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Space Science

ESA and NASA Consider Joint Mission To Europa 195

Posted by Hemos from the zooropa-baby dept.
ewg writes "In defiance of the monolith, the European Space Agency and NASA are in the early planning stages of an automated joint mission to Europa, Jupiter's watery moon. This follows the triumphant Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn's moon Titan. "All these worlds are yours, except Europa...""
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ESA and NASA Consider Joint Mission To Europa More

ESA and NASA Consider Joint Mission To Europa

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  • Argh! (Score:3, Funny)

    by vjmurphy ( 190266 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:03PM (#11933500) Homepage
    Get the quote right, at least:

    "All these worlds are yours..."

  • Thank You . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by StefanJ ( 88986 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:05PM (#11933530) Homepage Journal
    . . . for putting the line from the Clarke novel right in the intro and getting it out of the way.

    This will eliminate about half of the impulse entries on this subject.

    That said . . .

    Heyyyyy, how 'bout them Probes! Whoooo! Go probes!

    Stefan

    • Re:Thank You . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:41PM (#11934020) Homepage
      While I get a kick out of most of these missions, I'm *really* waiting for the next Titan mission. I want to see a nuclear powered helicopter or cryogenic-temperature blimp (two proposals thusfar) patrolling around Titan; it'd be able to visit pretty much the entire moon. Huygens definitely was a "pose 5 new questions for every one it answered" mission. And if anything, Titan now looks even more like Primordial-Earth-In-Deep-Freeze than ever before.

      Plus, it seems that there likely are hotspots on the moon due to radar evidence of cryovulcanism. So, in short, we have a moon the size of Mercury where we have been able to see huge amounts of organic chemistry going on, locations where liquid water even makes it out to the surface, and extensive evidence of hydrocarbons coming into and out from the surface. Seems like there might even be a chance, however slim, of subsurface present-day life. Heck, I wouldn't even rule out life using Titan's methane as a solvent, although it's nonpolar so it certainly couldn't be LAWKI.

  • When are they planning it? (Score:4, Funny)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:05PM (#11933533) Homepage Journal
    Hopefully not 2010. That could only be a bad thing. I hope they attempt no landings there.

    • As they say (Score:4, Funny)

      by pavon ( 30274 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:28PM (#11933842)
      Those who ignore the future
      are doomed to prepeat it
      • It's more like "Those who post on Slashdot are doomed to repeat it."

        "It" being the same damned joke over and over.

        It's like I'm in some bad "Star Trek" meets "Doctor Who" meets "2010" time travel episode or something...

        "All these worlds" my ass.
        How about, "All my fists are yours in the face, except my foot, which has attempted a landing in your ass."

        [awaiting judges' score for best turn-of-phrase]
  • Hope they get a EuropaRail pass this time.. lot cheaper than the last trip.

    Heh, sorry, the first time I read this I read "Joint Mission to Europe."

    -Pan
  • Que lame jokes about unit conversion.... now. No, seriously. Please do it right, guys at ESA and NASA.
    • I don't think we need to worry about unit conversions this time. Homicidal AIs on the other hand...

  • No Way! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by EccentricAnomaly ( 451326 )
    Southwood's plan is for the US to settle for building a simple 'relay satellite' and to get their glory probe into orbit around Europa so that they can claim all of the credit.

    Why would NASA want to do all of the hard work and spend all of the money to put an ESA orbiter at Europa??
    • Southwood's plan is for the US to settle for building a simple 'relay satellite' and to get their glory probe into orbit around Europa so that they can claim all of the credit.
      Why would NASA want to do all of the hard work and spend all of the money to put an ESA orbiter at Europa??

      Well, perhaps they'd be more interested in the science they could do than any perceived 'glory' from being the one who lands a probe.

      Does all international co-operation have to be reduced to a squabble over who has the biggest
      • Well, perhaps they'd be more interested in the science they could do than any perceived 'glory' from being the one who lands a probe.

        ESA and NASA routinely fly instruments on each other's spacecraft. What Southwood wants is the accolades in the press.

        Nasa because of lack of money for science missions, and ESA because of Nasa's experience with RTGs.

