Is Europa really the "highest priority" of the community?, Cleave said it was at LPSC? Options

[edstrick]

To a very real extent, a landing on almost any of the dark reddish "boil-up" spots that have punched up through the crust would do the trick scientifically. Especially one of the ones where the surface seems to have been ice-blocks floating randomly in iceberg slushies.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

They want regions that are both dark-colored and sufficiently devoid of impact craters to indicate that they're relatively recent -- and one feature which has attracted interest from the start is Castalia Macula, that very dark and quite smooth spot observed by Galileo, which looks like a frozen, relatively recent water flow. (I need to go over my notes on the Focus Group Meeting again to see what else was said about landing sites.)

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

One more interesting LPSC abstract describes a revised version of CRISM which could be used to make very detailed near-IR compositional maps of Europa (or, of course, other worlds):
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1821.pdf

[GravityWaves]

Don't get me wrong, I would love to be involved with a Europa mission (we did what I think was a good proposal design for EO) but I don't see either the money or the political support being there in the near term. I know it's frustrating, but one has to be realistic, and it might help to avoid the aura of entitlement that I perceive is building in some parts of the community (not referring to you, Bob). Of course, I am just a lowly engineer.

Yes, it is

This is what is needed

1Europa/Jovian exploration
2Gravity projects like the LISA missions
3Exoplanet missions
4Precursor projects for Manned Mars flight

Although numbers 1-4 have been cut badly in the latest NASA budget, the rockets for return to the Moon/Mars can be used to launch TPF or a Europa lander.


The Euros are also thinking there may be life on Europa, and ESA have a number of ideas to Explore this world. Here are some bits of info on ESA's ideas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4347571.stm
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=35982

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

The very good March 17 "Science" article on space science's financial quandary ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/science_cuts.pdf ) says that the LISA space gravity mission will now have to face off against NASA's other big astrophysical cosmological missions for funding -- there simply is not enough to fund two or more of them simultaneously:

"Rising costs and flat budgets also will force NASA to compete several new astrophysics flights. Constellation X—a group of four orbiting telescopes that will image the x-ray universe— will face off against the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, designed to detect gravitational waves, and a Joint Dark Energy Mission with the Energy Department. The winner will get a green light to start work in earnest in 2009 or 2010 for a launch later in the next decade. The other two will have to wait their turn."

Also note: "The Space Interferometry Mission, another planet-hunting mission, won’t be orbited until 2015 or 2016, and its cost has grown to $4 billion." Jeez. This definitely supports Fran Bagenal's statement ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/07_budget_bagenal.pdf ) that it's inaccurate to say that space science's only problem is that growing Shuttle/Station expenses are bleeding off its funds (although that's obviously part of it): "I feel on thin ice asking for additional funds -- new money -- when a second glance at the NASA budget reveals the current rhino in the room to be the fact that we have lost control of mission cost growth."

So "Gravity Waves' " wish list has no chance of being funded in toto -- or close to it -- and an excellent case can be made that it SHOULDN'T be. To twist Bette Davis a bit: Let's not ask for the Moon when we don't even have the stars yet.

[The Messenger]

The very good March 17 "Science" article on space science's financial quandary ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/science_cuts.pdf ) says that the LISA space gravity mission will now have to face off against NASA's other big astrophysical cosmological missions for funding -- there simply is not enough to fund two or more of them simultaneously:

...So "Gravity Waves' " wish list has no chance of being funded in toto -- or close to it -- and an excellent case can be made that it SHOULDN'T be. To twist Bette Davis a bit: Let's not ask for the Moon when we don't even have the stars yet.

The importance of the Lisa mission is difficult to judge: We are still waiting for positive results from LIGO, and any results from the Gravity B probe. Although LIGO is well into the S5 science run (which are expected to yield something), the data reduction takes months.

If the LIGO telescope is highly successful, does it make LISA more or less important? If LIGO fails to detect anything - that would seem to make LISA more urgent. However - and this may be what Bruce was eluding to, there are severe technical challenges in building an extremely sensitive space based interferometer - and without an army of these little robots we all wish existed, to fine tuning and tweaking this fringe technology, LISA becomes a iffy gamble at best.

I vote to concentrate on Europa. I think it is essential that the mission include multiple seismic sensing capability, as well as Raman X-ray and GCMS capability. The last thing we need is another mystery surface with 'no known equivalent'. Proper instrumentation, based upon the premise we do not know rather than assumptions that we do.

[The Messenger]

http://www.space.com/news/060407_nss_nasa.html

Griffin said that budgetary constraints forced NASA to call a halt to planning for a Europa mission. “But sometimes when you close one door, another opens,” he added, making note of the much lower radiation environment of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. That moon was recently found to have possible liquid water reservoirs erupting in Yellowstone-like geyser fashion.


Enceladus may be an easier target to explore, Griffin said. “We’ll see.”

[ljk4-1]

I know Griffin is an engineer, but how much astronomical science training has he had?

How much does/can he really appreciate exploring other worlds for the sake of
knowledge?

I know Griffin has a mandate from his bosses (Bush and Cheney) to get humans
on the Moon and Mars (and Beyond they like to add, cause it doesn't cost anything
just to say it), but what happens in 2009 and will space science even be happening
by then?

[Spacely]

I know Griffin is an engineer, but how much astronomical science training has he had?

How much does/can he really appreciate exploring other worlds for the sake of
knowledge?

I know Griffin has a mandate from his bosses (Bush and Cheney) to get humans
on the Moon and Mars (and Beyond they like to add, cause it doesn't cost anything
just to say it), but what happens in 2009 and will space science even be happening
by then?

Well, I'm fairly certain planetary space science isn't going anywhere, even if it's reduced. Post-2009 we can still expect JUNO, Mars scout 2011/2013, RLEP-2, and whatever new Discovery Mission (or two) they greenlight in the next 18 months. JWST is still a go, too. If they manage all those things and a Crew Launch Vehicle and CEV by 2013, I'll be happy. It's a much better haul than what we got between 1975 and 1985.