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Science

Twin Robots Scope Out Titanic, Europa Next? 191

Posted by Hemos from the one-heckuva-of-a-journey dept.
jmichaelg writes "Wired is running an article on a pair of submersible robots that work in tandem to film underwater scenes. One robot illuminates a scene by placing the light source as close as possible to the object being filmed while the other bot manuevers for the best camera angle. That, and a host of other innovations, makes the pair significantly different than the equipment used when the Titanic was originally filmed. Significant enough that JPL has expressed an interest in using the technology to swim in Europa's seas. How JPL will overcome the time delay isn't mentioned but it's an interesting read nonetheless."
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Twin Robots Scope Out Titanic, Europa Next? More

Twin Robots Scope Out Titanic, Europa Next?

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  • Not likely (Score:3, Insightful)

    by delphin42 ( 556929 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:24AM (#3241572) Homepage
    Considering the fact that NASA has cancelled any and all europa missions in the forseeable future, I doubt these things will see any otherworldly oceans anytime soon. NASA has much more important things to do like putting nukes in space.

    • Re:Not likely (Score:2, Interesting)

      by niftyeric ( 467236 )
      It's a shame too. I would love to see a mission to Europa. I'm curious if there is just the smallest evidence of life there. A mission to Pluto would be interesting as well (I'd just like to see the surface of the thing clearly, as well as seeing the view from Pluto looking toward our Sun).

      Reminds me of a quote from Star Trek: Insurrection.. "Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers?" -Picard
    • Thats why they canceled.

      The problem isnt, if we will find something its when. And the biggest problem is what do we do when we do find something? Panic? Because NASA and our Government has no clue of what to do, Seti and pro alien people would be wanting to meet the aliens and hug them, and others will want to kill them off, dont forget 90 percent of the USA is religious and could worship them, call them demons, or whatever.

      So if we do go to Europa and find something, is NASA prepared for it:?

      Europa is the biggest canidate for life, chances are theres life on it, theres the proper climate, and theres water, the life is most likely going to be underwater deep sea type life but theres still the chance for intelligent life.
    • In 2008, NASA is currently planning to launch a probe to the Jupiter system called the Europa Orbiter. Its objectives are to determine the presence of or the absence of an Europan subsurface ocean, to find out where exactly is this ocean and to understand how the surface features formed. The Europa Orbiter will also find candidate-landing sites for missions to Europa's surface.

    • Re:Not likely (Score:3, Informative)

      by spike hay ( 534165 )
      We will not likely go to Europa in the near future. However, we should go there.

      Europa has probably the best prospeacts for life anywhere in the solar system. It most likely has a liquid ocean underneath the ice, warmed by the tidal effects of Jupiter. Deep sea vents would emit chemicals that could start life. Some people think now that life on earth may have started near deep-sea vents.

      We would probably get there using nuclear propulsion if we were using a probe. Nuclear-thermal propulsion has around twice the specific impulse of conventional chemical rockets. When the probe gets to Europa, it will send down a small submersible. It will burrow through the thick ice by melting it with radioisotopes.

      For a manned mission to Europa and the Jovian system, which may happen in maybe 60 years, we would probably use VASIMR engines. These are plasma rocket engines under development that would get around 30,000 seconds, or 60 times the efficiency of conventional rockets. They work by using magnetic fields to accelerate high-temperature hydrogen plasma.

      VASIMR is so efficient that it would allow slow intersteller missions with 1-2% C.

      For interplanetary missions, it would allow missions to Mars in about 2 months and missions to Jupiter lasting a year. Also, upon return to earth, the VASIMR ships can just be refueled and resupplied and sent on their way for very cheap.

      Also, VASIMR's have some power. They have more power than ion engines.

      For interplanetary missions, we really need an inexpensive space plane, like the X 34. That would slash launch costs.
      • Solar sail, Microbots stuffed into a small capsule, and you could get to Europa at very fast speeds.

        Solar Sails at 150,000 mph, which is far faster than nuclear
        Nuclear also has heat problems, and sure it can
        Solar Sail [space.com]
        See how it works http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/prop19au g99_1.htm [nasa.gov]

        Also we could use Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion

        Plasma or ionized gas is trapped on the magnetic field lines generated onboard, and this plasma inflates the magnetic field much like hot air in a balloon.

