17 ms·

SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch NASA's Europa Clipper to icy Jupiter moon

146 points by _Microft 5y ago

Causality1 5y ago
The first step toward launching a melt probe and having a look at that ocean. I can't wait.
matthewfelgate 5y ago
Nice. Would we not learn a lot more by landing on these moons?
- stickydink 5y ago
  If there's a chance there's any kind of life over there, don't rush into touching it - something could potentially wipe the whole place out.
  - krisoft 5y ago
    Could it? My understanding about planetary protection is that you don't want to contaminate the new environment, because then you can't say for certain (that easily) if the life you are detecting is native to the environment or the contamination. I also understand that the native population of the Americas suffered badly from the diseases carried in by the europeans. But those diseases landed in an environment much like the one they evolved in. The humans were humans, the atmosphere were the same, the temperature were the same, etc. If the space-probe gets contaminated with some earthly bacteria, virus or prion they not only have to survive the travel there, but then they have to quickly adapt to the new environment. Different temperature, different chemical composition, different life forms. How often does it happen that you sneeze at a fungi and the fungi gets infected with your cold? Doing one of these adaptation alone is a big ask, doing all of them at once would be a huge leap. Imagine that you move to a new place. You move there in a salted barrel, not designed for human occupancy. The locals speak a different language, have different customs, you can't get food you are used to and the climate is way out of your comfort zone. Would you be outcompeting the locals quick? I don't think so. I wouldn't worry about wiping out a whole ecosystem unless the ecosystem is much much more similar to our own's. But of course being cautious is always a good idea. Furthermore I already think we should avoid contamination. If for no other reasons than to avoid arguments about what the detected life really means.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    IIRC all stuff we send into space going to other planets is sanitized here via gamma radiation so we don't contaminate other planets. Who knows, maybe the life started on Earth as contamination from foreign objects from space.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  AFAIK Jovian radiation is very strong and our current machines have hard time surviving in proximity of the planet for any significant time. Even Clipper will stay a healthy distance away most of the time and only visit the inner Jovian system shortly.
  - cma 5y ago
    It is low enough for manned expeditions according to SpaceX concepts: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/spacex-its-rocket-could-get-to-saturns.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/spacex-its-rocket-coul...
    - __m 5y ago
      According to Elon, radiation on a trip to mars isn't a big issue either.
- mabbo 5y ago
  Maybe, but slowing down enough to land is the problem. To convert from a flyby to landing, you need to burn a lot of fuel, to slow down. To get that fuel to the destination, you need to bring it with you. Which means a much higher take off mass, which needs an even bigger rocket. Mars has a very light atmosphere, which lets us aerobrake- slow down by hitting the atmosphere, that way you don't need any extra fuel. Europa's atmosphere is basically non-existent.
  - nradov 5y ago
    In theory a spacecraft could partially aerobrake in Jupiter's atmosphere to save fuel. Then use a rocket to enter Europa's orbit.
    - enraged_camel 5y ago
      The problem is the intense radiation emitted by Jupiter, I think.
      - Asraelite 5y ago
        And unlike Saturn, none of the other moons of Jupiter have a significant atmosphere that could be used unfortunately.
  - matthewfelgate 5y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. I hadn't considered the fuel to slow down for a landing.
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > Would we not learn a lot more by landing on these moons? Probably, but it's also a lot harder. Not only does it require more delta-V, you now need to design, build and test a lander in addition to a spacecraft, and you need to build everything to be able to operate in Jupiter's harsh radiation environment (Europa Clipper will only do fly-bys of Europa and spend most of its orbit further away from the high radiation environment).
  - nradov 5y ago
    There are so many science fiction stories about exploring and colonizing Jovian moons. But somehow the authors always gloss over the radiation issue. Unshielded humans would probably be dead in a matter of days.
- natemcintosh 5y ago
