If you've been waiting for a real mission of discovery into the unknown, this is it.
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We’re finally going to the Solar System’s most intriguing but unexplored frontier
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It died when Culberson lost reelection. However, depending on what we find with Clipper, such as indications of life and how accessible (or not) the oceans below are through crevasses or plumes, I do think it is possible to mount a lander mission in the future. It just won't be soon. Hard for me to see one launching before 2040, and probably it will be much later than that.
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Very excited for Europa Clipper, but would it have been so hard to throw that name in the title. Or even in the first three paragraphs? I was skimming in the new Neutron Star view and it takes so long to get to the point that the mission name isn't mentioned until clicking through and getting the opening image.
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@staskya
During the fifties a scientist reportedly told Eisenhower (who had just founded ARPA):
"Don't you know Mr. President that almost all scientists are Democrats?"
To which Ike replied:
"I like scientists for their science not their politics"
So I say to you that I like Culberson for his funding not his politics
During the fifties a scientist reportedly told Eisenhower (who had just founded ARPA):
"Don't you know Mr. President that almost all scientists are Democrats?"
To which Ike replied:
"I like scientists for their science not their politics"
So I say to you that I like Culberson for his funding not his politics
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I don't argue with that.
My post was a response to the Shanrak's point about deep subsurface life on earth.
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Talk about having mixed feelings: The guy was so -hardcore- on Europa, and such a pillock on so many other things. But at the time of his re-election loss, the democrat running against him ran some pretty seriously obnoxious anti-science videos herself, essentially taking smacks at Culbertson for funding science.
What's interesting is that in the time since, Fletcher (at least according to wikipedia) hasn't shown an iota of interest or engagement on the space files.
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Sadly, that day is very over as the Heritage Foundation has filed an FOI for all NASA email mentioning Trump in order to remove those 'disloyal' if he returns to office.
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Thanks for providing us your experience with the Clipper. Very interesting.
I'm one of the fortunate pre-Boomers who was able to experience the entire Space Age from its start in Oct 1957 to today. Later working as an aerospace engineer, my lab participated in the Gemini, Apollo Applications, and Skylab programs, and on developing and testing the Space Shuttle silica heatshield tiles (1969-71).
In the early 1970s, NASA started its Jupiter Orbiter Probe (JOP) program, later renamed Galileo. The probe would dive into the Jovian atmosphere at super high speed (~48 km/sec) and decelerate while protected by a specially designed heatshield. When the speed had been reduced sufficiently, a parachute would open, and the probe would descend until it was destroyed by the pressure of the Jovian atmosphere.
There were two candidate designs for that heatshield: A carbon-phenolic heatshield similar to designs used for military reentry vehicles and a white silica composite heatshield that functioned by reflecting the high intensity ultraviolet radiation from the hot hydrogen/helium plasma during entry. My lab worked on development and testing that white reflective heatshield. Interesting work, but NASA went with the carbon-phenolic heatshield. which worked as designed.
I'm one of the fortunate pre-Boomers who was able to experience the entire Space Age from its start in Oct 1957 to today. Later working as an aerospace engineer, my lab participated in the Gemini, Apollo Applications, and Skylab programs, and on developing and testing the Space Shuttle silica heatshield tiles (1969-71).
In the early 1970s, NASA started its Jupiter Orbiter Probe (JOP) program, later renamed Galileo. The probe would dive into the Jovian atmosphere at super high speed (~48 km/sec) and decelerate while protected by a specially designed heatshield. When the speed had been reduced sufficiently, a parachute would open, and the probe would descend until it was destroyed by the pressure of the Jovian atmosphere.
There were two candidate designs for that heatshield: A carbon-phenolic heatshield similar to designs used for military reentry vehicles and a white silica composite heatshield that functioned by reflecting the high intensity ultraviolet radiation from the hot hydrogen/helium plasma during entry. My lab worked on development and testing that white reflective heatshield. Interesting work, but NASA went with the carbon-phenolic heatshield. which worked as designed.
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Excellent article!! And I love this kind of exploration.
The "how things really get funded" apect is very interesting. For another example how the roundabout way things happen, check out the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". Leaving the theater after CWW, I saw a friend who has often worked with Congress. He said that that is the way everything gets done.