        See prototype [washington.edu]
    • I think we also have to concider that fact that we might contaminate Europa. Our satilites and shuttles are capable of taking our bateria and such into space, SOME SURVIVE!! It is a real possibility that we could "colonize" a small planet that is capable of holding life just by landing on it! YIKES! Even some forms of insects are capable of being COMPLETELY frozen solid, sent into space and retrieved.

      McD

  • How JPL will overcome the time delay isn't mentioned but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

    Why with the ansible of course! ;-)

  • 1 Ethical Question, 1 Assumption (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:25AM (#3241578) Homepage Journal
    First, the assumption. We are assuming that there is a sea under Europa's Ice Sheet, aren't we? Do we have any proof that there is a sea underneith?

    The ethical question (with the assumption)... should we crack open the ice sheet to get to the sea? This is a sea that hasn't been exposed to anything above the ice for a looong time. We have no idea what effects this could cause....
    • Ever heard of Arthur C. Clarke...? Man, was he ahead of his time...
    • I suppose one possible option might be to basically drill in slowly, and let ice form again on top. However, I'm not sure how you'd overcome the problem of the ice locking/freezing the craft in place. Who knows, maybe you could heat up the entire outer surface of the craft so that it melts it's way down, and as the ice melts, it then refreezes above without freezing in the craft.

      Ah well, just some crackpot ideas ;)
      • Oops, meant to also add in that going through the holes left by volcanic activity might not be best idea. Gases, hot liquids, etc may end up causing some trouble.
        Also, the article mentions that radio waves do not travel through water that good, does that apply to most liquids? If they (radio waves) don't travel that well through liquids, how do they plan on sending back data? Have an umbilical cord that leads to the surface and acts as an antenna?

        • I have a better idea. (Score:2, Interesting)

          by HanzoSan ( 251665 )
          Instead of big robots, my idea to search for life would be to use microbots, they'd work like insects and drill under the ice by swarming to a certain spot and in a combined effort drill under the ice.

          Thousands or even millions of these bots could be stuffed into a capsule if this drilling method cannot work, and let a big drill robot drill a really small thin tube and let the microbots go in through the tube into the water beneath the ice.

          Once beneath the ice, they all spread out, reproduce via an assembly process, if theres materials to do so, each bot has a camera, a small light, they can swarm in areas to light that area up, or spread out if theres a need to.

          If theres life on europa under the sea it makes no sense to use expensive big robots which these lifeforms could just break instantly, using small robots which can spread out in an instact, and which act similar to a school of fish would be perfect for exploring the ocean on an alien planet.

          Thats my opinion, I dont work for NASA but i know NASA has the technology to do this right now, Its not a technology issue its a cost issue.

          With Bush cutting budgets and lowering taxes every chance he gets, theres no way this project could ever happen. We have the technology to do it, we have the technology to send a man to mars, to terraform mars, to explore europa, pluto, etc

          The reason we dont, is because these new technologys are expensive.
          It would take several billion to explore europe, it would take maybe 100 billion to send a man or men to mars, it would take a few trillion and a couple of decades to terraform mars. I think we should begin to terraform mars now for our childrens sake, because i dont think earth will last another 100 years at this pace.
    • First, the assumption. We are assuming that there is a sea under Europa's Ice Sheet, aren't we? Do we have any proof that there is a sea underneith?


      Yes. through radio spectroscopy and the wonders of radar, they have known that the ice is only so thick and that a vast ocean contained below exists as a result of the still hot core of the planet.

      • Re:1 Ethical Question, 1 Assumption (Score:5, Informative)

        by CheshireCatCO ( 185193 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:43AM (#3241708) Homepage
        No, no and no.
        Radio/radar have nothing to do with it. Nor does a "still hot core." Any body the size of Europa would have cooled by now, even with radiactive heat. (Mars, being much larger, is also largely cooled.)

        We are pretty sure that there is a liquid ocean because 1) The pattern of cracks imaged on the surface. 2) The types of surface features, which are generally held to be consistent with a liquid ocean under the ice. And 3) the Galileo magnetometer measurements of an induced magnetic field, indicating a lquid interior. Modelling indicates that the field is only consistent with a liquid near the surface, not the in the core.