  We might, and we are (just not Jupiter's moons)! The Dragonfly mission (https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu), will launch in 2027 and arrive at Saturn's moon Titan in 2036. Dragonfly is a nuclear powered octo-copter, that will fly autonomously on the moon. Titan's small gravitational field and dense atmosphere (about 1.45x Earth's atmospheric pressure) make it one of the best places in the Solar System for flight. The general flight plan is to charge up batteries with the MMRTG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_radioisotope_the...), take off, scout a new potential landing area, land in a previously scouted landing area. On one battery charge, it will be able to fly up to 10km, and stay aloft for up to 30 minutes. Dragonfly will carry out scientific sampling both on the ground and in the air. To quote Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(spacecraft)) about why Titan is an interesting spot for science: > Titan is similar to the very early Earth, and can provide clues to how life may have arisen on Earth. In 2005, the European Space Agency's Huygens lander acquired some atmospheric and surface measurements on Titan, detecting tholins,[29] which are a mix of various types of hydrocarbons (organic compounds) in the atmosphere and on the surface.[30][31] Because Titan's atmosphere obscures the surface at many wavelengths, the specific compositions of solid hydrocarbon materials on Titan's surface remain essentially unknown.[32] Measuring the compositions of materials in different geologic settings will reveal how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed in environments that provide known key ingredients for life, such as pyrimidines (bases used to encode information in DNA) and amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.[33] > Areas of particular interest are sites where extraterrestrial liquid water in impact melt or potential cryovolcanic flows may have interacted with the abundant organic compounds. Dragonfly will provide the capability to explore diverse locations to characterize the habitability of Titan's environment, investigate how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed, and search for biosignatures indicative of life based on water as solvent and even hypothetical types of biochemistry.[6] > The atmosphere contains plentiful nitrogen and methane, and strong evidence indicates that liquid methane exists on the surface. Evidence also indicates the presence of liquid water and ammonia under the surface, which may be delivered to the surface by cryovolcanic activity.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
Saving NASA $3B by doing so. It would have cost $2B to use the SLS rocket that Congress wanted them to use, and it would have cost another billion to rebuild Clipper to withstand the intense vibrations from SLS's solid rocket boosters.
- fnord77 5y ago
  dumb question - why are we using Saturn V derived rockets? afaik none of these new rockets can match its max payload
  - mlindner 5y ago
    I assume you typoed and meant to ask “why aren’t” instead. We aren’t because the Saturn V moon rocket (and related projects) were consuming over 4% of the US government’s budget, way more than even the SLS and definitely more than the Falcon Heavy.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    Starship exceeds Saturn V’s lift capacity.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Not true. Saturn V's lift to LEO was 120-140 tonnes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V) while SpaceX claims Starship's is "over" 100 tonnes (https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf).
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        It exceeds Saturn V on the second launch that day. ;-)
        lmilcin 5y ago
        Well, if you have a 140t payload it doesn't matter how many 100t payloads you can lift per day, it just isn't going to lift it. On the other hand, obviously, payloads are planned for the rocket they are going to be lifted by, so most likely somebody will set constraints on their project to either have smaller payload or split it into parts.
martythemaniak 5y ago
Not explicitly mentioned: this saves NASA almost $2 billion, or half the cost of the actual spacecraft. The previous SLS-mandated launch was estimated to cost about $2B per launch with no guarantee that there'd be an actual rocket available. Though, the savings mean it'll take longer to get there, 3.5 years vs 5 years.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  SLS is an enormous boondoggle. People love to hate Musk, but without SpaceX and private space companies in general, we could forget about any significant progress in space activities. The price tag would be suffocating. It is also an interesting example of "throwing money at a problem does not always buy you a better solution". People too often come to conclusion that if some system is defective (e.g. schooling), more money would automatically help. Not necessarily.
  - gpt5 5y ago
    We would have seen space progress. It wouldn’t have come for the US though.
  - adrr 5y ago
    Because congress forced them to use Space shuttle components and NASA can't go to the open market and find other components. Space shuttle suppliers are fleecing NASA. Here's an example: The SLS/Space Shuttle RS-25 engines are $125mm a piece when they could buy RD-180 engines for $25m a piece. There are 4 engines on SLS and they are expendable.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Congress is positioned between "we actually need some functional space industry whose total expenditure cannot rise to high heavens" and "it would be so nice if some government-funded jobs were created in my constituency, so let us make the supply chains as complicated as possible". I am still positively surprised that they opened up some of the processes to competition.
    - 5y ago
HenryKissinger 5y ago
Maybe Elon Musk's makeshift submarine will find a new purpose.
_Microft 5y ago