The "how things really get funded" apect is very interesting. For another example how the roundabout way things happen, check out the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". Leaving the theater after CWW, I saw a friend who has often worked with Congress. He said that that is the way everything gets done.
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with starship flying I bet we flood the solar system with probes
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How likely is it that we could repurpose the spacecraft for other Jovian moons once the mission is over.
I read that a Ganymede impact is the expected end of mission, but just like Mars rovers, what if the spacecraft can keep going?
I read that a Ganymede impact is the expected end of mission, but just like Mars rovers, what if the spacecraft can keep going?
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My bet is that it'll use dna and we'll spend years trying to discover where it originated from.
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Not if each probe still keeps costing multiple hundreds to low billions and takes literally years to build.
Which naturally prompts the factory line idea, but probe stakeholders are notorious for wanting to "optimise" each one at great cost in time and money.
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It seems to me that a far more capable launch vehicle would allow engineers to simplify spacecraft design (e.g., fewer size/mass constraints) and that would make them less expensive to build.
Of course, I have no idea how the probes are designed and built, so I could be totally wrong.
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I saw that movie. You aren't about to get me to volunteer to go get eaten by a robo-electric tentacle monster on Europa.
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So I have a preschool memory of the lunar landing but I was thinking about it and really things have been a parade. The Lunar rovers were very cool, SKYLAB WAS REAL, the Voyagers, the ease with which we did gravity slings around planets, the Space Shuttle era, which brought Hubble, which really cracked things open. The JWST then happens, and the logistics of the launch and deployment of that space telescope was and still is amazing to think about.
Boomers flew the stuff, but Gen X might be the generation that sees both the first Moon and the first Mars landing. Rock on.
Last century human technological progress was supposed to blow up the planet. I always thought that was up in the air. And we haven't so far. So why be negative? If one gets outside one's personal bubble this is an astounding time to be alive to witness. Hard to imagine holding a US passport and being negative, let me at least set that bound.
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That's entirely because (a) they're usually working under such severe constraints that every gram is significant and (b) they only get one attempt at best, so it absolutely has to work perfectly. If you throw those constraints away, then optimization can be replaced with COTS equipment and redundancy. It's like going from backpacking across the country to driving a pickup truck across the country - you go from highly optimizing what you carry along with you, to not caring about anything other than having more than enough of whatever you need.
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When you're using RTGs full of Pu-238, etc. you just armour them so heavily that the RTG will survive re-entry, survive surface impact, and keep the radioactive material contained.
Proposed nuclear-fission-reactor-in-space schemes usually involve launching the reactor inert, and only lighting it up once it's safely in orbit. There's no significant radiological hazard if the fuel rods are brand-new and have not yet reacted. The nasty evil scary fission products don't begin to show up until after the reactor's been put in service. It's not zero hazard, and some of the materials are kinda toxic on their own, but it's much closer to "standing around the spent armour-piercing shells after a US Army action" than to "standing around the spent fuel of an ordinary American reactor", and is many many orders of magnitude away from "standing around Chernobyl".
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Exactly--and if we're being honest, I live and teach among the MAGA crowd, and they'd still be pretty blown away if we found life on another planet. (And if they don't? Too bad for them. They're the ones missing out on an opportunity for absolute awe and wonder.)
I'm not saying that's true for everyone, but most people regardless of their political stripes would be captivated by the idea of life on another world.
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While not Europa, there is another mission in the works for a different Jovian moon. Titan.
Dragonfly, a lander and helicopter for Titan
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On the one hand radiation levels around Jupiter are high. Everything will degrade over time, setting some sort of fixed time span. On the other hand the best way to guarantee the spacecraft finishes the primary mission is to over build it. So there will likely be some time after the main mission completes before it sucumbs to failure.
On the third hand they will want to minimize the risk of the craft goes out of control so they may choose to end it before it completely dies.
Which is to say, who knows, it will depend how well it lasts.
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It is worth noting that even if Europa comes a cropper wrt life (or at least wrt obvious life), there are multiple alternative targets here in the Solar System that are at least as interesting as Europa is. My particular favorite is Titan, which has even more niches for life than Europa, but most of the large moons and even some of the planets (e.g., Pluto) appear to have subsurface oceans that could serve as reservoirs for life.
