There are two other problems with
the Europa Orbiter -- one unique to
Europa, and one relevant to all
space exploration missions: radiation
and contamination.
radiation: Europa orbits fairly close
to Jupiter
and hence interacts
with a lot of highly energetic particles
trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field.
This radiation is terrible for
spacecraft instruments. The expected lifetime
of a Europa Orbiter mission would be something
like 1 month before the electronics started
to fail -- not very long to learn everything we
can about Europa's possible ocean. Remember that
some of the predictions
(like
Greg Hoppa's
cycloid movies) for a thin ice shell suggested
that surface features should change over time --
would 1 month be enough time to see such features
change?
forward contamination: This is a big
deal in space exploration.
The point is that we don't want to bring
some terrestrial organisms to whatever
planet we are exploring. This applies
not just to Europa but also Mars and
everywhere else. [Overheads]
The National Academy of
Science has issued a report
called
Preventing
the Forward Contamination of Europa which makes for
some interesting reading if you are so inclined.
(This new 2000 report updates the 1992 report from which the
overhead material was taken.)
The
Conclusions
and Recommendations
and
Calculating
the Probability of Contamination are particularly interesting.
Which means that this idea has a lot of extra concerns!
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/robo/11449/1.html
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