Maybe Starship has matured enough by then to launch Europa Clipper on it? It might be able to put the probe on a much faster trajectory than Falcon Heavy could. Does anyone know of (informal?) plans regarding that? Keep in mind that Artemis 3 [0] is scheduled to launch in september 2024 and the mission includes a moon landing with the planned Starship human landing system (HLS) [1]. Mr Maezawa's flight around Moon is also scheduled for the early 2020ies (no earlier than ("NET") 2023), so Starship is meant to be reliable enough for crewed missions then. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3#Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3#Mission [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Starship_Human_Landing_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Starship_Human...
- mabbo 5y ago
  It would be odd to change the contact that late, I would imagine. But it's an interesting possibility. Still, Starship has a long way to go.
- mlindner 5y ago
  Starship isn’t a functional vehicle yet. It’s a long way from being able to be a launch vehicle for NASA’s most expensive payloads.
- rst 5y ago
  NASA tends to be extremely conservative regarding booster technology -- allowing reused boosters only after commercial customers had thoroughly proved them out, for example. Which is justifiable -- most commercial launches are communications satellites for which it's possible to insure the launch for enough to buy another, while NASA's payloads are unique and far more expensive.
mmcconnell1618 5y ago
I must be impatient due to everything moving at internet speeds. The idea that this probe won't arrive until 2030, then it might identify a landing spot for an actual lander that will need to be budgeted, built, launched and travel to Europa for another decade is a little disappointing. I understand there are huge technical challenges, vast distances but sometimes it feels like things are moving very slowly. On the other hand I watch SpaceX cycle through revisions on a crazy fast timeline and I have hope that we will have some breakthroughs in spacefaring technology sooner than expected.
- jostmey 5y ago
  I would be happy working on a grand project exploring a distance moon, contributing to humanities future knowledge, and building that future, even if it takes decades. I think it would be a life well-spent But if the probe blew up that would really suck
- notjustanymike 5y ago
  Douglas Adams really sums it up: "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
  - gameshot911 5y ago
    That quote has more to do with the physical size of space, whereas OP is primarily referring to the speed of space program development.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      The issues the poster cites, like "this probe won't arrive until 2030", are in part due to the physical size of space.
      - bpodgursky 5y ago
        Ehh... it's due to the technical challenge of getting enough fuel into space to get to Jupiter quickly without a bunch of gravity assists. Never going to be a weekend hop, but there are definitely technical advances that make it a 3 month trip rather than a 3 year trip.
maverick-iceman 5y ago
People who mention savings are incorrect. They should talk about reduced loss. This mission is a total financial loss until proved otherwise. As of today the only people who managed to make money in space are the brokers and lawyers who negotiated private tourism trips to the ISS in the 90s and again this new wave of space tourism. There's an irrational exhuberance about space in my opinion
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  Not everything in life is nor should be about financial gain.
- tastyfreeze 5y ago
  Humans are drawn to the unknown. This desire is how we have dominated a planet. Regardless of the risk there will always be someone willing to go for the sole purpose of being first. Embrace the irrational exhuberance. It is how we got to where we are now. It is how we advance into the future. Even if we fail to become a spacefaring species we will learn many new things in the endeavour.
- crecker 5y ago
  LMAO. You're using internet technology to post this message and you consider a space mission as "waste". A space mission pones a lot of problems, from communication to logistic management. A few of the problems they had in the past with the first space missions were resolved, and technologies were ported to Earth and everyday life.
  - maverick-iceman 5y ago
    What is there for us on Jupiter? Nothing. The progress which matters always happens in some guy's brain. Imaginary journeys, not real ones. Einstein didn't need to travel around massive objects to come up with relativity. The cost of that theory was basically the rent, food and water for him.
- merpnderp 5y ago
  Me buying a taco is a 100% loss. Tires for my car? 100% loss. Maybe the toothpaste has residual gains if forgone dentistry expenditures. But my Netflix bill is definitely a 100% loss. Sending another mission to Jupiter though will likely result in serious returns on investments, even if they are non-obvious at this point.
LightG 5y ago
There's a perfectly good Saturn V rocket sitting right now at the Rocket Park, NASA Johnson Space Center. Why didn't they just use that? What a waste of money. https://spacecenter.org/exhibits-and-experiences/nasa-tram-tour/saturn-v-at-rocket-park/ https://spacecenter.org/exhibits-and-experiences/nasa-tram-t... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aAxALzVJYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aAxALzVJYo
gordon_freeman 5y ago
If anyone is interested there is a nice book[1] written on SpaceX's early days when they were developing Falcon 1. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-SpaceX-ebook/dp/B088FQK2K2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1627154606&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-Spac...
- bengale 5y ago
  This is a great read, I couldn’t put it down.

