----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: Manned Mars Program-Space Exploration Act of 2002 (Full Text)
>
> This is getting a bit bizarre. First we have Democrats from Oregon calling
> for a Mars mission. Than we have this. It's interesting and all, but where
> are all these congress-critters coming from all of the sudden?
Well, Congresscritters Lampson (author of the new Act) and Hall (who gave it
a rave review) both come from Texas -- specifically, from districts that
depend on NASA pork. They couldn't possibly have ulterior motives, could
they?
As for Sen. Wyden's call for a manned Mars mission, God knows what his
motivation is. Keep in mind, though, that (A) most members of Congress are
scientific near-illiterates, and (B) Wyden got elected Senator despite a
campaign during which he was unable to locate Bosnia on a map of Europe.
Meanwhile, the latest poll by Ipsos-Reid (a pretty reliable pollster) shows
a 22-point margin against a manned Mars program among the American people.
> All a bit off-topic... bringing it back... the Nuclear Systems Initiative,
in
> the long run, will be great for Europa exploration. It may hurt a Europa
> missions in the near term (or maybe not) but if the program goes, without
> pillaging space science, there will be some great capabilities available
in
> the next decade. Since the NSI ranges from new radioisotope power sources
> (gotta-haves for ANY further outer planet exploration) to the higher power
> reactors/electric propulsion systems, it might open up a broad range of
> exploration options. Of course, my biggest fear is that it would induce a
> return to the once-every-10/20-year flagship missions.
I do think that NEP will be necessary in the moderately long run for any
kind of decent outer Solar System exploration -- and, just from the point of
view of safety, I'd infinitely rather launch uranium-235 than plutonium-238
into space. It's also obvious that it would tremendously increase the
capabilities of Europa orbiters and landers. But there is that cost factor,
especially with the Station continuing to devour everything in sight.
> Hopefully, there is still room for innovative focused lower-cost Europa
> missions, if they make sense, in the category of New Frontiers.
The February report from NASA's Solar System Exploration Subcommittee (not
on the Web yet, but I have a copy, heh heh heh) says that it's time to very
seriously reconsider the design of the next Europa mission, given (A) the
appalling mushrooming of Europa Orbiter's cost (now a minimum of $1.2
billion) and (B) the fact that Galileo's induced magnetic field measurements
have come close to nailing down the case for a present-day Europan liquid
ocean already.
Question: could a cheaper Jupiter orbiter, making 10-20 Europa flybys, be
able to:
(1) Make enough additional induced magnetic field measurements to finish
nailing down solid proof of a current-day ocean without having to put a
craft with a laser altimeter (to measure tidal flexing) into orbit around
Europa itself?
(2) Fly over enough interesting features and study them with imaging,
surface composition mapping and ice-penetrating radar sounding to locate
good sites for the first Europa landers without having a Europa orbiter map
the satellite's entire surface?
(3) Carry an impactor (perhaps released before Jupiter orbit insertion)
which could both send back closeup pre-impact photos of the surface to find
out how dangerously rough it is for a lander, and throw up a cloud of icy
debris that the main craft could fly through to directly analyze Europa's
surface chemistry in vastly more detail than the orbiter's reflectance
spectrometers (especially since most of it would be excavated from beneath
the radiation-modified surface layer)?
If so, such a craft might also be able to carry more science instruments
than a Europa orbiter, thus also allowing better studies of Ganymede,
Callisto, and Jovian meteorology.
==
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