Yes! We ARE going to Europa!

[moronwrocket]

NASA needs to do some aerocapture technology demonstrators. It seems silly to not use those gas giants to slow down. And if you're heading to Saturn, Titan might work as well, but I am not sure of the effects of the seasons on its scale height.

[Camacha]

We have paid for SLS, so now they need to use it. If you buy delicious pork, you can't let it sit out and rot.

If that works out it might have been the best set-up in years. Develop rocket first, then get great funding every year because you should not let it go to waste

I would not mind either, the money is better spent on this than on another war or bailout.

[worir4]

I just hope they don't install a brand new, high tech AI on the vessel...

All these world are your's except Layt..i mean Europa. Attempt no landing there....

[billbobjebkirk]

The reason I support the idea of launching a Europa probe on SLS in the early 2020s, is due to the fact that otherwise, there will be a 6 YEAR GAP between EM-1 and the ARM crewed mission!

[Exoscientist]

While I share OP's enthusiasm for a Europa mission ... yikes. That title. Just stick "maybe" in there and it wouldn't be so misleading.

Jonboy, it's a virtual absolute (that it will take place.) One of the big propellers of Mars missions is the possibility of life or even past there. But the possibility of life is significantly greater in the sub ice oceans of Europa.

And it's not just microbial life that might exist on Mars. It would be large complex life that might actually swim up to our sub ice explorer and take a look. This would be THE most profound discovery in the history of mankind.

Why many experts are positive on the possibility of life on Europa:

All the Water on Europa

Illustration Credit & Copyright: Kevin Hand (JPL/Caltech),

Jack Cook (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Howard Perlman (USGS)

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120524.html

Bob Clark

- - - Updated - - -

GGA === Good Game All?

Hrm... roughly 6.5km/s for the LV to make up, plus 4km/s available on arrival, this spacecraft is going to be pretty damn small.

Actually, not. A Mars Pathfinder sized lander could be launched using a Falcon 9 and currently exisitng in-space stages:

Low cost Europa lander missions.

http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2015/02/low-cost-europa-lander-missions.html

Bob Clark

Edited May 22, 2015 by Exoscientist

[Mitchz95]

It varies a lot. It depends how much patience you have to wait for gravity assists. Here's an actual study I found: a NASA concept for an Enceladus orbiter. They calculated a very low delta-v trajectory, with the tradeoff that it'd take 12 years from launch to Enceladus orbit.

We waited 9 years for New Horizons and Dawn to reach their targets. 12 years for a relatively cheap craft strikes me as a pretty good deal. It's not like Enceladus is going anywhere, after all.

[ChrisSpace]

Europa? Lander? Congress likes?

HYPE

[K^2]

Ugh. Why? What'd we forget on Europa? So we can send a lander there. So we can have it scrape some ice off the surface. There isn't anything close to living anywhere close to the surface. Even if something lives deep inside, which is a pretty big if, and if it occasionally gets ejected with a geyser, and even if we get a lander near one of these geysers, and if we manage to scrape off some ice that came from that geyser, we'd still just find some organic sludge at best, which we wouldn't be able to confirm as life.

Waste. Of. Time.

Especially, when we can be planning a Titan mission. That is the only body in Solar system where we might find some life on the surface. Life that's radically different from our own, I might add. If we find nothing on Titan, there's really nothing there. That's actual data. Plus, we can look for whatever manages to catalyze acetylene at these rates. But if the acetylene is being eaten by a life form, we will find it. And it will be entirely different from life on Earth, requiring us to drastically expand what we believe to be habitable zone.

Even if we find life on Mars or even Europa, it'd likely be life similar to our own. We wouldn't even be able to tell right away if it shares origin with our own. But look at how long we've been looking at Mars, and we still have no confirmation one way or another. Best we've got is, "There was probably life there at some point." With Europa, we won't have even that. In contrast, on Titan, we'll either find something or not. A single mission could either be a very important piece of data, or the most important discovery in history of science.

Sending a lander to Europa rather than Titan is just stupid. The hype that Europa is getting is absolutely unwarranted.

