Comments on: Testing a Europa Probe Prototype

By: james

james — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 02:25:55 +0000

I feel Europa is likeliest place out side of earth to find life.
According to evolution, life on earth begin in ocean. Life may also evolved in Europa’s ocean.

By: Hal 9000

Hal 9000 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:18:47 +0000

Ok, maybe you clowns didn’t hear me, so here we go again:

All these worlds are yours EXCEPT Europa
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE!!
Use them together
Use them in peace

By: Europa and Endurance « In Other Words

Europa and Endurance « In Other Words — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:32:20 +0000

[...] is still, how can you get to that ocean, below maybe miles of ice? There’s no answer yet, but U. of Chicago researchers are getting closer to having an exploration vehicle that can return data once it gets to that ocean. The Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice [...]

By: Toby

Toby — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:03:32 +0000

Dont rember the name of the location in Mexico , But I read an artical where nasa was planning to test this prototype uav in .
I want to say an underwater sink hole but what it looks like to me , is a pond maybe 50-75 yards across and Very deep . Reported one diver lost his life trying to reach the bottom . Has anyone else heard about this planed test ?
If so, know the outcome , maybe a site to go to that has info. on the findings .
thanks

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:53:09 +0000

I see all that discussion about Mars or Europa or Enceladus, but I think that Titan is little bit underestimated. Just imagine atmosphere pressure of around 1 bar, just comfortable for people. Ice is all around you together with methane and ethane to create fuel and water. Atmosphere is important for reachability, for braking of probes. You don’t need pressurized space suit to be there just good coat and breathing apparatus. Atmosphere is not toxic, mostly nitrogen 500 km deep, protecting from space radiation. I would like to see more missions to Titan, ending with human mission.

By: Peter K

Peter K — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:27:19 +0000

Once we have Martian presence, there will be a renewed interest in solar system research and development. I’d say that there won’t be 20 years between probes. There might not be a Europan submarine by 2050 but we’ll be well established in both gas giant systems by then. Robotically represented anyway.

By: stargazerdude

stargazerdude — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:14:31 +0000

Any Europa ocean probe will be a nuke and 2 miles or 20 miles thick ice to melt through wont make much of a difference. All the mass of the planet is in the mantle and core under the ocean; the mantle/core will be tidally locked to Jupiter. Most probably the ice crust sloshes around atop the mantle with a period of a few million years (not much for currents). It would be best to have an orbiter first to confirm the ocean (radar soundings) and find the thin spots, with a handful of siesmic probes dropped (later) on the surface (at high velocities) to sound out the crust, ocean, mantle, etc.

By: N Stone

N Stone — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:14:09 +0000

Wouldn’t we need lots more thermal imaging to even think of drilling in Europa? Because what if, below the outer shell of ice, the solid middle of the planet is spinning faster/slower, or in a different direction than the outer shell. this would make the underwater currents very swift and make an underwater mission almost impossible?
And if the ice was connected to europa, wouldn’t there be lots of places where the ice was connected to the planets middle?

By: stargazerdude

stargazerdude — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:45:08 +0000

Any life on Mars is gonna be below the permafrost, where liquid water exists. That could be about a half mile down, maybe less (but I suspect that thermal imaging from the orbiters in service would have found good hot spots by now) and drilling down that far and then bringing a sample up for analysis-unmanned-is going to be very difficult with our current technology. In the case of Europa, once you land the thing, you melt through the ice to get into the ocean (probably a couple of miles thick) and are immedietly sheilded from the rads (it’s a robot anyways) to release a submarine. Sounds to me like Europa would be easier, but still not easier than sending a Stardust sample return through Enceladus’ geysers.

By: marcellus

marcellus — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:30:17 +0000

Europa does not excite me as much as Mars. Microbes could exist as easily on Mars as Europa, maybe more so. Mars is so much more accessable, and is infinately more possible to land on, explore and colonize than Europa.

Europa lies too close to Jupiter’s magnetic field and absorbs too much radiation for safe human exploration.

It’s not that I don’t want to send a robot there eventually, I just think that Mars is a better option.