Remember the plans for the CRAF probe over a decade ago
that was going to send a spike-shaped probe into a comet
to penetrate its surface and study the interior of an ancient
iceball?
Would it be possible to design something similar for Icepick?
If we find a relatively thin area of Europa's crust, perhaps
one of the cracks or those upwellings just in the news, we
could literally use a hardened protective cone to smash
through the ice and deposit the Icepick Hydroobot into the
liquid ocean. Or at the least slam it deep into the ice so
we would not have to melt/drill/dig so far?
My hope for this is to reduce the amount of power and
such to get through the ice crust so we can focus more
resources on the Hydrobot. Could the Hydrobot be
designed to survive such an impact?
Here are some relevant URLs on CRAF:
Larry