        The heat needed to keep the water liquid comes from tidal flexing due to the forced eccentricity of Europa's orbit, unlike the usual situation for rocky bodies
        • A clarification, Europa's core is heated by the gravity fields of Jupiter and other big moons. (Is Io a Jupiter moon?) The result is kind of like tides on Earth, but with the moon's rocky core. As it gets kneaded like dough, the friction gives off heat. Assuming that this has been happening since it formed, refering to the core as "still hot" is accurate. (If a little misleading.)
          • But hasn't been happened that long. The tidal flexing only occurs because of the Laplace resonance with Io and Ganymede. The capture into this resonance is a relatively recent event in Galilean moon history. So "still" is inaccurate.

            Also inaccurate is "core". The tidal heat is most probably disappated in the outer layers, since tidal forces are proportional the the diameter of the layer. (Cores are small, so don't get flexed much.) Also, since the ice can turn to mush and even melt, it makes it easier to dump the heat there.
    • Do we have any proof that there is a sea underneith?

      Not proof but the surface of Europa has so few craters and so many faultlines that there's very little else that would account for it other than that the ice is moving on a liquid base.

      TWW

    • The gravitational field probe on Galileo measured Europa to be "mostly rock, with an outer shell of water about 60 miles thick." Other instruments gave readings that supported oceans under Europa's surface. The near-IR spectrometer found evidence of salts and sulfuric acid that came out of cracks on the ice. The magnetometer reported changes in Europa's magnetic field which scientists say to resemble a salty liquid ocean.
    • Yeah but I wanna see what's down there...

      The article says that the ice is broken all the time volcanic eruptions.

      Also any life would most likely be at the bottom of the ocean where it's warmest.
    • First - from space.com, an article stating why we think that there's an ocean underneath the ice. Ocean on Europa [space.com].

      Second - from the article. I'm not sure where they got this, but I didn't dig very deep to find out.

      Europa has what appears to be an ice-covered, saline ocean that is 30 miles deep. There are holes in the ice created by undersea volcanic activity.

      Better?
    • There is a 30 mile deep saline ocean under the ice crust. Volcanic vents have melted the ice in places. So, no problems.
    • Sooner or later we're going to have to harvest the mass of Europa to fuel Poole's GUT drives, so I vote sooner. Let's get it out of the way now, it'll make our great-great-great grandkids happy.
    • Yeah... And we were warned about it already:

      "All other worlds are yours except Europa."
    • There are apparently leads, or openings in the ice, on Europa. So the sea there does get exposed to vacuum sometimes.

      The sub, if sent, would probably melt it's way through a thin spot, rather than searching for a lead. Ballard and Pellegrino have written about this sort of stuff.

      • This is a sea that hasn't been exposed to anything above the ice for a looong time. We have no idea what effects this could cause....

      As a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, the United States is obliged to ". . . pursue studies of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies . . . so as to avoid their harmful contamination. . . ". Non-contamination of Europa is already being dealt with [nationalacademies.org]

      .
    • Actually, one of the critical bases for assuming there's an ocean under the surface of the ice on Europa is that the cracks on the surface are dynamic and the surface is so remarkably free of impact structures that it is clear that rapid refreezing of a liquid medium is the most likely cause.
      If this is the case, then the liquid UNDER the ice has been exposed to external 'contaminantion' almost constantly.
      If you're talking more specifically about somehow contaminating the "Europa Biome" with something from the "Terra Biome", well, that's an argument against ANY space exploration, ever. I think we've gotten pretty good at cleaning the probes we're sending to other planets by now. At least, nobody's complained!
    • > We are assuming that there is a sea under Europa's Ice Sheet, aren't we? Do we have any proof that there is a sea underneath?

      Depends on what you mean by proof, but the magnetometer evidence [nasa.gov] is pretty strong.

      We need a Europa orbiter to take gravity measurements to look for tides and other evidence that'll tell us how thick the crust is [nasa.gov]. With that, we can design the submersible and crust-penetrator, and select an appropriate landing site for the probe.

      > The ethical question (with the assumption)... should we crack open the ice sheet to get to the sea? This is a sea that hasn't been exposed to anything above the ice for a looong time.

      Actually, the sea won't be exposed with the probe either - like the probes at Lake Vostok (a subsurface lake in Antarctica), the Europa submersible will probably melt its way through the crust, and the "hole" through which it descends will freeze over it.

      Also, there are cracks in the surface that appear to indicate upwelling of material from below. Could be water from the seas, could be slush from below the ice, but above the water. Hard to tell.

      It's also possible that the peaked craters described in the first press release I cited were from impacts in thicker portions of the crust.

      An orbiter should be able to show us areas where the crust is thinnest.