[comham]

We've already sent a lander to titan, numbnuts. Europa is unexplored territory.

Re mission dV costs, for such an ambitious mission, why not assemble the mission in space in multiple launches? afaik this has never been done for an unmanned science mission.

[K^2]

We've already sent a lander to titan, numbnuts.

Well, that was uncalled for.

Europa is unexplored territory.

So is <insert pretty much anything in the Solar system.> The only reason Europa is getting funding is because of the possible life hype. Which is overblown. A lander designed to check for life on Titan can be made on the same budget.

[Camacha]

So is <insert pretty much anything in the Solar system.> The only reason Europa is getting funding is because of the possible life hype. Which is overblown. A lander designed to check for life on Titan can be made on the same budget.

You have to admit though: visiting a completely new place has a lot of science potential too. Even if life or no life remains undetermined (which I suspect), we still learn an awful lot about a place we only saw from a distance.

[KerikBalm]

\we'd still just find some organic sludge at best, which we wouldn't be able to confirm as life.

That depends on what instruments the lander carries. The composition of the sludge could strongly point to life.

What do proteins and DNA have in common?

A repetitive, but varying structure... complex polymers sharing a common structure, but still displaying considerable variation.

If we detected complex polymers, of the same chirality, with varying subunits that share a similar structure (as far as the polymerization reaction is concerned) that lead to complex 3-d structures, I'd call it definitive evidence of life.

Best we've got is, "There was probably life there at some point." With Europa, we won't have even that. In contrast, on Titan, we'll either find something or not. A single mission could either be a very important piece of data, or the most important discovery in history of science.

Actually, we don't even have that for Mars. The best we've got is: it was probably suitable for life at some point.

We know very little about the conditions for abiogenesis to take place. Just because life can colonize a place, doesn't mean it could spontaneously arise in that place.

As far as panspermia from Earth... while we have extremophiles now that are very tough and can survive a lot of adversity... I can gaurantee that the first life wasn't so hardy...

Self replicating RNA wouldn't survive the journey, for instance. Mars could have stayed like a sterile petridish... its got everything bacteria needed to grow... but there's nothing growing.

As for Titan, I'm extremely skeptical of life there. My money is on an abiotic cause for that acetylene consumption.

I'd love to be proven wrong though.

I'd also love to see something check out the seasonal geysers/"spide formations" on Mars, or the recurring slope linae....

But I agree that we are very unlikely to find anything with just a Europa Lander... we need a "cryobot" to get to the ocean underneath.

Without that, our best chance may simply be an orbiter that hopes to fly through a geyser plume.

For that.. enceledus seems better...

Plus... we should really find out what is heating Enceledus... as our estimates of tidal heating + radioactive decay suggest that it should be colder than it is. A very large portion of its heat generation is completely unexplained.

It could be we underestimate its radioactive heating, and its internal composition is different from what we imagined.

Saturn's moon system is strange, it appears something disrupted that system (likely related to the huge moon, titan, which studies suggest that its N2 atmosphere is derived from a source other than the accretion disk of saturn).

Maybe we've got the composition of Enceledus all wrong, and figuring that out will tell us about the saturn system (or maybe enceledus has a massive alien reactor under its ice, like mars had in the original total recal )

[heng]

ten... 10. i mean... TEN?!? they leave room for a 10% safety margin?

I blush in shame...

I either run out of fuel half way or have enough left over to do the whole mission again :-( ©

Edited May 22, 2015 by heng

[Exoscientist]

Especially, when we can be planning a Titan mission. That is the only body in Solar system where we might find some life on the surface. Life that's radically different from our own, I might add. If we find nothing on Titan, there's really nothing there. That's actual data. Plus, we can look for whatever manages to catalyze acetylene at these rates. But if the acetylene is being eaten by a life form, we will find it. And it will be entirely different from life on Earth, requiring us to drastically expand what we believe to be habitable zone.

...

Sending a lander to Europa rather than Titan is just stupid. The hype that Europa is getting is absolutely unwarranted.

I'm all in favor of also sending lander missions to Titan. However, the key distinction is the existence of liquid water. As scientists who have studied the life question will tell you that is the fundamental question that determines whether or not you are likely to find life. Well then, Europa has more liquid water in its sub ice ocean than all the oceans on Earth.

