Thanks so much Bruce! This is good stuff for us newbie civillians.
I just wish we didn't have to wait until 2030 ... -----Original Message----- From: Bruce Moomaw [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 2:10 AM To: Europa Icepick Subject: A beginner's guide to Europan exploration ----- Original Message ----- From: "CHRIS CANTRELL" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 6:05 AM Subject: RE: The snake devours its tail > > Is there an ISS group email distribution list? I realize issues are related and often intertwined. I joined this list to learn about the Europa project and the robot subs! Is there any late breaking news? Is the project on hold? Is there a launch date? Has the budget for the mission been approved or vetoed? Is there Earth-bound experimentation going on now? Where? What happened to American curiosity and our sense of adventure that put man on the moon with 4-bit computers? Has it gotten bogged down in committee? ________________ Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Actually, this "Europa Cryobot" has just been a project our little group has been bouncing around for several years now. NASA (and, specifically, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) is definitely interested in the overall concept of a Europa Cryobot -- but it's a LONG way off, and would certainly have to be preceded by at least two earlier types of Europa probes: a Europa orbiter to confirm the existence of a current-day liquid-water ocean and look for good landing sites, and one or more surface landers to drill up and analyze near-surface ice to both look for actual traces of microbial remains and determine in other ways how suitable the Europan environment may be for life. (There would probably also be shorter-distance cryobots penetrating only a few hundred meters into the ice before we tried for something as monumental as melting down through 20 km or more of ice.) This would be, as I say, a tremendously involved and ambitious series of missions; we probably won't see an attempt at the all-out final-stage Cryobot until around 2030 at the earliest. The first stage -- the Europa Orbiter -- is hard enough; despite its relatively simple science goals, its cost (as estimated by JPL) has mushroomed to fully $1.2 billion, and so the White House cancelled any plans for it this year. There's now a lot of reappraisal going on as to how its science goals might be achieved more cheaply, especially since "Galileo's" measurements of Europa's induced magnetic field in the past few years now serve already as very strong evidence of a present-day ocean. (It now seems that even this first step in Europan exploration won't be launched until 2009 or 2010.) The next stage -- the surface lander -- will of course be even harder and more expensive, but hopefully by then there will be firmer scientific justification for it. Some of the best source for up-to-date data on Europa exploration plans are: (1) The National Academy of Sciences' 1999 report on Europan exploration schemes: www.nationalacademies.org/ssb/comp-europamenu.htm (There have been 3 significant developments since this came out. Galileo's magnetic-field near-proof of an ocean has come in; Dr. Chris Chyba has developed a new theory as to how Jupiter's deadly radiation belts may actually synthesize a promising supply of nutrient chemicals for possible microbes in the upper few cm of Europa's ice, which might then be diffused downward into the ocean for thousands of years; and Galileo's near-IR spectra of Europa's surface have shown what some interpret as evidence for a strong solution of sulfuric acid in the ice, although this isn't necessarily a hammer-blow against the idea of life. Otherwise, this report is still very much up to date.) (2) The abstracts from the first two "Europa Focus Groups" sponsored by Arizona State University -- available through http://astrobiology.asu.edu/focus/europa/discuss/discuss.html . (The third Focus Group meeting was finished just yesterday; its abstracts haven't been released yet.) (3) The PDF papers from an October 2000 JPL workshop on future Europa exploration: http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/future/europa/workshop102200.html These contain a lot of pictorial material that can take a devil of a long time to read out; but many of them are worth it. In particular, note the French-Carsey-Lane paper, which describes JPL's latest concept of how the final-stage Europa Cryobot would be designed. (4) Two papers at Dr. Chris Chyba's homepage -- www.seti-inst.edu/science/litu/c-chyba.html ...describing both his current version of his theory that a Europan ecosystem might be ultimately powered by Jupiter's radiation ("Life Without Photosynthesis"), and his speculations on the experiments a Europa surface lander would need to start the search for life. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/ == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