      Meantime, the folks at planetary protection will be making damn sure that any Europa probe is sterile before landing.

      IMNSHO, despite not getting a full sterilization treatment (that is, what we'll be doing to any Europa orbiter or probe) on Earth, Galileo is completely sterile after having been fried in Jovian radiation for the past several years and poses no threat to whatever it smashes into.

      That opinion aside, the fact that the planetary protection folks at NASA still said "chuck Galileo into Jupiter when you're done with it, just to be on the safe side" should give you some idea of just how damn sure we'll be of a future probe's sterility before we attempt landing on Europa. (Insert obligatory Arthur C. Clarke joke here :-)

  • How to overcome time delays... DUH! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How JPL will overcome the time delay isn't mentioned but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

    Just open a subspace channel, or reroute power to the main deflector dish. Duh.

  • I'm *so* glad.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Teancom ( 13486 )
    that we all know who JPL is. I would have hated to have /. waste bandwidth by a short parenthetical aside like this (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the company who is only mentioned once in the article, but twice in the write up).

  • Make sure it is disenfected. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:28AM (#3241597)
    It would be real great if they did find some primitive life there. But then the next mission all of it was whiped out by Small Pox, or some other virus that is compleatly forgen to the moon. Learn from the Simpsons, Rember what the Bull Frogs did to Austrailia.

    • Re:Make sure it is disenfected. (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      very insightful. you best call up the JPL before they launch this mission to warn them of this, since i'm sure they haven't thought of that. maybe you can help them with their calculations too. you seem pretty smart.
    • That's an interesting point - lichens and bacteria are highly unlikely to survive the journey (vacuum, extreme temperatures, radiation), but what about viruses? They're hardy little suckers, anyone know for sure what their limits are?
      • Bacteria would be likely to survive the journey -- samples from the unmanned Surveyor lander, returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts, showed terrestrial bacteria had survived years of vacuum and radiation on the Moon.
    • It's extremely unlikely that an organism attuned to room temperature and pressure, and an oxygen environment, could thrive in a sulfurous ocean at just above freezing under hundreds of atmospheres of pressure. We would want to disinfect the probes, not so much out of a worry that they would destroy the Europan ecosystem, but to ensure that any life signs that we found would not be false positives from terrestrial organisms.
    • Not to sound completely ignorant, but what makes you think a virus that has "evolved" in terrestrial conditions has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the conditions of Europa's "oceans", and even if it somehow manages to do so and remain active, what possibility is it that it can actually "infect" whatever organisms may be there, should any exist?
      • So it behooves (love that word..) us to be careful. Better too caution, than not cautios enough. The same applies for any samples returned. What if it turns out that some Europan life form loves vinyl?
        • So it behooves (love that word..) us to be careful. Better too caution, than not cautios enough. The same applies for any samples returned. What if it turns out that some Europan life form loves vinyl?

          My gawd, hip hop DJs around the world would have to switch to CDs!

    • NASA is already making sure that they do not contaminate Mars/Europa/etc with probes. In fact, they have been thinking about that since 1999. Check out http://centauri.larc.nasa.gov/outerplanets/Europa_ PPR.pdf for a rather laborious read.
    • We already went through all this when they mentioned crashing Galileo into Jupiter. They have decontamination procedures, they just didn't think to use them on Galileo. I can only assume that if they're going to trash a probe rather than risk contamination, they'll just sterilize the Europa probe.

  • Well... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Hemos (editor) ( 569506 )
    No offense (or troll) intended, but I think these robots (the size of this -) [bbc.co.uk] are much cooler.

    Partner Site [monolinux.com]

  • Wish (Score:1)

    by KDENCE ( 558103 )
    I wish they could come up with an underwater dealy that could help us explore the depths of the ocean so we can maybe check out these giant squids and see where they roam. Maybe this is a step closer to that? If we find enough of them then maybe we can find them in our local Italian restaurants as giant calimary (marinara sauce and lemon wedges included).

  • New Lifeform ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EpsCylonB ( 307640 ) <eps@eps[ ]onb.com ['cyl' in gap]> on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:33AM (#3241629) Homepage
    In the late '90s, scientists discovered the Titanic was being consumed by a new life form, composed of 20 different species of bacteria, two species of fungus and two species of Archaea that, together, form a symbiotic rust coral or rusticle (they look like icicles) that thrive on iron.