146 points by _Microft 5y ago

Causality1 5y ago

The first step toward launching a melt probe and having a look at that ocean. I can't wait.

matthewfelgate 5y ago

Nice. Would we not learn a lot more by landing on these moons?

stickydink 5y ago
If there's a chance there's any kind of life over there, don't rush into touching it - something could potentially wipe the whole place out.
- krisoft 5y ago
  Could it? My understanding about planetary protection is that you don't want to contaminate the new environment, because then you can't say for certain (that easily) if the life you are detecting is native to the environment or the contamination. I also understand that the native population of the Americas suffered badly from the diseases carried in by the europeans. But those diseases landed in an environment much like the one they evolved in. The humans were humans, the atmosphere were the same, the temperature were the same, etc. If the space-probe gets contaminated with some earthly bacteria, virus or prion they not only have to survive the travel there, but then they have to quickly adapt to the new environment. Different temperature, different chemical composition, different life forms. How often does it happen that you sneeze at a fungi and the fungi gets infected with your cold? Doing one of these adaptation alone is a big ask, doing all of them at once would be a huge leap. Imagine that you move to a new place. You move there in a salted barrel, not designed for human occupancy. The locals speak a different language, have different customs, you can't get food you are used to and the climate is way out of your comfort zone. Would you be outcompeting the locals quick? I don't think so. I wouldn't worry about wiping out a whole ecosystem unless the ecosystem is much much more similar to our own's. But of course being cautious is always a good idea. Furthermore I already think we should avoid contamination. If for no other reasons than to avoid arguments about what the detected life really means.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  IIRC all stuff we send into space going to other planets is sanitized here via gamma radiation so we don't contaminate other planets. Who knows, maybe the life started on Earth as contamination from foreign objects from space.
inglor_cz 5y ago
AFAIK Jovian radiation is very strong and our current machines have hard time surviving in proximity of the planet for any significant time. Even Clipper will stay a healthy distance away most of the time and only visit the inner Jovian system shortly.
- cma 5y ago
  It is low enough for manned expeditions according to SpaceX concepts: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/spacex-its-rocket-could-get-to-saturns.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/spacex-its-rocket-coul...
  - __m 5y ago
    According to Elon, radiation on a trip to mars isn't a big issue either.
mabbo 5y ago
Maybe, but slowing down enough to land is the problem. To convert from a flyby to landing, you need to burn a lot of fuel, to slow down. To get that fuel to the destination, you need to bring it with you. Which means a much higher take off mass, which needs an even bigger rocket. Mars has a very light atmosphere, which lets us aerobrake- slow down by hitting the atmosphere, that way you don't need any extra fuel. Europa's atmosphere is basically non-existent.
- nradov 5y ago
  In theory a spacecraft could partially aerobrake in Jupiter's atmosphere to save fuel. Then use a rocket to enter Europa's orbit.
  - enraged_camel 5y ago
    The problem is the intense radiation emitted by Jupiter, I think.
    - Asraelite 5y ago
      And unlike Saturn, none of the other moons of Jupiter have a significant atmosphere that could be used unfortunately.
- matthewfelgate 5y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. I hadn't considered the fuel to slow down for a landing.
Denvercoder9 5y ago
> Would we not learn a lot more by landing on these moons? Probably, but it's also a lot harder. Not only does it require more delta-V, you now need to design, build and test a lander in addition to a spacecraft, and you need to build everything to be able to operate in Jupiter's harsh radiation environment (Europa Clipper will only do fly-bys of Europa and spend most of its orbit further away from the high radiation environment).
- nradov 5y ago
  There are so many science fiction stories about exploring and colonizing Jovian moons. But somehow the authors always gloss over the radiation issue. Unshielded humans would probably be dead in a matter of days.
natemcintosh 5y ago
We might, and we are (just not Jupiter's moons)! The Dragonfly mission (https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu), will launch in 2027 and arrive at Saturn's moon Titan in 2036. Dragonfly is a nuclear powered octo-copter, that will fly autonomously on the moon. Titan's small gravitational field and dense atmosphere (about 1.45x Earth's atmospheric pressure) make it one of the best places in the Solar System for flight. The general flight plan is to charge up batteries with the MMRTG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_radioisotope_the...), take off, scout a new potential landing area, land in a previously scouted landing area. On one battery charge, it will be able to fly up to 10km, and stay aloft for up to 30 minutes. Dragonfly will carry out scientific sampling both on the ground and in the air. To quote Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(spacecraft)) about why Titan is an interesting spot for science: > Titan is similar to the very early Earth, and can provide clues to how life may have arisen on Earth. In 2005, the European Space Agency's Huygens lander acquired some atmospheric and surface measurements on Titan, detecting tholins,[29] which are a mix of various types of hydrocarbons (organic compounds) in the atmosphere and on the surface.[30][31] Because Titan's atmosphere obscures the surface at many wavelengths, the specific compositions of solid hydrocarbon materials on Titan's surface remain essentially unknown.[32] Measuring the compositions of materials in different geologic settings will reveal how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed in environments that provide known key ingredients for life, such as pyrimidines (bases used to encode information in DNA) and amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.[33] > Areas of particular interest are sites where extraterrestrial liquid water in impact melt or potential cryovolcanic flows may have interacted with the abundant organic compounds. Dragonfly will provide the capability to explore diverse locations to characterize the habitability of Titan's environment, investigate how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed, and search for biosignatures indicative of life based on water as solvent and even hypothetical types of biochemistry.[6] > The atmosphere contains plentiful nitrogen and methane, and strong evidence indicates that liquid methane exists on the surface. Evidence also indicates the presence of liquid water and ammonia under the surface, which may be delivered to the surface by cryovolcanic activity.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