Bob Clark

Edited May 22, 2015 by Exoscientist

[Kruleworld]

Pff. Two billion dollars is only 1/6th the cost of a Gerald R. Ford - class supercarrier. Uncle Sam's just cleaning out the couch cushions.

yep, it's worth remembering NASA's budget is only 2-3% of the military budget.

[K^2]

I'm all in favor of also sending lander missions to Titan. However, the key distinction is the existence of liquid water. As scientists who have studied the life question will tell you that is the fundamental question that determines whether or not you are likely to find life. Well then, Europa has more liquid water in its sub ice ocean than all the oceans on Earth.

Any actual scientist will tell you that what you need is a good solvent for the given temperature range. At 300K of typical Earth life, you need pretty strong bonds in things like DNA and complex proteins to hold them together against thermal excitations. And to break these apart, you need a strong, polar solvent. Water is by far the best option, and the only available one that's naturally abundant. So at terrestrial temperature ranges, life means water.

In contrast, if you are at less than 100K, such as on Titan, hydrogen bonds are frozen solid. Your complex molecules will be held together by van der Waals forces. A polar solvent would ript that stuff to shreds, and no life would be possible. Fortunately, there are non-polar solvents, such as liquid methane. So if we are talking cryogenic life, life means liquid methane. And that makes Titan a perfect place to look for cryogenic life.

Granted, life at high temperatures has huge number of advantages. There are more potential energy sources, all of the processes are faster, and you can dump excess entropy way easier. Which means life will be more complex and far further evolved on Earth than it could ever be on Titan. I would not expect anything past simplest bacteria there. Something similar to Earth's Archaea.

So finding life on Titan would tell us two things. First, that our definition of "habitable" is a bit too narrow. Second, that two planets within a single star system have developed completely different life independently. And while former has very limited impact, because planets/moons like Titan are unlikely to ever produce complex life, that second statement is extremely powerful.

We live on Earth. Which means odds of us finding life on Earth are 100% ab initio. There is no way any species could ever find itself in a barren star system. Which means that us knowing that there is a habitable planet here is absolutely useless. Even if there is just one in all of the universe, we'd be on it. But two planets? Odds there being very few habitable planets out there, yet there being two, so vastly different, in our star system are minimal. If we find life on Mars or Europa, we'd still have to figure out if it had the same origin as life on Earth. For all we know, it did. Panspermia isn't very appealing on global scale, but within confines of a single star system, it's quite plausible. But if we find life on Titan, we know it didn't come from Earth. We know it's not contamination from one of the probes. Life on Titan cannot exist in water, and life from Earth cannot exist on Titan. Simple as.

If we find life on Titan, that's two data points from which we extrapolate a very simple fact. When you look up into the sky and look at the stars, more of the stars you see probably have life than don't. There is nothing we can find on Mars or Europa that would be anywhere close to this impact.

[heng]

yep, it's worth remembering NASA's budget is only 2-3% of the military budget.

Pft. just wait until we find (or are found by) hostile aliens and the two budgets get combined :-D

"Hostile Aliens"... that might be us. I seriously hope they will sterilize the lander _very_ thoroughly!

[Kryten]

It should probably be noted that there's no Europa lander anywhere in the decadal survey. The planetary science community isn't asking for it.

[Hcube]

Why is everyone talking about the SLS as a launcher for this mission ( if ever it gets funded) when the PDF the OP linked is talking about the delta4 or delta4 heavy as a launcher ?

Did i miss something ?

[Wesreidau]

Pft. just wait until we find (or are found by) hostile aliens and the two budgets get combined :-D

I'd say the two budgets are already combined. People seem to have interpreted my comment in unintended ways. The author is dead, as they say.

[-Velocity-]

It should probably be noted that there's no Europa lander anywhere in the decadal survey. The planetary science community isn't asking for it.