    These rusticles have formed a single biological mass that is believed to be the largest life form on earth. It seems like poetic justice that this death site of historic magnitude should make such large contributions to man's discovery of new life, not only on Earth, but perhaps on other planets as well.

    Interesting, I have never heard of this before, does it really count as a single lifeform ?, sounds like a micro ecosystem to me.
    • I wondered about the "largest lifeform" claim as well. If the various critters are necessary for each others survival then "single lifeform" is probably defensible. After all, you depend on your lung cells to provide oxygen to your blood cells and so, depending on how you view yourself, you are a micro ecosystem or a single lifeform. I would be surprised if anyone has done the necessary biology to establish the 'rusticles' interdependence.

      As to "biggest," there's a tree fungus somewhere on the East Coast that is believed to encompass an entire forest and as it's a single mat, some claim it's the biggest earthly life form.
    • I haven't heard anyything about this life form, but it's clearly not the largest life form on earth.
      1) it's individuals as a collective organism, so if you use this as a "single mass" specimen the Great barrier Reef is probably the biggest.
      2) For single 'organism' the biggest is clearly the Armillaria ostoyae (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/ fungus000806.html) or the Aspen tree "pando" (http://www.extremescience.com/aspengrove.htm)
  • (heck of a) of a
    You could actually see that the gerbil must have stopped running on the wheel... ;)
  • We found some huge underwater city filled with aliens, or other strange and unusual lifeforms in these seas of Europa.

    Whats the plan for this? Do we even have one besides hitting the panic button?

  • Time delay? What time delay? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by David Kennedy ( 128669 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:36AM (#3241648) Homepage
    Unsure what the time delay mentioned above is about.
    I assume the robots work in tandem with each other; being close to each other means minimal lag when co-ordinating the lighting. The only delay is transmitting pictures back of course.

    Server seems to have tumbled over already so I can't check but it's interesting to consider what sort of lighting metrics they use - a human at home can say, "That's looks nicer lit like that." but what criteria should be used for autonomous work? Highest constrast? Smallest resolvable feature?
    • The bots aren't tethered to the surface, they're each tethered to a submersible via a spool of a biodegradable fiber optic. Delay is minimal. And each bot has two cameras, and three lights (I think I remember that correctly). A standard flood, a spot, and a hot spot linked to the vertically panning camera. The two pilots are in different manned submersibles, but they communicate via UQC. See my other post for more info.
      • The bots will have to be thethered to the surface, radio waves don't travel underwater*, and unless you want to string a really really long fiber option cable all the way to Europa....

        *Yes, some extremely low frequency ones do, but 5 bits per second isn't going to carry video.
      • Doh, I totally missed the point, don't worry, I've liberally applied the cluestick about my head and neck. Time delay as the space mission, not the tether issues ROV's have.

        Self-LART. Well, there isn't any way short of using some tachyon nonsense to "beat" the time delay, so you just have to end run around it.

        I really don't think there'd be any way to get a decent enough AI type system to react properly, so I'd probably say they're going to have to drop back to the old "batch command" standby. Of course, any current at all will really screw you here, but since these little guys can't really deal with appreciable current anyway, I doubt it matters. Another issue will be with bouyancy. In order to pull this off, the rig is going to need to be neutral, but who can tell what the density of the liquid is going to be.

        After having seen these units in action, I don't think they're ready for that kind of prime time yet. But, when they head them off to the Bismarck next year, that's going to rock!

    • Unsure what the time delay mentioned above is about.

      Any communication to or from the robots would take up to two hours, depending on which side of the sun Jupiter's on in relation to us. It's a speed-of-light limitation.

    • The delay they are speaking of is the distance between Europa and Earth. It's probably over an hour delay between Jupiter and Earth. It would be like controlling remote control cars in a race track with a rather bad reaction time.
    • The robots are remotely controlled by the fiber optic umbilical cords. JPL would presumably land a radio transponder on Europa's surface and relay the radio control from Earth to the transponder which would pass the signals on to the submerged robots via the fiber. Only problem is that Europa is over 30 light-minutes away so the control delay makes me wonder whether the idea is feasible. Imagine playing Unreal Tournament with 30 minute ping times...
      • I assume the robots work in tandem with each other

      I was thinking that robots plural is a misnomer, and that for all practical purposes this is a robot, singular. Sure, it's neat that the parts are separated, but if they act together and are individually useless, that passes the duck test for being a single entity.

  • hmm, never heard of that one. i do remember the titanic though, saw it in a movie once.

