Winged Probe Mission To Europa

[victory143]

I've been studying Europa recently and I have found that it has a thin oxygen atmosphere. If you had a probe which had wings with enough lift, could you 'fly' on Europa? You could use a pulse-jet for thrust if you collected enough oxygen and stored a sufficient quantity then fed it to the engine

[lajoswinkler]

No. Europa does not have an atmosphere. It has outgassing. That's not the same. Surface of Europa is probably better vacuum than most college vacuum pumps can pull.

[victory143]

I was mislead then

[NGTOne]

Titan, on the other hand, might make for a good target for aerial exploration. The atmosphere is about 150% as dense as Earth's, and the gravity is a lot lower. A human with a hang glider could fly using swim flippers. A glider that used a rocket engine (or an ion engine or something, I dunno) for occasional "kicks" to boost its speed could fly for a REALLY long time.

There's also this: Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES)

[PakledHostage]

There's also this: Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES)

There's also this: the Titan Saturn System Mission. That proposed joint NASA/ESA mission would have put two robotic probes on Titan and an orbiter into the Saturn system. One of the two probes would have been a balloon, while the other would have been the Titan Mare Explorer "boat".

Now I know that there are a lot of fans of manned space exploration around here, but there are others like me who would prefer to see money spent on robotic missions. For the cost of a few shuttle launches, this mission could have been on its way to a 2020 launch. Instead, it got cancelled in favor of the Europa Jupiter System Mission, which itself has been cancelled due to lack of funding. Very sad, because both the TSSM and EJSM would have returned some very valuable scientific data and would have captured the public's imagination.

[Idobox]

There is a much better propulsion technology for a Titan probe. It is still in its early prototype phase, but it's very promising : the propeller.

Seriously put a RTG, motor and a propeller, and your probe will be able to fly for decades.

Other option: a hydrogen or helium balloon. I would go for a hydrogen, because you're likely to have some on board for propulsion anyway, there would be no risk of explosion, and it's a bit lighter. I think it also leaks more, so helium is not out.

[edit]ninja'd

[K^2]

We really need more probes heading to Titan. It is the only place in our system with potential for life with conditions that exclude possibility of cross-contamination. If we find life there, it's going to be a very important find. If we don't find life there, it's going to be a very important find. You simply can't go wrong with this one. In contrast, life on Europa or Mars could be of the same origin as terrestrial life, making it a good find, but nowhere near as useful one in the big picture. We already know that life can be carried between planets on asteroids. What we need to know are the odds of life evolving independently in two different environments. And we can't make even the most basic estimate having just one data point.