Nasa to Officially Announce Mission to Europa This Spring!!

Exciting news, ATS! I just read this article stating that NASA plans to officially announce a Europa mission this Spring. I know that the idea has been discussed here on ATS before and the idea has been tossed around at NASA for a while but now this is definite.

On Monday, during his "State of NASA" speech, administrator Charles Bolden announced that NASA will be selecting projects to accompany a probe to Jupiter's moon Europa.

Floating in space about 390 million miles from earth, Europa is a remote ice ball that harbors a massive ocean underneath its surface. So massive, in fact, that scientists suspect Europa could have as much as two to three times more liquid water than Earth!

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Even though humans have never sent a probe to the surface of Europa, the beautiful moon has been a hot topic of interest for many years. And just last year, NASA issued a Request for Information to the scientific community to offer up their ideas on the best, economically viable approach to study this amazing moon.
Now, it looks like some of those ideas might have paid off as scientists look forward to learning more about the future mission to Europa this spring.

I can't wait for this mission...! I wonder if it's going to be robotic or a human mission....? It should be a human mission but who would go in their right mind for what probably would be a one way trip? Even if you did return, by the time you got back something like 20yrs would have passed. Still cool though. What says ATS?

finance.yahoo.com...

Interesting, thanks for sharing this one.




ALL THESE WORLDS
ARE YOURS EXCEPT
EUROPA
ATTEMPT NO
LANDING THERE

So much bull#...why don't they concentrate on one thing at a time...like MARS!

a reply to: stirling

So much money and resources wasted and we haven't even had a human orbit Mars. If I'm not mistaken, Apollo 17 was the last lunar mission and it was in 1972. That makes 43 years now we've not even seen a human leave near earth orbit.

I really want to see NASA succeed, but not like this. Time, money, and effort needs to be in manned exploration. Not more satellites and telescopes.

a reply to: EternalSolace

It is far more reasonable to sent probes. Just think about it:
1. you don't know what to expect
2. the super long journey would unnecessarily waste the lifespan of the astronauts
3. you don't need to put feet on the surface to study something
4. the mission control of nasa/esa/etc. actually is like the bridge of a spaceship, just less dangerous and far more healthy and comfortable


There is not a single good reason in my mind why they should send people. Do you have one?

a reply to: Peeple

Sure...

Because we can.

Robotic exploration only offers so much. Thank god we didn't have this technology back in the days when the world was unknown. We would still be in Europe looking at images of the new world, wondering what's there.

If we sent human explorers to Mars we could answer a LOT of the questions we have to date about what we see in the images it sends back.

robotics are nice but its trumped by human curiosity.

Is space exploration dangerous for humans? Absolutely.

It was also extremely dangerous to sail from Europe to the New World without knowing whats there. Ships were out of contact for many months. There were issues with food, psychological health etc.

Today we can pick up a phone and talk to people in Europe. We can board a plane and fly to Europe. Humans explored and adapted and made it a safe part of their life.

Space is no different.

High resolution pictures of Mars are nice... However, I would rather visit first hand and see it for myself.

A quote about space exploration comes to mind -

'Cause it's next. 'Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next.

I am quite skeptical on this just look at how long it took the Russians to drill through lake Vostok that would be a walk in the park to this mission

Europa? Very cool!


Mars is awesome, no doubt about it, but it gets very lonely and boring after a while. Sad memories tend to surface.

There will be no maned mission to Europa...we're not there yet...not officially anyway. Robotic probe most likely. Still...that's not too bad.

I recently watched rather decent SF...the Europa Report...not a bad flick.

IMDB

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
There will be no maned mission to Europa...we're not there yet...not officially anyway. Robotic probe most likely. Still...that's not too bad.

I recently watched rather decent SF...the Europa Report...not a bad flick.

IMDB

This is the part that gets me... Its like NASA having issues with the one way trip to Mars. For some reason its unacceptable to NASA yet hundreds of thousands of people seemed ok with it when they signed up for the trip in the first place.

I think we are a casualty of the "no risk" mentality our government has adopted. Nothing is ever a 100% guarantee and to adopt that mentality seems backwards.

Come on, guys. Do you seriously think that NASA (or any other space agency) would even be capable of sending humans to the Jupiter system using current rocket technology? Can you imagine how much food, water, oxygen and other materials would be required for a journey of that length? In fact, even developing a rocket powerful enough to send them on a direct trajectory would be a monumental task. The Galileo spacecraft took six years to reach Jupiter, and this was because it was too massive to be sent on a direct trajectory. It had to use Earth (twice) and Venus for gravity assist manouevres just to gain the energy required to get out as far as Jupiter. A spacecraft with humans on board would be orders of magnitude larger and more massive than the Galileo spacecraft, so this would be impossible with current technology.

Anyway, sending a robotic spacecraft would be a lot cheaper and easier. It's a no brainer really.

originally posted by: EternalSolace
a reply to: stirling

So much money and resources wasted and we haven't even had a human orbit Mars. If I'm not mistaken, Apollo 17 was the last lunar mission and it was in 1972. That makes 43 years now we've not even seen a human leave near earth orbit.

I really want to see NASA succeed, but not like this. Time, money, and effort needs to be in manned exploration. Not more satellites and telescopes.

