anabolicrhino
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New Planet With Water Found !!!
- Thread starter anabolicrhino
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Tiberius
Member
Not that interesting. Europa, one of the largest moons of Jupiter, is covered in a worldwide ocean of water, with a surface of ice. So far all signs point to there being volcanic vents at the bottom of that worldwide ocean due to detections in tectonic plate shifting.
Case and point, a large number of scientists say that Europa has the very highest probability of extraterrestrial life right in our own solar system. So much so, that they wouldn't rule out the possibility of there being life as complex as fish there (obviously there wouldn't be actual "fish" but something just as complex). And we CAN visit it. Well, at least it's possible to send a probe. I've seen designs for the probe and the mission plans. They scrapped one recently due to budget cuts.
Tiberius
Member
You have to admit, only national governments have the kind fo money needed for space exploration at the moment. WHen the technology gets cheaper, maybe they'll be private exploration, but in the meantime it requires too much initial investment. Mind you, NASA has had more return on investment in terms of dollar gotten for dollar invested than any government agency or program this nation has ever had.
CDB
Registered User
Of course they are. But I'm also not blind to the fact that money spent of this is not spent elsewhere.
CDB
Registered User
They don't need water. They need oil.
Tiberius
Member
But also one has to weigh in the fact that no one ever considers net cost of a government program only spending. Some NASA projects have actually made profits, not miniscule profits either. A ton of technology is developed by NASA for space missions which becomes instantly extremely useful for practical applications. Much of the miniturization of various technologies has been from NASA. NASA has developed extremely energy efficient engines, cameras, etc. A lot of materials were invented by NASA. The list goes on and every one of those patents is licensed out and money then goes to the government from those licenses.
CDB
Registered User
It is literally impossible for a government to make a profit. They may have a budget surplus or redirect resources in a way people find useful. Those are different things though, and not relevant to this thread, the topic of which is really the possibility of alien sushi. I loved those TDC specials on possible alien life, where they modeled hypothetical planets and the life forms that might inhabit them.
CDB
Registered User
That's not a profit. A profit is residual income from underpriced factors of production. At most you're looking at a an analog of a capital return in such instances, and even then since the original funding was compulsary there's no way to determine efficiency in individual instances or over time. So while the agency might have a budget surplus a net loss could still be occurring. Kind of like the broken window fallacy, opportunity cost is ignored. NASA may create something useful, there is no way to know what was given up in order to fund that process, and due to the compulsary nature of their budgeting/funding there is no way to know if people really wanted what they produced in the first place more than what they otherwise would have spent their money on. Or they may have saved it. There's no way to know.
Technically if the government defaulted on all its debt and took in all wages in the form of taxes and gave everyone 10% of what they were originally making they'd have a massive budget surplus. Doesn't mean they've done anything useful or good.
jas123
Well-known member
This is really interesting. The machines that would explore under the ice are supposed to take 10 years to finish developing. Exciting news, but takes so long to confirm or deny these things.
CDB
Registered User
I think the process is first find a way to peak under the ice using radar, sonar or whatever. Find hot spots which might be vents, then plot how to get to that spot. You'd need some seriously detailed thermal imaging to find specific vents I think.
Tiberius
Member
It's so expensive sending a mission though I would think they'll want to design one that could do both of those things. I think the plan I saw was for an orbiter to do imaging, then a rover with imaging devices with a drill. The driller would also have a pod that would be capable of underwater recon and capable of withstanding very high pressure (so it could venture deep).
CDB
Registered User
But what if the orbiter doesn't find a suitable landing spot for its probe? I'd think better to image as much as possible and then design the probe based around what's found to get the highest chance of success.
Tiberius
Member
I think you misunderstood. The rover/driller and the underwater probe would be in the same mission. The orbiter would be a MUCH cheaper mission and could be done seperately. Plus, R&D for the rover/drill/probe mission will take tons of time as well. R&D for an orbiter wouldn't take nearly as much. Therefore they could launch the orbiter, and then while collecting data from the orbiter they will build the rover/probe. Plus data from the orbiter will be needed in order to properly design a rover and probe anyway.
CDB
Registered User
Then I did misunderstand, that's how I'm thinking, along those same lines.
CRUNCH
Registered User
CDB
Registered User
Nah, though that was a good series. I think it was called Alien Planet, and the probe was the plot device they used to get us onto to planet looking around.