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I know personally that Europa is actually pretty high on Charlie Bolden's (and other NASA HQ folk's) as well as academia's radar, but has thus far lost out to o
by thearn4 13y ago
I know personally that Europa is actually pretty high on Charlie Bolden's (and other NASA HQ folk's) as well as academia's radar, but has thus far lost out to other programmatic/political necessities.
NASA has a very hard time devoting resources to planetary science and exploration programs when key legislators continue to earmark NASA'S budget for (what are essentially) jobs programs in their own districts. SLS has shaped up to be a perfect example of that.
- XorNot 13y agoWell, the other problem is Europa is not an easy mission by any stretch. It's airless - so wave goodbye to parachute landings, which means we need to carry all the propulsion we need to decelerate into orbit with us. No magnetic field either, so tethers for orbital adjustment are out to. And it's flying out to one of the more radiation hard environments in the solar system, where we have very little data on what exactly it'll experience. And it's going to be a long long way a way. 1 hour signal round-trip time.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoThink of all the new technologies and solutions that will have to be developed for it, and then will find their way to commercial sector. NASA at it's best!