4 ms·

Has anyone thought much about an (admittedly near impossible) probe to burrow and submarine around in the oceans of some of the juicier Galilean and Saturnian m

Has anyone thought much about an (admittedly near impossible) probe to burrow and submarine around in the oceans of some of the juicier Galilean and Saturnian moons?

Shivetya 12y ago
I thought NASA was already planning for such to go to Europa
- kchangnyt 12y ago
  Yes, NASA is working on Europa Clipper: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ But that would just make multiple flybys of Europa, not land or tunnel into the water.
V-2 12y ago
For what it's worth, there's quite a decent s-f movie "Europa Report" about a manned mission to the Jupiter's moon. It avoids most genre cliches, apart from the very ending maybe.
- ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
  Unless you've read Arthur C. Clarke's Odyssey series; in which case you are mostly infuriated by it.
- xpinguin 12y ago
  >It avoids most genre cliches, apart from the very ending maybe. Yeah, by being fully made of those. [SPOILER ALERT] * lack of crew psychological cross-matching * some ludicrously exoggerated hydrazine drama * chloroplast-equipped organisms in the environment which ambient light spectrum is slightly inclined towards gamma radiation (not to mention the meat-packed space vessel itself, brightly shined up by very same light) * _one_ central computer with sole purpose to be heroically repaired on the _outer_ shell of the vessel (you see, no EVA - no drama) * (mentioned ending) transferring at least tens of gigabytes from Europe to Earth in a matter of seconds (via that special hero-driven central computer) despite being unable to establish uplink for past several months already due to the broken trasmitter (of course, unreserved) --- Well, I understand that this is just a movie, but look, why not to put it in agreement with some common sense?
  - V-2 12y ago
    Honestly, I can't see how these are "genre cliches"
    - xpinguin 12y ago
      Disorganized team/crew of what first have seemed to appear as "professionals", imho, is a curse of most sci-fi movies (I could hardly recall any movie with more than one actor, where characters won't behave like a bunch of strangers gathered together under some unfortunate circumstances). Exoggerated drama (i.e. dramatic action out of nothing or due the course of highly regulated procedures (eg. EVA)) is harder to evaluate: sometimes that drama looks quite plausible. Nevertheless, action sci-fi without some sort of team member sacrificion/unexpected death is hard to imagine, at least for me. Hell, it is not even specific to sci-fi: just take a look into any action movie out there - pretty high chances to become a witness of the dramatic death. Very frivolous treatment of the laws of physics in general. I am pointing out that instantaneous information transmission specifically. Well, pretty much of cliche either, isn't it? Stupid reasons for "heroicity". Are you a script writer in a search for the rationale to balance around the case of dramatic death of one or more characters? Director struggling with producers demand for fancy attention-binding activity you might be. What to do? Easy! Just place some important peace of equipment in a morbid place and there you go - engineering have been favored out by thrill. Life. Remember that in "Babylon 5" most of aliens were anthropomorphic? Well, 90th there were, no fancy CG, and, besides, convergention one may say, right? Second decade of XXI century, Wikipedia is here and accessible in a matter of keystrokes. Why not chemothrophs, why?! Although, phototrophs could be plausible even in a shady world, convergention one may say...
draugadrotten 12y ago
Yes, NASA. "We propose to develop a conceptual design of a submersible autonomous vehicle (submarine) to explore extraterrestrial seas" http://www.nasa.gov/content/titan-submarine-exploring-the-depths-of-kraken/ http://www.nasa.gov/content/titan-submarine-exploring-the-de...
- acomjean 12y ago
  Don't we already have lots of autonomous subs on earth? As long as they can survive the trip, just put some new sensors in and go.
  - ohitsdom 12y ago
    How would you get data back? I'd imagine you'd have to have a surface relay, to a moon-orbiting satellite, then back to earth.
    - acomjean 12y ago
      They come to the surface, then get a gps fix (err) and then is picked up by the boat then the data uploaded..... Ok its going to need some minor modifications.
      - noselasd 12y ago
        You also need to get from the surface to the water, and from the water back to the surface. Inbetween is a rather huge layer of ice. On Europa it's though to be 10-20 kilometers thick, though there's indications it could be as "thin" as 3km some places
  - Altaer 12y ago
    They would need to be a certain weight for the rocket they would ride on, be able to withstand radiation, generate power or install a different power source, be able to withstand various extreme temperatures, ensure it can "swim" in different oceans (Titan's ocean is not H2O). Not to mention they need to develop a way to deliver the sub to the water safely. I think there are lots of changes here.
rarrarrarr 12y ago
Yep. Here's a great TED talk by the (lead?) engineer of the project. He has a strong history in the caving community. http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_s...
blueintegral 12y ago
Georgia Tech had a team in Antarctica recently doing field tests of robots designed to explore under very thick ice sheets, specifically to prepare for a Europa mission. http://schmidt.eas.gatech.edu/simple/ http://schmidt.eas.gatech.edu/simple/
- oscully 12y ago
  I work on this project under Bill Stone's company Stone Aerospace [1]. One of the projects, VALKYRIE [2], is a laser powered cryobot to melt through ice in order to launch a vehicle in the water underneath. ARTEMIS is the AUV for SIMPLE, and is the third generation following the AUVs DEPTHX & ENDURANCE. VALKYRIE has been field tested and ARTEMIS goes to Antarctica this fall. [1] http://www.stoneaerospace.com/ http://www.stoneaerospace.com/ [2] http://www.wired.com/2012/04/bill-stone-laser-powered-europa-rover http://www.wired.com/2012/04/bill-stone-laser-powered-europa...
kartikkumar 12y ago
There has been talk of a Europa lander as part of ESA's JUICE mission [1], provided by the Russians. Looks like it has been de-scoped however. [1] http://sci.esa.int/juice/ http://sci.esa.int/juice/

Has anyone thought much about an (admittedly near impossible) probe to burrow and submarine around in the oceans of some of the juicier Galilean and Saturnian moons?

