASA is stalling. They don't want to fund this mission; the 15 million in the 2015 budget is just to keep the critics happy; they will never fork over the 2b needed for the mission. They would rather keep the billions in Pork going toward politically powerful interests out of Houston for manned missions.
..to ride this one out, there and back. Perhaps some hobbits..?
Begins laying the foundations? So we can expect a mission around 2055 then?
They still don't have the money for this, just a congressional mandate.
Typical.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It seems a lot more feasible to me to build a permanent off-world habitat on Europa beneath the water, than to build one on Mars. The ice and water would shield you from the radiation normally absorbed by Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere. You can extract oxygen easily from water using known processes. And there is no need to MAKE water since it is everywhere. Furthermore, we are already well-versed in making underwater habitats and the habitat would be easily testable here, so there are fewer unknowns.
You would not even need to sink the habitat very deep to protect from the radiation, it could achieve neutral boyancy somewhere in the middle of the water column, and then rotate itself in the water to achieve 1G via centripetal forces.
We'll never get through the thick ice layer.
We'll never be able to fly
We'll never be able to go into space
We'll never be able to land on the moon
We'll never be able to have civil and informative political discussions....
Ok, the 4th might be true, but 'never' and human ingenuity shouldn't be lumped together very often.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Fools! We should heed the warning we received in 2010!
"all these worlds
are yours except
europa
attempt no
landing there
use them together
use them in peace"
Some expenses: --Space Station: the estimates start at roughly $35 billion — which is what the Government Accountability Office says Congress has appropriated for the station project since 1985 (PDF file) — and rise to $100 billion, which is roughly what the GAO said would be the total cost "to develop, assemble and operate" the station (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14505278/ns/technology_and_science-space/) --The Space Shuttle Endeavour, the orbiter built to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, cost approximately $1.7 billion. --Launching the Space Shuttle is about $450 million per mission --The MSL Mars rover ~$1.8 to build and another ~.5b or so to launch and run. --The two MER Mars rovers: $800 million --Second toilet for the Space Station (purchased from the Russians): $17 million. --Amount of money allocated to the Europa Missions in 2015: $15 million.
We'll never get through the thick ice layer...?
Because you have complete knowledge of all present and future drilling technologies?
If only someone, somewhere had a good idea about how to do this! Wait, what's this? Oh how I love this "Google" thing.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Exactly. Why has NASA been dragging their feet? They have been studying this mission for 10 years at least without funding it.
It gets proposed, but every time a proposal takes a serious look at how expensive it would be, the funding isn't there, and they are asked to scale back.
Jupiter is hard. Jupiter is nearly a billion kilometers away-- Mars is hard, but even at its furthest, it's only a quarter billion kilometers distant. Compared to Jupiter, Mars is easy. Jupiter also has a huge gravitational potential (which makes it hard to stop when you get there), and that doesn't even get to the issue of landing on Europa once you get there (no aerobraking nor parachutes for Europa!) and the difficulty of penetrating the ice.
Clearly the first thing needed is just a probe that can take a deep penetrating radar to the system and find out just how thick the ice over the interior ocean of Europa is, and whether there are places that are thinner than others, and whether cracks go down all the way to make an easier route to the interior. That would be a lot easier than actually trying to land, much less access the ocean... but even that is not at all easy. When you're in Jupiter orbit you're having to operate in a ferocious radiation environment.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Europa is constantly being resurfaced and even has a for of tectonics in which fresh brine water is brought to the surface like the mid-ocean ridges on Earth. Also there are plumes and other ways that the ocean water gets to the surface.
Wouldn't a 75 KW plutonium powered heater do the trick for getting through the ice?
Now once you get through the ice, the ocean dwellers below might not be happy about it.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
... unless you haven't.
Getting to Jupiter is a much longer flight than Mars. That makes supply lines more difficult.
You are talking about living underground. And even if you can survive on the surface the sunlight is much weaker than on Earth. My family lived for a few years on the west coast of North America. The environment is marine coastal. Think wet and cloudy, especially during the winter. The lack of sufficient sunshine caused depression in my family who is used to prairie weather (bright and sunny most days). Now multiply the dark and gloom times 10, and pile on some cabin fever because you generally cannot leave, not easily.
Oh sure, you CAN do a bunch of things, artificial lighting, maybe take sub rides in that dark ocean. However with so many needs pressing and huge costs, how much money do you think is going to be invested in comfort items? Or what if the habitat simply cannot be sustained unless the comfort items are addressed? I can imagine the habitat getting hugely expensive, with little prospect of commercial activity to support that cost.
You lost me at "unmanned". Enough said.
This was originally canned by Bush in 2005 due pushing all the budget into manned missions with Constellation, which was then canned by Obama pushing stuff back to robotic science missions.
JIMO was to be a development testbed of a lot of interesting technologies - hence the crazy price tag, but you needed something with a long lasting power supply (nuclear fission reactor) to enable it to stay out that far without relying on solar panels, plus it would investigate the other icy moons on flybys while it navigated to Europa. Also the vehicle would be assembled in orbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
if the nasa get life, the nasa get money, right?
Europa may be hard but I like to imagine a submarine launched into the water below and take pictures of the little fishes. Well maybe not but as SETI's Cynthia Phillips says when looking for life go where the water is.
mfwright@batnet.com