Saving NASA $3B by doing so. It would have cost $2B to use the SLS rocket that Congress wanted them to use, and it would have cost another billion to rebuild Clipper to withstand the intense vibrations from SLS's solid rocket boosters.

fnord77 5y ago
dumb question - why are we using Saturn V derived rockets? afaik none of these new rockets can match its max payload
- mlindner 5y ago
  I assume you typoed and meant to ask “why aren’t” instead. We aren’t because the Saturn V moon rocket (and related projects) were consuming over 4% of the US government’s budget, way more than even the SLS and definitely more than the Falcon Heavy.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Starship exceeds Saturn V’s lift capacity.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Not true. Saturn V's lift to LEO was 120-140 tonnes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V) while SpaceX claims Starship's is "over" 100 tonnes (https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf).
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      It exceeds Saturn V on the second launch that day. ;-)
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        Well, if you have a 140t payload it doesn't matter how many 100t payloads you can lift per day, it just isn't going to lift it. On the other hand, obviously, payloads are planned for the rocket they are going to be lifted by, so most likely somebody will set constraints on their project to either have smaller payload or split it into parts.

martythemaniak 5y ago

Not explicitly mentioned: this saves NASA almost $2 billion, or half the cost of the actual spacecraft. The previous SLS-mandated launch was estimated to cost about $2B per launch with no guarantee that there'd be an actual rocket available. Though, the savings mean it'll take longer to get there, 3.5 years vs 5 years.

inglor_cz 5y ago
SLS is an enormous boondoggle. People love to hate Musk, but without SpaceX and private space companies in general, we could forget about any significant progress in space activities. The price tag would be suffocating. It is also an interesting example of "throwing money at a problem does not always buy you a better solution". People too often come to conclusion that if some system is defective (e.g. schooling), more money would automatically help. Not necessarily.
- gpt5 5y ago
  We would have seen space progress. It wouldn’t have come for the US though.
- adrr 5y ago
  Because congress forced them to use Space shuttle components and NASA can't go to the open market and find other components. Space shuttle suppliers are fleecing NASA. Here's an example: The SLS/Space Shuttle RS-25 engines are $125mm a piece when they could buy RD-180 engines for $25m a piece. There are 4 engines on SLS and they are expendable.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Congress is positioned between "we actually need some functional space industry whose total expenditure cannot rise to high heavens" and "it would be so nice if some government-funded jobs were created in my constituency, so let us make the supply chains as complicated as possible". I am still positively surprised that they opened up some of the processes to competition.
  - 5y ago

HenryKissinger 5y ago

Maybe Elon Musk's makeshift submarine will find a new purpose.