    E.

  • Might as well say it (Score:4, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:38AM (#3241668)
    • All These Planets Are Yours Except Europa
    • Attempt No Landing There

  • Dark Matter is Mike Cameron, film-maker is Jim (Score:5, Interesting)

    by uugabuuga ( 151324 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:39AM (#3241673)
    Cool. Not to make everyone else too jealous, but I was recently at a presentation by Mike and Jim Cameron about this project. Mike gave about a short presentation about the development of the ROV, and then Jim gave a much longer one about the missions. How cool is it that one of the project paramaters is that the ROV has to be small enough to fit in a "B" deck window? One of the many great quotes of the evening from Jim was "I paid for these guys, so I drove mine on every dive. Mike had to share."

    The footage is *AMAZING*. There are stained glass windows completely intact. In one stateroom, there's a water pitcher sitting on a shelf above a water glass still standing upright on a vanity. Still upright!!! After the sinking and the impact! Jim talked about how important it was to have 2 units, so that there could be "characters" in the shots. Oh, and not to ruin anything, but Bill Paxton is in on the project. The quote went something like "I'm making Bill do for real what he pretended to do in the movie"

    At one point they had a battery failure on one of the units due to a manufacturer's defect. So they rigged up a harpoon to the other, and went in and rescued it. It was an amazing feat, and they surfaced absolutely elated. But their victory was short lived, for the date of the rescue was 11 September.

    At several points during the presentation the audience broke into applause at the sheer grandeur of the footage. I can't wait to see the finished project, especially after they get some of the stuff enhanced and cleaned up. There were 12 dives on Titanic, 9 of them filming missions. And trust me on this one guys, you *must* see this film. Even if you aren't into wrecks, it will blow your mind.
  • I thought it was pretty clear that Europa was off-limits. Oh well.
  • While I applaud JPL for out-of-the-box thinking, I have to wonder what the chances are of finding an iceberg-wrecked cruise ship at the bottom of an ocean on a moon of Jupiter.
  • Maybe, maybe not ...but how about Altlantis?

  • When I was young.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by uigrad_2000 ( 398500 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @11:47AM (#3241739) Homepage Journal
    I remember asking a very learned man why space exploration was important. We have yet find anything on the moon, or any planet that adds to our daily lives.

    His response: "The technology we've developed due to NASA projects is huge, and mostly unmeasurable. For example, the VCR your parents own would not be possible without technology we developed in our quest to explore outer space."

    This is sad. Today the tables have turned.

    We wouldn't be able to explore the moons of Jupitor if it wasn't for the technology we developed to make some sappy chick-flick.

    Our thirst for entertainment has become paramount, and all else is now secondary!

    • > This is sad. Today the tables have turned.

      Why is it sad? It merely lends credence to the idea that necessity breeds invention. People wanted to explore space, so they made stuff that eventually became today's VCR's. People wanted to explore the interior of one of the most famous shipwrecks ever, so they made a couple robots that could do it.

      Just because the goals have different purposes (financial gain versus scientific) doesn't make the inventions "sad".

      In other words, productivity can come from even the most trivial pursuits.
    • That's because every idea must now be in the form of an executive summary for a multi-million dollar business plan.

      At work, they call it a "business case." No employee is allowed to do anything unless a "business case" can be made for it, and there is no such thing as a moderate success.
    • Until the space program started requesting ever smaller computers, there was virtually zero drive to downsize them. Although the thought and even practice of placing computer memory on chips existed before the Mercury program, nobody would have invested the money that allows VLSI (and hence the 'modern' computer industry.) Thus my job, your job and probably nearly everyone on Slashdot can thank space exploration.
  • Drilling isn't really an option. Melting your way through with a small radiothermal heat source is relatively easy. But what about the datalink? While melting its way in it would need to leave a cable connected to a radio relay left on the surface. Unless the sub is going to be limited by the length of the cable there will need to be another relay at the bottom of the ice layer that translated the signals to either ultrasound or blue-green laser. Add to that another relay in orbit around Europa and just multiply the probabilities that all components in this chain will not fail...
  • ...that we won't like robots not going to space?

    angeling this story at space exploration was kinda lame. these ROV's sound great, they could be used for exploring the oceans(you know the big ble areas on the map). like this:

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/07/1612 44 &mode=thread

    We already know more about our solar system than we do about the oceans. this discussion will soon drift into a 'when these ROV's come to europa' thread.

    i think one of the reasons of JPL's interest is the small size and weight

  • hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Em Emalb ( 452530 ) <ememalb@@@gmail...com> on Thursday March 28, 2002 @12:02PM (#3241834) Homepage Journal
    Ok first off...

