3 ms·

Honestly, the only thing I wish to see before I die is a submarine mission to Europa or Ganymede. It would be even more mind blowing and an amazing achievement

by sph 3y ago

Honestly, the only thing I wish to see before I die is a submarine mission to Europa or Ganymede. It would be even more mind blowing and an amazing achievement for humanity, and the search for extraterrestrial life. That, and the dragonfly-helicopter-thing on Titan. Have you ever seen the Sun set on a methane lake? It's time for a rewatch of Europa Report (2013).

dotnet00 3y ago
It's such a shame that the lander component of Europa Clipper got cancelled.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  It did?! :(. Shame. We should be scrambling to land probes there yesterday.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    Yep, yet another casualty of Congress's obsession with wasting money on SLS. Spending another $10B on an SLS upgrade that is still too rough of a ride for any payload is fine, but spending $1B on a lander is too much. With Europa Clipper there was also the incident that Congress tried to write into law that it had to launch on SLS. The Clipper team were leaning towards using Falcon Heavy ($90M). In the end Congress only relented because the Clipper team said they'd need another $1B in funding (in addition to the $2B+ for an SLS launch itself) to make the delicate instruments on Clipper capable of withstanding the extremely rough ride that SLS offers. So now Europa Clipper will be a Jupiter orbiter that does several flybys of Europa.
dylan604 3y ago
I'm ready for beach front property when Jupiter finally becomes the Sun's companion star to warm up Europa
mikeInAlaska 3y ago
A Europa submarine mission is a good bucket list, but don't sell us too short. * Humans on Mars * Room temperature Superconductors and their effects on humanity. * Sustained Fusion Power for the masses. * General Artificial Intelligence * Human brain-computer interface. * Full reversal of climate change. * Extended human lifespan. * Curing all forms of cancer. * Universal translator for all human languages. * Discovery of extraterrestrial intelligent life. * Understanding dark energy and dark matter. * A true virtual reality, indistinguishable from reality. * 100% renewable energy global infrastructure. * Establishing a lunar base. * Sentient AI companions. * Discovering the origin of life. If you elect me, I will make all these come true!
- adzm 3y ago
  > Universal translator for all human languages. We are pretty much already there, though there is room to improve, it's an amazing accomplishment though that I think we take for granted.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- dmix 3y ago
  I would like to see a solar gravitational lens telescope built in space to look at distant exoplanets with the highest resolution possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens although last time I brought this up on HN someone explained to me it'd be very expensive, need to be huge, and it'd likely only point at one planet per lens, and the image would still be pretty blurry :( > 2020, NASA physicist Slava Turyshev presented his idea of direct multi-pixel imaging and spectroscopy of an exoplanet with a solar gravitational lens mission. The lens could reconstruct the exoplanet image with ~25 km-scale surface resolution in 6 months of integration time, enough to see surface features and signs of habitability. His proposal was selected for the Phase III of the NIAC 2020 (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts). Turyshev proposes to use realistic-sized solar sails (~16 vanes of 103 m2) to achieve the needed high velocity at perihelion (~150 km/sec), reaching 547 AU in 17 years. https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/Direct_Multipixel_Imaging_and_Spectroscopy_of_an_Exoplanet/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_...
dwaites 3y ago
We've got plenty of hard problems to work out before we can haul off to Europa, at least with people. Solving those problems will be more impactful in the long run than whatever we might find there. I mean, you could drive to Alaska for an ice cream cone, but the fact that you can get one out of your fridge is more impactful to you personally. Also, I try not to get too caught up in imagining specifics. Often we overlook the valuable and surprising because we are looking for the wrong thing: the thing we expect to see.

by sph 3y ago

dotnet00 3y ago

It's such a shame that the lander component of Europa Clipper got cancelled.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
It did?! :(. Shame. We should be scrambling to land probes there yesterday.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Yep, yet another casualty of Congress's obsession with wasting money on SLS. Spending another $10B on an SLS upgrade that is still too rough of a ride for any payload is fine, but spending $1B on a lander is too much. With Europa Clipper there was also the incident that Congress tried to write into law that it had to launch on SLS. The Clipper team were leaning towards using Falcon Heavy ($90M). In the end Congress only relented because the Clipper team said they'd need another $1B in funding (in addition to the $2B+ for an SLS launch itself) to make the delicate instruments on Clipper capable of withstanding the extremely rough ride that SLS offers. So now Europa Clipper will be a Jupiter orbiter that does several flybys of Europa.

dylan604 3y ago

I'm ready for beach front property when Jupiter finally becomes the Sun's companion star to warm up Europa

mikeInAlaska 3y ago

A Europa submarine mission is a good bucket list, but don't sell us too short. * Humans on Mars * Room temperature Superconductors and their effects on humanity. * Sustained Fusion Power for the masses. * General Artificial Intelligence * Human brain-computer interface. * Full reversal of climate change. * Extended human lifespan. * Curing all forms of cancer. * Universal translator for all human languages. * Discovery of extraterrestrial intelligent life. * Understanding dark energy and dark matter. * A true virtual reality, indistinguishable from reality. * 100% renewable energy global infrastructure. * Establishing a lunar base. * Sentient AI companions. * Discovering the origin of life. If you elect me, I will make all these come true!

adzm 3y ago
> Universal translator for all human languages. We are pretty much already there, though there is room to improve, it's an amazing accomplishment though that I think we take for granted.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
dmix 3y ago
I would like to see a solar gravitational lens telescope built in space to look at distant exoplanets with the highest resolution possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens although last time I brought this up on HN someone explained to me it'd be very expensive, need to be huge, and it'd likely only point at one planet per lens, and the image would still be pretty blurry :( > 2020, NASA physicist Slava Turyshev presented his idea of direct multi-pixel imaging and spectroscopy of an exoplanet with a solar gravitational lens mission. The lens could reconstruct the exoplanet image with ~25 km-scale surface resolution in 6 months of integration time, enough to see surface features and signs of habitability. His proposal was selected for the Phase III of the NIAC 2020 (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts). Turyshev proposes to use realistic-sized solar sails (~16 vanes of 103 m2) to achieve the needed high velocity at perihelion (~150 km/sec), reaching 547 AU in 17 years. https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/Direct_Multipixel_Imaging_and_Spectroscopy_of_an_Exoplanet/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_...

dwaites 3y ago

We've got plenty of hard problems to work out before we can haul off to Europa, at least with people. Solving those problems will be more impactful in the long run than whatever we might find there. I mean, you could drive to Alaska for an ice cream cone, but the fact that you can get one out of your fridge is more impactful to you personally. Also, I try not to get too caught up in imagining specifics. Often we overlook the valuable and surprising because we are looking for the wrong thing: the thing we expect to see.