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Actually space sciences in general usually receive higher funding under Republican leadership. I've noticed that for some time. As a general trend, Democratic leaders consider it a distraction from dealing with problems on Earth.
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A really interesting article. It would have been nice to name the "most intriguing" destination early in the piece, instead of the sixth paragraph. This is, though, great news. I have a 15-year correspondence with an astronomer-friend that always restarts when I see news of Europa. He's retired now, and I'm glad he's still around to see the launch.
ETA: Wow! He's actually at the launch. I'm so happy for him.
ETA: Wow! He's actually at the launch. I'm so happy for him.
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If there are plumes, a lander could land near one and sample their deposits, rather than necessarily having to go under the ice to search for life. Of course, it could just be that any life there isn't near a plume, but it'd be low-hanging fruit.
On the upside, the next Europa mission will almost certainly be launched in a tech environment where refillable Starship is launching regularly, with high-C3 kick stages and space tugs. Europa Clipper may be the largest craft sent to the outer planets (at 6 tonnes) but we can do far better in the near future.
On the upside, the next Europa mission will almost certainly be launched in a tech environment where refillable Starship is launching regularly, with high-C3 kick stages and space tugs. Europa Clipper may be the largest craft sent to the outer planets (at 6 tonnes) but we can do far better in the near future.
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I’d give it better than a coin flip we find life like that somewhere in the solar system.
I’m also pretty sure it will be related genetically to life here. If we can find fragments of meteors from Mars here then I’m sure bits of Earth have been blown all over the solar system carrying life from here. Some simple life is surprisingly heat, radiation, and shock resistant.
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I'm personally curious how much of that dust and different sulfite materials make it to Europa and how that might influence things there, something like 1 ton of material out of Io very second is a good amount.
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Yep It's Me
Ars Centurion
The hope is that Europa Clipper will be able to fly through a plume, gather some material similar to how the "SnotBot" does with whales, and analyze it with the MASPEX mass spectrometer. (Sources: forthcoming Veritasium video, NASA Europa Clipper website)
Edit: spelling
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From the article:
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune...
Related, this is a great infographic, but I think it's slightly out of date now. I wish there was a web/digital version.
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"What an era that was! Before then, everything but the Sun and Moon were dots in the nighttime sky. In 1962, Mariner 2 revealed Venus for the first time. Mariner 4 flew by Mars a couple of years later. Then there were the Voyagers, which passed by Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1980 and 1981, Uranus in 1986, and Neptune in 1989. And don't forget the Viking landers in the mid-1970s, which proved the non-existence of little green men on Mars. The Boomers got to see all of this, unwrapping the Solar System, one greatest hit at a time."
Not to mention the landings of Venera on Venus, showing the non-existence of dinosaurs on Venus!
Not to mention the landings of Venera on Venus, showing the non-existence of dinosaurs on Venus!
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Who cares about the public reaction. It is the scientists' reaction that matters. And it would completely transform biology to have a second data point on how common life is in the universe, whether DNA is universal or not, etc. It might even confirm panspermia, if we discover life there that clearly has a common ancestry with life here. Life appears to have started incredibly quickly after our crust solidified; this would help us decide between two possible reasons why: either life is just easy to get started, or it started elsewhere and Earth was seeded with it. Answers to those questions will transform science, our study of exoplanets, and our understanding of how life got started, which is one of the biggest scientific questions that exist. The public can continue examining their collective navels; scientists could care less.
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Indeed. And here's the thing about Mr. Berger's writing: sure, it's a science story, and the facts need to be right. But he knows where the story really lives: it's a people story. It's about individual choices and interests. Both of his SpaceX books, as a further example, focus on the individuals, their backgrounds, their life stories.
(I'd add that in these books, and here on Ars, so much of Eric's personality and personal friendliness leap off the page; I feel like I know the guy).
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This is very poignant introduction. I feel like the next Jupiter orbiter mission was in planning and development all my life (and I am not young). BTW, I would definitely mention the Cassini probe, which was tremendous success which really showed the value of modern orbiter able to do multi-year investigation of a gas giant. Sadly, Cassini was the last of the flaghip missions, extremely ambitious but also very expensive deep space missions.
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