_Microft 5y ago

Maybe Starship has matured enough by then to launch Europa Clipper on it? It might be able to put the probe on a much faster trajectory than Falcon Heavy could. Does anyone know of (informal?) plans regarding that? Keep in mind that Artemis 3 [0] is scheduled to launch in september 2024 and the mission includes a moon landing with the planned Starship human landing system (HLS) [1]. Mr Maezawa's flight around Moon is also scheduled for the early 2020ies (no earlier than ("NET") 2023), so Starship is meant to be reliable enough for crewed missions then. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3#Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3#Mission [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Starship_Human_Landing_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Starship_Human...

mabbo 5y ago
It would be odd to change the contact that late, I would imagine. But it's an interesting possibility. Still, Starship has a long way to go.
mlindner 5y ago
Starship isn’t a functional vehicle yet. It’s a long way from being able to be a launch vehicle for NASA’s most expensive payloads.
rst 5y ago
NASA tends to be extremely conservative regarding booster technology -- allowing reused boosters only after commercial customers had thoroughly proved them out, for example. Which is justifiable -- most commercial launches are communications satellites for which it's possible to insure the launch for enough to buy another, while NASA's payloads are unique and far more expensive.

mmcconnell1618 5y ago

I must be impatient due to everything moving at internet speeds. The idea that this probe won't arrive until 2030, then it might identify a landing spot for an actual lander that will need to be budgeted, built, launched and travel to Europa for another decade is a little disappointing. I understand there are huge technical challenges, vast distances but sometimes it feels like things are moving very slowly. On the other hand I watch SpaceX cycle through revisions on a crazy fast timeline and I have hope that we will have some breakthroughs in spacefaring technology sooner than expected.

jostmey 5y ago
I would be happy working on a grand project exploring a distance moon, contributing to humanities future knowledge, and building that future, even if it takes decades. I think it would be a life well-spent But if the probe blew up that would really suck
notjustanymike 5y ago
Douglas Adams really sums it up: "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
- gameshot911 5y ago
  That quote has more to do with the physical size of space, whereas OP is primarily referring to the speed of space program development.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    The issues the poster cites, like "this probe won't arrive until 2030", are in part due to the physical size of space.
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      Ehh... it's due to the technical challenge of getting enough fuel into space to get to Jupiter quickly without a bunch of gravity assists. Never going to be a weekend hop, but there are definitely technical advances that make it a 3 month trip rather than a 3 year trip.

maverick-iceman 5y ago

People who mention savings are incorrect. They should talk about reduced loss. This mission is a total financial loss until proved otherwise. As of today the only people who managed to make money in space are the brokers and lawyers who negotiated private tourism trips to the ISS in the 90s and again this new wave of space tourism. There's an irrational exhuberance about space in my opinion

Denvercoder9 5y ago
Not everything in life is nor should be about financial gain.
tastyfreeze 5y ago
Humans are drawn to the unknown. This desire is how we have dominated a planet. Regardless of the risk there will always be someone willing to go for the sole purpose of being first. Embrace the irrational exhuberance. It is how we got to where we are now. It is how we advance into the future. Even if we fail to become a spacefaring species we will learn many new things in the endeavour.
crecker 5y ago
LMAO. You're using internet technology to post this message and you consider a space mission as "waste". A space mission pones a lot of problems, from communication to logistic management. A few of the problems they had in the past with the first space missions were resolved, and technologies were ported to Earth and everyday life.
- maverick-iceman 5y ago
  What is there for us on Jupiter? Nothing. The progress which matters always happens in some guy's brain. Imaginary journeys, not real ones. Einstein didn't need to travel around massive objects to come up with relativity. The cost of that theory was basically the rent, food and water for him.
merpnderp 5y ago
Me buying a taco is a 100% loss. Tires for my car? 100% loss. Maybe the toothpaste has residual gains if forgone dentistry expenditures. But my Netflix bill is definitely a 100% loss. Sending another mission to Jupiter though will likely result in serious returns on investments, even if they are non-obvious at this point.

LightG 5y ago

There's a perfectly good Saturn V rocket sitting right now at the Rocket Park, NASA Johnson Space Center. Why didn't they just use that? What a waste of money. https://spacecenter.org/exhibits-and-experiences/nasa-tram-tour/saturn-v-at-rocket-park/ https://spacecenter.org/exhibits-and-experiences/nasa-tram-t... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aAxALzVJYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aAxALzVJYo

gordon_freeman 5y ago

If anyone is interested there is a nice book[1] written on SpaceX's early days when they were developing Falcon 1. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-SpaceX-ebook/dp/B088FQK2K2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1627154606&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-Spac...

bengale 5y ago
This is a great read, I couldn’t put it down.