Is that because they don't actually want it, or more likely, they thought there was no chance of getting it due to NASA's pitifully low funding levels? I suppose it also might be a little "early" to send of lander, we need to identify promising landing spots first, and determine whether the Europa "geysers" were real or not (unfortunately, right now it looks like they were probably just a transient cloud of water vapor following a small impact).

As a KSPer, I have to wonder why we couldn't send an orbital with a radar and powerful cameras and spectrometers, and identify the best landing spot, and THEN drop the lander down to the surface, all in one mission? If it's in a polar orbit, every spot on the surface is accessible, though the delta-V requirement to land is a little higher (at the least because of Europa's rotational speed, 32 m/s at the equator).

[Exoscientist]

It should probably be noted that there's no Europa lander anywhere in the decadal survey. The planetary science community isn't asking for it.

The Planetary Society is in favor of it:

The Planetary Society Supports FY2016 Budget Request for NASA.

CEO Bill Nye, Space Advocate Casey Dreier Comment

PRESS STATEMENT

02/04/2015

"This is a major achievement for the members of the Planetary Society and for the public. Tens of thousands of individuals around the world wrote to Congress and White House last year asking for this mission to Europa," said Casey Dreier, director of advocacy for The Planetary Society. "We’ve heard the message from our members that Europa must be a priority for NASA, and we are pleased to see the Administration take the same view."

http://www.planetary.org/press-room/releases/2015/FY2016-Budget-Request.html

It's Official: We're On the Way to Europa.

President requests $18.5 billion for NASA in 2016, an increase of $519 million.

Posted by Casey Dreier

2015/02/03 02:55 UTC

NASA's Mission to Europa May Get More Interesting Still.

Posted by Van Kane

2015/04/11 21:08 UTC

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/van-kane/20140411-nasas-mission-to-europa-may-get-more-interesting.html

Bob Clark

[cryogen]

It should probably be noted that there's no Europa lander anywhere in the decadal survey. The planetary science community isn't asking for it.

The Planetary Society is in favor of it:

http://www.planetary.org/press-room/releases/2015/FY2016-Budget-Request.html

Note they're talking about a Europa probe, not specifically a lander.

It looks like the surface component has a political aspect:

He supported the soft lander. He went so far as to say, “I will not sign a bill unless it has money for a lander.â€Â

Idle words? Probably not. As chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee with oversight over NASA’s budget, Culberson writes the authorization bill for NASA’s budget. Key Senators are also likely to support the project.

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2015/05/a-europa-lander-is-possible-jpl-scientists-say-and-congress-appears-likely-to-support-it/

[Exoscientist]

For those who are fascinated by a possible visit to Europa:

Europa Report.

2013 PG-13 CC

Amazon Instant Video

Available in HD

(692) IMDb 6.5/10

When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean could exist underneath Europa's icy surface and may contain single-celled life, Europa Ventures, a privately funded space exploration company, sends six of the best astronauts from around the world to confirm the data and explore the revolutionary discovery. After a near-catastrophic technical failure leads to loss of ...

Starring: Daniel Wu, Sharlto Copley Runtime: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Available to watch on supported devices.

http://www.amazon.com/Europa-Report-Christian-Camargo/dp/B00DNUF7KW

I enjoyed the film, though I admit it had a Science Channel semi-documentary look to it.

Bob Clark

Edited May 23, 2015 by Exoscientist

[itstimaifool]

<Snip about Europa Report movie>

I enjoyed the film, though I admit it had Science Channel semi-documentary look to it.

Bob Clark

I really liked this movie. I felt the same way about the "documentary" feel, but then I learned that it was all filmed on a (relatively) very low budget, so it's pretty impressive that it's as high-quality as it is.

Anyway, the Europa lander: That's amazing, I can't wait. In my opinion, the best-case scenario* is that exploration of Europa plays out a little like it did on Mars, with a series of "Ooh that's interesting, let's take a closer look!" missions, culminating in an under-ice mission. That'll make for an exciting next few decades.

*More accurately, the best-case scenario that actually has a chance of being funding. Strictly speaking, the absolute best-case scenario is that all war stops and we divert all military funding to NASA and get into a nice pattern of launching a new billion-dollar space mission every few months. But I'll settle for the more-realistic incremental approach.