        If they want better RTG's they should team up with the Russians... The Russians are the only ones to actually fly a reactor in space. NASA has a lot mo

    • Re:No Way! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @02:15PM (#11934463)
      Oh you mean just like how they "stole all the credit" for the cassini huygens mission when they landed huygens on Titan? Yeah. Thought so. If you had a clue, which by the way, you don't, you'd know that we'd probably supply an orbiter which would communicate with an esa lander. The majority of the science data returned coming from the orbiter. The fact that average joe clueless still thinks that space should be one huge dick size comparison is a big part of what's preventing us from doing truly collaborative big science missions on a regular basis and reaping the scientific knowledge just waiting to be taken from such missions.
      • The fact that average joe clueless still thinks that space should be one huge dick size comparison is a big part of what's preventing us from doing truly collaborative big science missions on a regular basis.

        I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that the largest rocket in the world is the United States' Saturn V. The tiny, flaccid French Ariane boosters hardly compare. As for the Russian Proton rocket... well, let's just say that they've had a little trouble with the machinery that gets it into t

      • If you read the article, you'd see that they were proposing an ESA orbiter and a NASA relay satellite that would put the ESA orbiter into orbit.

        Most of the cost of a Europa orbiter, is the getting into orbit part.. the deal Southwood is proposing stinks. He's basically proposing a plan ESA has tried before to do itself but couldn't find the money for, and proposing the US pay for the most expensive part and ESA gets the high visibility part.

        I am a proponent of NASA - ESA coorperation, just not of Southw

  • Exploration of Europa (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aardpig ( 622459 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:14PM (#11933650)
    There's a good page discussing life on Europa, and the issues concerning exploration of the moon, here [udel.edu].

  • RTGs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by igny ( 716218 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:14PM (#11933654) Homepage Journal
    Just a concern about safety [rmbowman.com].

    • Re:RTGs (Score:4, Informative)

      by theparanoidcynic ( 705438 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:29PM (#11933868)
      1) Non-fissile isotope.
      2) Designed to survive an explosion and crash.
      3) More radioactivity in a truck full of smoke-detectors.

      Personally, I'm more worried about the propellants that would spray everywhere if the thing blew up.

      • Re:RTGs (Score:5, Informative)

        by Manhigh ( 148034 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @03:58PM (#11935709)
        RTGs are for power generation, not propulsion. You could use them to power an electric propulsion system (Ion engines), but the propellant for such a system is inert gas (xenon or krypton) and doesnt pose much of an environmental risk.

        RTG's yield such little power that using them for propulsion only makes sense for very light spacecraft, where you can do most of the energy input using the launch vehicle.

        Nuclear Electric Propulsion (using a reactor) can generate much more power but is also heavier. So you cant boost it to as high an energy with the launch vehicle, since its heavier, but for sending large payloads to the outer planets, its the only option.

        I disagree with the above link's conclusions that nuclear reactors in space have no purpose. Our civilization simply has no other way to get large payloads to distant planets, unless you want to launch several saturn V's into earth orbit and do the assembly of your spacecraft there.
      • Actually Pu238 IS fissile and has a critical mass. Yeah, it surprised me too. We had a very long discussion about this on the wiki RTG page [wikipedia.org] and due to the lack of detailed unclassified information on Pu being fissile, we never decided what exactly we should add to the article.... It should be noted though that it is very unlikely that Pu238 is a proliferation threat, as the specific activity (ie. decay rate) is so phenomenally high (a mass sufficient for supercritical assembly would be spewing out over 5 k

    • Safety (Score:2, Interesting)

      by climb_no_fear ( 572210 )
      I'm not worried about a couple of kilos of plutonium - I'd be more concerned if they found an independent form of life (probably bacterial-like). Maybe somebody (in a later mission) will want to bring some back. The worst diseases are often those that recently jumped a species barrier (think SARS or AIDS) and haven't had time to coevolve with the host. That might be a good reason to attempt no landings there ...

      • Re:Safety (Score:3, Insightful)

        by the phantom ( 107624 ) *
        I really don't think that this would be a problem. How well do you think an independently evolved lifeform from Europa would survive at Earth normal temperatures, in a chemical environment that is totally novel? Much less in a human body...

      • You should be more worried that your kids will be gay in the future, or that you will be killed by a gun or a drunk driver.

  • Attempt no landings there? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HaeMaker ( 221642 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:19PM (#11933713) Homepage
    You guys are missing the point... We receive the warning *after* we attempt to land there with an automated probe.