    "Sound travels well underwater, but sound is slow and can't handle the data transfer rate required for video."

    I understand what they are trying to say, but they say it akwardly. How about, the speed of sound is slowed underwater, therefore isn't a viable option for what they are trying to do.

    There, that's better. Next, Jake and Elwood huh? Good to know the Blues Brothers are still on film, especially after the not-very-good Blues Brothers 2000. ;-)

    My work is done here.

    • Re:hmmm.... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Maran ( 151221 )
      "How about, the speed of sound is slowed underwater, therefore isn't a viable option for what they are trying to do."

      Erm, I may be wrong - GCSE physics was a long time ago - but isn't sound faster underwater because it's more dense? I think they're just saying that sound can't provide the bandwidth for video at any decent framerate.

      Maran

    • Re:hmmm.... (Score:2, Informative)

      by frankie ( 91710 )
      "Sound travels well underwater, but sound is slow and can't handle the data transfer rate required for video."
      I understand what they are trying to say, but they say it akwardly. How about, the speed of sound is slowed underwater

      Apparently you don't understand, because you got it wrong. Sound is 5x faster in water than in air [pbs.org]. Nevertheless, sound (even underwater) doesn't have the bandwidth to carry video signals (not to mention noise, transmission loss, etc). You need radio or cable or something. That was their point.

  • Now there's a leap (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Cat ( 19816 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @12:04PM (#3241843)
    Well, we'll start by filming the Titanic on the 12th, and then we'll be ORBITING JUPITER BY THE WEEKEND!!

  • Need more than swimmers for Europa (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @12:06PM (#3241859)
    How JPL will overcome the time delay isn't mentioned but it's an interesting read nonetheless

    I'm more interested in how they're going to get two submersible robots under a few kilometers of ice first. Not to mention, to communicate, they'd have to be tethered (water isn't real conducive to radio communications). They've got a lot more than just a time delay to worry about.

    I don't see how this could be reliably automated. Maybe with some people drilling it could be done, but I have a feeling that if we dropped a robotic drilling system, something would go wrong. It's just a bit too complex for me to have faith in it.
    • They probably wont drill into the ice. One idea is to launch a nuclear powered heat "drill". This would simply heat up and melt into the ice. Simple and nothing to break with no moving parts like drill bits. Trouble is what happens if it crahes into the moon instead of landing like it should...
  • "All these worlds are yours-- except EUROPA. Attempt no landings there."

  • hmm.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @12:10PM (#3241881) Journal
    "instead of dragging the cable into the hull and returning on the exact same path (and perhaps catching the optical fiber on something), the bots continually feed out the cable they need and exit the wreck wherever it is convenient.

    When the bots get back to their docks on the submersibles, the umbilical is simply jettisoned. Not having to go back or untangle the cable is a tremendous time-saver. Furthermore, the cable is designed to decompose quickly so it won't leave an unsightly web-like mess for future visitors to encounter."

    i wonder if decomposing fiber optic lines are good for preservation of the ship.. or the life around it..

  • Eh? (Score:2)

    by Cutriss ( 262920 )
    Significant enough that JPL has expressed an interest in using the technology to swim in Europa's seas.

    Funny...I remember reading an edict a few years back that went something along the lines of:

    "All these worlds are yours, except Europa. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."
  • Can't you read?

    "All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there."

    I tell you, we're only asking for trouble. Personally, I think if a gigantic black universal Swiss Army Knife tells you to not land somewhere, you should definitely not land there!
  • The only way to get around the time delay (short of sending a human crew) would be to program the robots to have a great degree of autonomy. So, all you OSS coders out there ... let's make sure this thing doesn't end up running on Windows 2020. Maybe you could call it GNUENE (GNU's Not Unix's Europaprobe's Not a Europaprobe) or something catchy like that.
  • I'm all for cool robotic NASA expeditions, but what about also using these things on earth - there's plenty to discover here.

    We KNOW the oceans here are teraming with giant squid and giant red octopii [cnn.com] (octocpussies?) yet can't find the damm things!

    How can we be sure we don't roam around Europa's oceans, find nada, yet maybe there's a giant red octopii there too!

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