Shivetya 12y ago

I thought NASA was already planning for such to go to Europa

kchangnyt 12y ago
Yes, NASA is working on Europa Clipper: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ But that would just make multiple flybys of Europa, not land or tunnel into the water.

V-2 12y ago

For what it's worth, there's quite a decent s-f movie "Europa Report" about a manned mission to the Jupiter's moon. It avoids most genre cliches, apart from the very ending maybe.

ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
Unless you've read Arthur C. Clarke's Odyssey series; in which case you are mostly infuriated by it.
xpinguin 12y ago
>It avoids most genre cliches, apart from the very ending maybe. Yeah, by being fully made of those. [SPOILER ALERT] * lack of crew psychological cross-matching * some ludicrously exoggerated hydrazine drama * chloroplast-equipped organisms in the environment which ambient light spectrum is slightly inclined towards gamma radiation (not to mention the meat-packed space vessel itself, brightly shined up by very same light) * _one_ central computer with sole purpose to be heroically repaired on the _outer_ shell of the vessel (you see, no EVA - no drama) * (mentioned ending) transferring at least tens of gigabytes from Europe to Earth in a matter of seconds (via that special hero-driven central computer) despite being unable to establish uplink for past several months already due to the broken trasmitter (of course, unreserved) --- Well, I understand that this is just a movie, but look, why not to put it in agreement with some common sense?
- V-2 12y ago
  Honestly, I can't see how these are "genre cliches"
  - xpinguin 12y ago
    Disorganized team/crew of what first have seemed to appear as "professionals", imho, is a curse of most sci-fi movies (I could hardly recall any movie with more than one actor, where characters won't behave like a bunch of strangers gathered together under some unfortunate circumstances). Exoggerated drama (i.e. dramatic action out of nothing or due the course of highly regulated procedures (eg. EVA)) is harder to evaluate: sometimes that drama looks quite plausible. Nevertheless, action sci-fi without some sort of team member sacrificion/unexpected death is hard to imagine, at least for me. Hell, it is not even specific to sci-fi: just take a look into any action movie out there - pretty high chances to become a witness of the dramatic death. Very frivolous treatment of the laws of physics in general. I am pointing out that instantaneous information transmission specifically. Well, pretty much of cliche either, isn't it? Stupid reasons for "heroicity". Are you a script writer in a search for the rationale to balance around the case of dramatic death of one or more characters? Director struggling with producers demand for fancy attention-binding activity you might be. What to do? Easy! Just place some important peace of equipment in a morbid place and there you go - engineering have been favored out by thrill. Life. Remember that in "Babylon 5" most of aliens were anthropomorphic? Well, 90th there were, no fancy CG, and, besides, convergention one may say, right? Second decade of XXI century, Wikipedia is here and accessible in a matter of keystrokes. Why not chemothrophs, why?! Although, phototrophs could be plausible even in a shady world, convergention one may say...

draugadrotten 12y ago

Yes, NASA. "We propose to develop a conceptual design of a submersible autonomous vehicle (submarine) to explore extraterrestrial seas" http://www.nasa.gov/content/titan-submarine-exploring-the-depths-of-kraken/ http://www.nasa.gov/content/titan-submarine-exploring-the-de...

acomjean 12y ago
Don't we already have lots of autonomous subs on earth? As long as they can survive the trip, just put some new sensors in and go.
- ohitsdom 12y ago
  How would you get data back? I'd imagine you'd have to have a surface relay, to a moon-orbiting satellite, then back to earth.
  - acomjean 12y ago
    They come to the surface, then get a gps fix (err) and then is picked up by the boat then the data uploaded..... Ok its going to need some minor modifications.
    - noselasd 12y ago
      You also need to get from the surface to the water, and from the water back to the surface. Inbetween is a rather huge layer of ice. On Europa it's though to be 10-20 kilometers thick, though there's indications it could be as "thin" as 3km some places
- Altaer 12y ago
  They would need to be a certain weight for the rocket they would ride on, be able to withstand radiation, generate power or install a different power source, be able to withstand various extreme temperatures, ensure it can "swim" in different oceans (Titan's ocean is not H2O). Not to mention they need to develop a way to deliver the sub to the water safely. I think there are lots of changes here.

rarrarrarr 12y ago

Yep. Here's a great TED talk by the (lead?) engineer of the project. He has a strong history in the caving community. http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_s...

blueintegral 12y ago

Georgia Tech had a team in Antarctica recently doing field tests of robots designed to explore under very thick ice sheets, specifically to prepare for a Europa mission. http://schmidt.eas.gatech.edu/simple/ http://schmidt.eas.gatech.edu/simple/

oscully 12y ago
I work on this project under Bill Stone's company Stone Aerospace [1]. One of the projects, VALKYRIE [2], is a laser powered cryobot to melt through ice in order to launch a vehicle in the water underneath. ARTEMIS is the AUV for SIMPLE, and is the third generation following the AUVs DEPTHX & ENDURANCE. VALKYRIE has been field tested and ARTEMIS goes to Antarctica this fall. [1] http://www.stoneaerospace.com/ http://www.stoneaerospace.com/ [2] http://www.wired.com/2012/04/bill-stone-laser-powered-europa-rover http://www.wired.com/2012/04/bill-stone-laser-powered-europa...

kartikkumar 12y ago

There has been talk of a Europa lander as part of ESA's JUICE mission [1], provided by the Russians. Looks like it has been de-scoped however. [1] http://sci.esa.int/juice/ http://sci.esa.int/juice/