Europa Moon Life?

Hey, did not know if any one had any good references to the possible probe that could or would be sent to moon of Jupiter. (Europa.) I heard it was going to be nuclear powered....wouldn't this be in HEAVY violation of NASA's "do not pollute other planets with earth crap" policy?

[Edited on 20-3-2004 by John bull 1]

Almost every probe sent to orbit planets or pass by them has been nuclear powered. Its the most efficient form of energy that we know of (at least to the public). I can't remember if the Mars Viking probes were nuclear powered or not. Probably not, they would have "lived" longer.

I'm all for nuclear powered cars. You could fuel it once, and never have to fuel again. Of course its not possible to have them though, because we have all these crazy terrorists wanting to get a hold of the stuff.... and the environmentalists.

Sorry I forgot to specify. I did not mean that the probe would be orbiting...I meant that it will be landing and drilling through the multiple miles of ice to reach the possible liquid ocean underneath. If they did this they would possibly contaminate it...no?

Originally posted by Tjololo
Sorry I forgot to specify. I did not mean that the probe would be orbiting...I meant that it will be landing and drilling through the multiple miles of ice to reach the possible liquid ocean underneath. If they did this they would possibly contaminate it...no?

Haha, well this could be rather funny. The little microbes that were attached to the "drilling machine" from EARTH were detached and released into the crust of Europa during drilling, and then when we take samples of it, we find life that actually originated on our planet and was just stuck on the drill the entire time. Hey, it COULD happen!

Lol, that would completely suck...but I did hear that they had an "exceptable" limit of contamination.......which is kind of pointless if the point in the first place is to NOT CONTAMINATE IT AT ALL!!!!! lol ty for the new perspective liblam......did not think of THAT dissapointing scenario.

someone please explaine to me how nuclear power works? i dont get this fill 'er up once and it lasts forever stuff.

Its kind of funny that you say that lilblam. Because its almost impossible to keep anything from getting contaminated by some sort of microbe. There was some orbiting satellite a while back that had huge growths of microbes in it (you could see them without a microscope). I can't remember if they found it from going up there and giving it maintenance or if it had re-entered our atmosphere and found them that way. It turns out, someone had sneazed on the equipment while it was being built.

All I know is, NASA (and any other space organization) doesn't go over every piece of equipment they send into space or to another planet with a microscope searching for microbes. They may think the environment they work in is sterile, but microscopic creatures have a funny way of getting into everything no matter how "guarded" they are. So with that reasoning, I'd say we contaminated Venus and Mars a long time ago!

And remember, in space, only the microbes can hear you SCREAM!

he did not mean that it would last forever, he only meant that it would last for as long as you would EVER need it. I believe that there are nuclear powered battle ships that don't need to be refueled for two hundred yrs or something crazy like 2,000 years. Once again plz dont take that info to the bank, only wut I think I remember hearing in the past.

Just happened to be reading up on this the other day, so here's a couple links. Although this thread probably belongs in the Space category.

spacescience.nasa.gov...

spacescience.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by Tjololo
he did not mean that it would last forever, he only meant that it would last for as long as you would EVER need it. I believe that there are nuclear powered battle ships that don't need to be refueled for two hundred yrs or something crazy like 2,000 years. Once again plz dont take that info to the bank, only wut I think I remember hearing in the past.

If I recall, I think their nuclear power supply is good for 20 years before it needs to be refueled. Cars on the other hand, they don't require as much power as an aircraft carrier, and depending on how much nuclear material is used, could probably last those 200 years!

Just to give some of you an idea as to how long Nuclear power in a space probe lasts, look no further than Pioneer 10.

www.cnn.com...

What was apparently the spacecraft's last signal was received January 22 [2003] by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Deep Space Network. At the time, Pioneer 10 was 7.6 billion miles from Earth; the signal, traveling at the speed of light, took 11 hours and 20 minutes to arrive.

That sucker was launched on March 2, 1972. That means its Nuclear power lasted for about 31 years! I'm sure it still has a little bit of juice left, buts its so far away now and its signal so small that we can't communicate with it anymore. Man, too bad it didn't have the type of optics we have now, we'd be getting some interesting pictures that far out and if it had had the type of communications technology we now have.

Well, we still have Voyager 1 and 2!

voyager.jpl.nasa.gov...

Hopefully we'll get some useful information from them in the next few years.

If there's life anywhere near us, I strongly think it's there.

I however don't think it'll be intelligent life.

[Edited on 20-3-2004 by AnonymousPoster4]