tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post6895705335330505820..comments2024-01-03T20:28:17.727-08:00Comments on Future Planetary Exploration: Europa Mission OptionsVan Kanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14227978868817989527noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post-71605926419393841872012-10-30T08:37:22.562-07:002012-10-30T08:37:22.562-07:00If we can't do it in our lifetime we can at le...If we can't do it in our lifetime we can at least dream it. I've been enamored with Europa for years. Here is a book I've written about a mission to Europa. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.thecurseofeuropa.com" rel="nofollow">The Curse of Europa</a>Brian Kayserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14553812295322745265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post-23333112271958807452012-04-09T08:25:23.994-07:002012-04-09T08:25:23.994-07:00...if animal life is plentiful it increases the od......if animal life is plentiful it increases the odds of Industrial Revolution life. Same to a lesser extent with finding microbes, but much of the latter can be accomplished with chemistry and other environmental variables, lab tests here.The Keystone Garternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270899075443508100.post-12067289757924118582012-04-09T08:23:29.854-07:002012-04-09T08:23:29.854-07:00Yeah that sounds silly. We are only doing one of ...Yeah that sounds silly. We are only doing one of these missions but two of them cost as much as the expensive one?<br />It depends upon the endgame of what you wanna do with Europa. Is it economically useful? Yes, the water certainly will be; even a sliver if it, at some point. Bottle water rockets takes decades but may be the cheapest space transportation system outside of Inner Planets and Sun proximity.<br />Obviously the search for microbe and animal life are other objectives.<br />Issue is timeline. The water won't be economically useful until we get some reliable robotics manufacturing, like lifting pieces of the Moon for a manned ion engine hull (radiation shield from cosmic rays or our Sun's harm). That is mid-century at earliest. I say check for animal (CNS) life but other physical science objectives might be imnportant near-term in that devoting more to big Ion Engines or space mining now, might make these application emerge earlier. I'd like to see better characterization of Lunar IMpact brecchia now that precious and rare Earth metals prices are skyrocketing again. There will be gold, platinum, palladium, in impact craters. What else? What robots does NASA need to mine?The Keystone Garternoreply@blogger.com