    I, for one, welcome our new chlorophyll overlords.

  • Co-operation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:26PM (#11933821) Journal
    I am glad to see cooperation between the two continents. I know it is fashionable to be pro-Europe/Anti-American or Anti-European/Pro-American. However, ultra-nationalism ends up being a detriment to mankind as a whole.

    I hope we continue to build bridges between the continents...

  • Two big organisations... (Score:4, Informative)

    by bcmm ( 768152 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:27PM (#11933834)
    ESA and NASA have both had their own internal problems with communication and organization (units of measurement; Beagle 2). With both of them cooperating, won't they be almost certain to make a big mistake somewhere?
    I know Europeans use metric :-)

    • Re:Two big organisations... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @02:15PM (#11934465) Homepage
      There was with Cassini; Huygens was supposed to enter Titan late last year instead of early this year. They had to delay it because a problem with a radio on Cassini was detected that lied in the firmware (while it was able to handle the Doppler shift of the carrier, it was unable to handle doppler-shifted data due to an oversight in the design). The workaround was, simply, to launch at a trajectory that minimizes the doppler shift, which involved an extra pass around Saturn. Since they had planned the route so well that they had extra fuel on arrival, it didn't shorten the planned mission duration.

      Of course, one major problem that had a workaround, and one minor problem discovered too late (the loss of one channel of Huygens data) in a mission involving several hundred thousand man-hours? Honestly, that's not bad. I wish most programmers I knew tested their code well enough to have such a good record (I mean, that's the equivalent of a KDE-sized project). Because while software errors generally at worst mean you have to restart your program, an error on a spacecraft mission can mean the mission is lost.
      • They had to delay it because a problem with a radio on Cassini was detected that lied in the firmware

        Hm, I recall a certain other mission to Jupiter in which a firmware lied about a detected problem with the radio...
      • On a mission like this, software testing budgets can easily get larger than software development budgets. If things really get out of hand testing can double development. But it has to be done cause it's hard to fix some things. Although a lot of times patches can be uploaded enroute when a problem is detected. But sometimes we only detect them after it's too late. As in the standard units v. metric units issue and the lander that when kerplunk. Both good lessons in engineering for quality. For this busines
    • bash-2.05b# cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Shit, my RAM is full of llamas...

      That's weird. I don't have any llamas on my system. What are you running?

  • China? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bigattichouse ( 527527 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @01:52PM (#11934184) Homepage
    So, is China building a "space station"? Don't be surprised when you find out its really a ship. (And Shipwrecks some poor chinese scientist on Europa) Oh, Arthur C. Clark must be so proud.

  • Doomed to fail. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lead Butthead ( 321013 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @02:16PM (#11934481) Journal
    One phrase: "Metric vs. US customary"

  • Sharing results (Score:2, Redundant)

    by amightywind ( 691887 )

    This follows the triumphant Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn's moon Titan.

    The Huygens probe was a technical success. But ESA's handling of the landing event left a lot to be desired. [spacedaily.com] If there is another big mission lets hope that the sharing of initial results with the public is handled more openly.

  • Some Suggestions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by qualico ( 731143 ) <worldcouchsurferNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday March 14, 2005 @02:29PM (#11934638) Journal
    "..., I would like deep-penetrating radar"

    I'd like to see a permanent orbiter that can map out the moon in detail first.
    Select a target for something similar to "comet busting".
    Then drop several probes into prime targets.
    Further, lets put some robotics onboard these probes.

    Look at the heavy equipment used in the Huygens probe.
    Albeit its great for durability, there has to be a more compact way to design the connectors.

    Look at these pictures:
    Huygens Internals [spacescience.ca]
    Huygens RS232 Connectors [spacescience.ca]

    Surely you can save space and weight with a more efficient connector than an RS232 jacket.

    Look at how compact electronic devices are.
    Get Sony to help with development.

    Be good for some advertising I'd think.

    • Re:Some Suggestions (Score:2, Informative)

      by dthx1138 ( 833363 )
      Yeah, spacecraft design is soooo easy, omg NASA, HPL and the ESA ARE SO RETARDEDZZ!!! They should just put thinkpads on space probes to save weight LOL

      Except no. Please recall:

      1) Cassini was built over 10 years ago
      2) Spacecraft components are not desktop components. They must be more reliable, they must be redundant, and most importantly, (big word): Radiation Hardened, which means that they can withstand more ionizing radiation, and are thus much bigger and more massive.
    • USB was invented in 1997. Cassini was launched in 1997. What would you use, the proven 20+ year old RS232 technology, or its replacement, USB?

