When I was a kid interstellar exploration was something that people talked about as if it were only a matter of time before we figured it out.\u00a0 Fifty years later and I think we\u2019re all a lot older and wiser.\u00a0 Even completely automated space craft reaching the nearest stars has begun to look like an improbability anytime within the next millennium.\u00a0 The scope of the resources needed to get something from here to even Proxima Centauri is staggering.\u00a0 Of course, I\u2019m talking about a total project time that only totals into decades of time.\u00a0 If we\u2019re interested in a 40,000-year round-trip, we could start working on it right now.\u00a0 But something like that is so laughably useless that I\u2019d be embarrassed to even admit considering it as one of the options.\u00a0 To make the trip in a time frame that makes it useful the ship would have to accelerate to and decelerate from some considerable fraction of the speed of light.\u00a0 Let\u2019s postulate 30% as the fraction.\u00a0 With that capability the trip would take something like twenty-five years round-trip.\u00a0 Sure, that\u2019s a long time but our civilization should have a long enough attention span to follow up on the project and mine the results when the probe returns (if it returns).\u00a0 But the scope of such a project is too titanic for our current technological stage.\u00a0 It\u2019s too grand.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at more manageable projects.\u00a0 What\u2019s doable?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have much enthusiasm for Elon Musk\u2019s manned trip to Mars.\u00a0 Four or five years in space is a lot of radiation for astronauts to absorb.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see the sense in it.\u00a0 I prefer the robot exploration thing we\u2019ve been doing with the Voyager and later probes.\u00a0 The recent flyby of Pluto was very impressive.\u00a0 But I think much more ambitious unmanned exploration of the solar system is warranted.<\/p>\n
I think the best bang for the buck is finding out if Europa has life in its ocean.\u00a0 I can imagine a series of visits.\u00a0 The first should be an orbiter that sends down a probe to take reading.\u00a0 Once the presence of water oceans has been confirmed a lander can be sent to try and find life.<\/p>\n
I realize this is a large order to fill.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know exactly how thick the ice crust is over the ocean.\u00a0 It may be many miles.\u00a0 If that is the case a very creative solution may be needed.\u00a0 Possibly a nuclear powered \u201cdrill\u201d might be an option.\u00a0 Of course, if all else fails we could set off a nuke.\u00a0 Then again if there really are \u201cEuropans\u201d we might start an interplanetary war.\u00a0 So maybe some thought will have to be expended thinking about the best way to search for life there.\u00a0 But I see a series of missions to attempt to answer this question as one of the most meaningful and exciting challenges that currently exist for mankind.<\/p>\n
Of course, I\u2019ve been talking of the cuff.\u00a0 Doing a quick AI search I see that the exact thickness of the ice is estimated to be between 5 and 20 miles thick.\u00a0 NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper mission, launching in October 2024 and arriving at Jupiter around 2030, will use radar to penetrate the ice and measure its depth more precisely.\u00a0 So, chances are I\u2019ll be old and broken down before much of anything is known about this ocean.<\/p>\n
But I still find the prospect exciting.\u00a0 Imagine if some kind of multicellular life exists in that ocean.\u00a0 I hesitate to even imagine intelligent life there but it\u2019s not impossible.\u00a0 We might find that wherever there\u2019s liquid water and organic molecules life tends to develop from spores that float around in outer space.\u00a0 Now wouldn\u2019t that be something?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was a kid interstellar exploration was something that people talked about as if it were only a matter of time before we figured<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3545,4],"tags":[780,4016,4862,121,3892],"class_list":["post-32872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-science","category-sff","tag-europa","tag-nasa","tag-space-exploration","tag-space-program","tag-space-travel"],"yoast_head":"\n