What If: No Outer Space Treaty
- Thread starter Eli
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Ecofarm
Deity
Why would having WMDs in space help? There's no resource on the moon, so that part of the treaty is inconsequential to your question.
Anyway, the moon is about 200k miles from the Earth. Jupiter is about 500m miles. What would make the additional 499.8m miles traversable? We're talking about 2.5k times the distance. Galileo took 6 years to get there. Voyager 1 and 2 took about 1.5 years. And you want to come back, requiring a return launch? It's not even remotely feasible to do such a manned mission.
Nothing we could extract from Europa (-treaty), if we even could get there and back, would make it worthwhile; Europa could be made of gold and it wouldn't matter.
Maybe in a few hundred years, with unforseeable technological breakthroughs.
Ecofarm: It doesn't have to make complete sense. States are greedy creatures, claiming land just so that the other guy doesn't get it is a perfectly valid reason. Besides, you can never know what is out there, countries wouldn't want to risk staying behind.
Ecofarm
Deity
That makes sense, but Europa is way beyond a manned spacecraft's reach. Way.
I cannot even begin to fathom how we could put enough fuel down with the craft, safely, to allow a return launch. Then there's food and water for years onboard, and oxygen... medical facilities for years of travel...
We can't do it now and we would not be able to in 50 years. Probably not in 200 years. So there is no reason to believe we could have, even with the most concerted effort, in the past 50.
You know, there is a corporation which claimed the solar system as its private property, and is considered the legal owner of such, as the treaty didn't ocver private ownership. I don't see that corporation pouring money into space exploration, and neither would nations. Space was just another battleground of the Cold War. Once the US pulled so far ahead that the USSR couldn't keep up, that battleground moved elsewhere.
Now, with China, India, and others turning their attention towards space - again, primarily for technological/strategic reasons, rather than the prestige factor which is most commonly cited - we may well see more expansion in this area. But we're a long way aways from Europa yet.
Now, with China, India, and others turning their attention towards space - again, primarily for technological/strategic reasons, rather than the prestige factor which is most commonly cited - we may well see more expansion in this area. But we're a long way aways from Europa yet.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Planet Busters.
I'm not sure fuel (for propulsion) would be the largest logistical problem, even at the speed of Apollo 10, it would only take ~1.5 years to Europa.
Ecofarm
Deity
But you need enough fuel to break Jupiter's gravity (2.5x the Earth's) to come back. You'd have to bring it with you and land it safely.
I don't know if that is the biggest logistical problem, but it's big.
I don't know if that is the biggest logistical problem, but it's big.
Fuel and water for the return journey can be manufactured at the destination. Otherwise it's difficult to make any decent base on the Moon or on Mars...
Anyway, Europa was just an idea - a conversation starter. But I'm pretty sure we would've been on Mars.
Anyway, Europa was just an idea - a conversation starter. But I'm pretty sure we would've been on Mars.
Ecofarm
Deity
We probably could have got to Mars with major efforts.
Note: Mars and the Moon have basically no gravity compared to Jupiter.
I don't know the physical attributes of Europa exactly. How would you manufacture fuel there?
Note: Mars and the Moon have basically no gravity compared to Jupiter.
I don't know the physical attributes of Europa exactly. How would you manufacture fuel there?
SG-17
Deity
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It would be more feasible to build on the Moon, since we know that there is water ice and useful minerals there.
We could bring up the minimum supplies to build a base, even possibly using the ship itself to build the base, then extract the water ice and iron from the Moon to build further.
We could bring up the minimum supplies to build a base, even possibly using the ship itself to build the base, then extract the water ice and iron from the Moon to build further.
Except you're launching off of Europa, not off of Jupiter. Europa is about 10x the distance from the centre of mass of Jupiter as is the surface of Jupiter, so Jupiter's gravity on Europa is going to be about 1% that of on the surface of Jupiter, or about 20% of Europa's gravity.
The Outer Space Treaty has had about zero effect on anything, it's just a show of goodwill. It'll probably be decades still before anything meaningful would be contested over it. Obvious limits of technology and value or perceived value in various space endeavors are what limit space programs.
Also:
2) Really, what are you talking about? Randomly conspiracy-theory-esque allegations don't make things true.
Also:
1) Rayleigh's criterion
2) Really, what are you talking about? Randomly conspiracy-theory-esque allegations don't make things true.
Cobalt Command
Destroyer of Worlds
Extracting Hydrogen from the ice or water.
Ecofarm
Deity
I'm not sure about that math (I haven't done gravity physics in many years), but I can't argue/critique it.
It just seems that Jupiter, being the most massive of our planets, is not something to simply stroll away from.
Why is 1% of Jupiters gravity accounting for 20% of Europa's? I don't quite get how you arrived at that.
Are you using the standard gravitational pull equation?
In other words, would you mind spelling that out for me?
Falcon02
General
In Orbital Dynamics there's a thing called a Sphere of Influence (SOI) which basically means that within that SOI you can ignore the effects of the surrounding bodies. (The equation given is labeled for Planet/Sun interaction but it also works with Moon/Planets)
That means within a certain distance from the center of Europa you can ignore Jupiter's Gravity. Once you past Europa's SOI, Jupiter becomes the dominate gravity of consideration. And then further from Jupiter the Sun becomes the dominant gravitational force.
There's another term that's also used... that's calculated slightly differently, but the same purpose... I can't remember the name of it though.
That means within a certain distance from the center of Europa you can ignore Jupiter's Gravity. Once you past Europa's SOI, Jupiter becomes the dominate gravity of consideration. And then further from Jupiter the Sun becomes the dominant gravitational force.
There's another term that's also used... that's calculated slightly differently, but the same purpose... I can't remember the name of it though.
Ecofarm
Deity
Extracting it is one thing. Charging it is another. Both cost energy.
I guess you don't need to charge it if you are going to burn it, though.
I just did inverse square law for gravity.
When on the surface of Europa, the force due to Jupiter's gravity will be about 20% of the force due to Europa's gravity, due to the distance between Jupiter and Europa.
(Now, if Europa was orbitting the centre of mass of the Sun at the same distance it orbits Jupiter, it would be inside the Sun, and force of gravity of the sun would be about 200x that of Europa's.)
I did everything in my head, and rounded pretty liberally, but I should be in the right order of magnitude, at least.
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