      I'm not saying why they went with what they did, or that there are no other alternatives, but NASA and the ESA probably did what they knew would work, and since they made it there and completed the mission, I'd say it worked.
    • If you think RS232 is the future of spacecraft and probe design, then I'd have to say your very narrow minded.

      My point is simply this:
      Integrate and condense; you'll come in on budget with more gear to ride the rocket IMHO.

      If you read the entire message you'd have seen the "Albeit" caveat.
      I didn't think I had to point out the obvious need for "hardening" the electronics in the rigors of space exploration.
      It certainly doesn't mean you can't improve and shrink probe design.
      • No, the point is, you don't seem to realise that space probe designers aren't already concerned with saving every miligram, when in fact they are. Some random slashdot user coming along and saying "hey guys, why don't you use smaller components" is not going to revolutionise spacecraft design, because it's so incredibly obvious that it's not worth mentioning.
        • I "obviously" disagree.
          If they were concerned about saving every mil"l"igram then why does the probe look like the inside of 8086?
          Space hardening and 1980 technology? blah!
          They strapped the thing to a converted ballistic missile for crying out loud.

          AND if you recall, the probe was *not* as successful as it could have been.
          Remember the Doppler shifting problem or the Chan A loss?

          My point is, if we are going to do this again, let's evolve the technology and get more bang for our buck using more integration
          • Dell can send a service engineer out to fix their products if they fail. JPL can't. See the problem? Reliability is more important than speed or even mass.

            Yes. They had some failures as it was. How does that equate to making it sensible to use bleeding edge technology that may be even less reliable?

            They strapped the thing to a converted ballistic missile for crying out loud.

            WTF? Do you think it had the coordinates for Moscow still programmed into it or something? Titan IV is the biggest expendable launc

            • "Dell can send a service engineer out to fix their products if they fail. JPL can't"

              Put a repair robot on the thing then.
              AND for heavens sakes put flashable ROM on everything.
              Why is it I have to solve all the problems of the Universe?

              "Reliability is more important than speed or even mass."

              So you're saying that reliability can not be built into integration and miniaturization?
              Come on!

              "Titan IV is the biggest expendable launcher the US has. What exactly is the problem with using this?"

              Nothing if you don'

  • DepthX autonomous submarine (Score:5, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @02:52PM (#11934879) Journal
    This reminds me of the DepthX [wired.com] submarine which was described in a recent issue of Wired. The probe would drop down, melt through the ice, and then autonomously search for hydrothermal activity on the sea floor.

    The group working on it is currently putting together a version to explore and search for life in a rather hostile water-filled cave in Mexico. They've got a progress report here [utexas.edu], with many details and pictures.

    Some other links related to a Europa probe:

    http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/archive/design/europa/ [utexas.edu]
    http://www.cosmographica.com/gallery/portfolio/por tfolio351/pages/352-EuropaProbe.htm [cosmographica.com] (neat painting)
    http://www.cascadia.ctc.edu/facultyweb/instructors /jvanleer/astro%20sum01/astro101/missions_to_europ a.htm [ctc.edu]
    http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20021102/fob3r ef.asp [sciencenews.org]

    Scientific articles:

    The Challenge of Landing on Europa [google.com]
    Possible ecosystems and the search for life on Europa [nih.gov]
    others [google.com]

  • inch vs. centimeters (Score:3, Funny)

    by vvaduva ( 859950 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @03:16PM (#11935194)
    As long as they bring their measurements tables with them, I don't foresee any problems. heheh
  • a spacecraft on the surface will have to survive ~3.2 million rads/day. the galileo and cassini probes have survived short term exposures of that magnitude but they almost always got messed up pretty good (safemode at the least, permanent damage of instruments at the worst).

    anything built for a surface mission would have to be unbelievably radiation hardened compared to any spacecraft flown so far.

    i think it's safe to say there will be no manned europa missions for the forseeable future :-)

    for any long t

  • They ought to go to Phobos instead, and see if it has enough hydrogen (ideally water ice) and carbon to supply fuel for a cheaper and safer variant on Mars Direct.

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