Re: What about a Slam Dunk approach to Icepick?
- Original Message - From: LARRY KLAES To: europa Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 8:06 AM Subject: What about a Slam Dunk approach to Icepick? 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? Well, no matter how fast you ram a penetrator into Europa's ice, it won't godeeper than a few meters -- and we're talking about a vehicle that has to melt its way throughKILOMETERS of ice. IfRichard Greenberg's theory that there are somewater-filled cracks running almost all the way to the surface is correct, a penetrator Cryobot might be able to smash down a substantial part of the distance through their ice covering -- but you'd have to locate such a place very precisely, and the penetrator would have to be extremely precisely targeted to hit it. (On top of that, the evidence for Greenberg'smodel -- as opposed toPappalardo's thick-crust model of Europa's ice -- seems to be extremely weak, including the fact that ice is ductile enough that the pressure even a few km down probably causes it to flow and seal up any such cracks quickly. The total thickness of Europa's ice crust may be very uniform from place to place.) This does prove again that a radar sounder on Europa Orbiter is worthwhile to try to locate relatively thin spots in the ice, such as Greenberg's cracks (or even isolated near-surface water pockets, which are far more likely) as high-value possible landing sites for later Europa missions. But it's a safe bet that virtually all of a Cryobot's downward progress through the ice layer must be done by melting.
Re: What about a Slam Dunk approach to Icepick?
Is there a reason I'm missing why no one is talking about lasers as a tool to get through Europa's ice? Thanks, Demetrios Deligiorgis
What about a Slam Dunk approach to Icepick?
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: http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/archive/fulltext/craf2.pdfhttp://www.nas.edu/ssb/crafcassini392.htm http://utenti.lycos.it/paoloulivi/never.html Larry
Re: What about a Slam Dunk approach to Icepick?
I now see a major problem with naming the terrestial model 'Icepick'. Larry is talking about proposals for an actual Europa probe, employing a kinetic penetrator, for sometime in 2015 or beyond. The terrestial model involves proposals for a model constructed from off-the-shelf parts, and is only capable of tunneling in terrestial glaciers. It is of critical importance that the two projects be distinguished. The suggested name 'Proteus' for the terrestial model was nixed, for good reason. However, unless and until we get a separate website going, we're going to keep running into this problem of distinguishing the theoretical Europa bound 'Icepick' from the more practical, terrestial bound 'Icepick'. Solutions? -- John Harlow Byrne In a message dated 10/31/2002 7:11:33 AM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 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?