Thats what they say but what they have done and continue to do is in the DARK!!
I would suggest that there has been at least 4 or 5 manned missions somewhere since 1972.
I think that certain discoveries compelled them to turn the lights off a while ago.

a reply to: Xcathdra

I think we are a casualty of the "no risk" mentality our government has adopted. Nothing is ever a 100% guarantee and to adopt that mentality seems backwards.

"No-risk mentality"...hm...think it's a joke. Thousands of army men risk it daily...by just being in and around the conflict zones.

Yet...that is acceptable risk I guess.

What saddens me about it...is...in the end...it's only about money. It's not about risk...it's about ROI.

As you said...there is probably thousands of men and women...willing to risk it all the way for space exploration.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: EternalSolace

It is far more reasonable to sent probes. Just think about it:
1. you don't know what to expect
2. the super long journey would unnecessarily waste the lifespan of the astronauts
3. you don't need to put feet on the surface to study something
4. the mission control of nasa/esa/etc. actually is like the bridge of a spaceship, just less dangerous and far more healthy and comfortable


There is not a single good reason in my mind why they should send people. Do you have one?

There is a quote from Star Trek that will answer this perfectly.

"If scientific knowledge was all we were after, then the Federation would have built a fleet of probes, not starships. Exploration is about seeing things with your own eyes." Janeway

The quote is spot on. Humans are so much more capable than machines ever will be. I don't think a robot could describe to you what Armstrong, Aldrin, or Conrad had seen and felt as they walked across the moon.

originally posted by: stirling
So much bull#...why don't they concentrate on one thing at a time...like MARS!

Mars is known and a political decision IMHO, rather than scientific. NASA has sent loads of stuff to Mars. NASA and ESA should concentrate on science and push the boundaries.

Regards

originally posted by: Xcathdra

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
There will be no maned mission to Europa...we're not there yet...not officially anyway. Robotic probe most likely. Still...that's not too bad.

I recently watched rather decent SF...the Europa Report...not a bad flick.

IMDB

This is the part that gets me... Its like NASA having issues with the one way trip to Mars. For some reason its unacceptable to NASA yet hundreds of thousands of people seemed ok with it when they signed up for the trip in the first place.

I think we are a casualty of the "no risk" mentality our government has adopted. Nothing is ever a 100% guarantee and to adopt that mentality seems backwards.

I son't think that is the actual issue. I'm sure they have some astronauts with the military background that are ready to accept any such mission.

We haven't gotten beyond the low Earth orbit primarily for two reasons:

1. We've been bulding and operating the International Space Station, as well as running the Space Shuttle missions (alongside a plethora of robitic exploration missions), which takes a lot of money / time / resources. After the Moon race was over (and with Mars being prohibitively expensive and technologically challenging), these low Earth orbit missions were the way to go if we wanted to learn about flying men to space, supporting them there for extended periods of time, and getting them back safely. A manned rocket destined for Moon or Mars is a whole lot of different kettle of fish from the regular low orbit flights, requiring a heavy launch rocket (with huge mounts of fuel and reliable engines), very complex systems to regulate the mission and provide life support. And it's not as easy as just rebuilding the Saturn V rocket and using the old Apollo technology. Everything must be designed and built from scratch.

2. You might have noticed that, for the past few decades, the superpowers were more preoccupied with wars and global domination, pouring billions of money into the so-called "defence". This leaves very little money on space exploration. As I mentioned a manned mission beyond the orbit would be hugely more costly and complicated, and this means that, just like with Apollo program, a government has to pull all the stops out and give it all they could. So, apart from the technological side of it, there's the political side. As has been mentioned on these forums many times, if the governments weren't so preoccupied with wars and killing people, we would have gone to Mars and other places in the Solar System years ago.

a reply to: wildespace

We went to the moon during the height of the cold war. Over the last 20 years we have been focused on the space station coupled with the end of the cold war. We have had a bunch of nations join in space exploration. of course I would rather see a trillion dollar space and technology budget.

As for the military NASA is supposedly a civilian program and as such do have civilian astronauts. Its not really realistic to expect a way one way trip for the military on board while keeping the civilians in the dark.

As for NASA and guarantees they have already distanced themselves from the private one way mission. Their PIO's have stated they require a 2 way mission.

I am curious if its possible to retrofit the space station for a "transit mode" to get it in order around Mars.

originally posted by: EternalSolace

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: EternalSolace

It is far more reasonable to sent probes. Just think about it:
1. you don't know what to expect
2. the super long journey would unnecessarily waste the lifespan of the astronauts
3. you don't need to put feet on the surface to study something
4. the mission control of nasa/esa/etc. actually is like the bridge of a spaceship, just less dangerous and far more healthy and comfortable


There is not a single good reason in my mind why they should send people. Do you have one?

There is a quote from Star Trek that will answer this perfectly.

"If scientific knowledge was all we were after, then the Federation would have built a fleet of probes, not starships. Exploration is about seeing things with your own eyes." Janeway

The quote is spot on. Humans are so much more capable than machines ever will be. I don't think a robot could describe to you what Armstrong, Aldrin, or Conrad had seen and felt as they walked across the moon.

Its the fear of beeing left behind that motivates
the mongers of "We should send probes instead".
See if we can send ppl to Europa, then maybe
we can send them further. Or even leave it
all....

Good luck finding the engines needed to boost a 450 ton space station out of Earth orbit, all the way out to Mars, and then slowing it down to enter Mars orbit. Having said that, it would be an awesome sight to behold!

Excellent news! The more we focus on space, the better for us all. Our future is off world.