The thread for space cadets!

Amount of water on Earth & Europa comparison

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Also this:
nasa.si.jpg

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31855395
There is further, compelling evidence that Ganymede - the largest moon in the Solar System - has an ocean of water beneath its icy crust.

The new data comes from the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been studying how auroral lights dance around the satellite of Jupiter.

The presence of a sub-surface ocean would heighten interest in Ganymede as a potentially habitable world.

Europe's robotic Juice probe is being sent to orbit the moon in the 2030s.

Nasa's Galileo mission returned information in the early 2000s that suggested the 5,300km-wide moon had a hidden sea. The new insights from Hubble deepen that impression.
Damping effect

Ganymede's great distinction among moons - apart from its size - is that it has its own magnetic field.

Hubble has managed to track that field's behaviour by watching how it draws in and excites space particles, generating a glow of ultraviolet light around the satellite's north and south poles.

But this intrinsic magnetic field also interweaves with Jupiter's, and the aurora "rock" back and forth as a result of the interplay.

It is by modelling the expected rocking against what is observed by Hubble that scientists can infer something about the internal structure of the moon. And they now say a salty ocean at depth is the best explanation for what they see.

That is because Jupiter's field induces a secondary field in the salt water, and this tries to counterbalance the big planet's influence.

The end result is that the aurora rock only by two degrees over time when without the presence of the ocean, they should be rocking by six degrees.

Magnetic interplay
"The ocean cannot be deeper than 330km; anything deeper would not explain the data," said lead scientist Joachim Saur of the University of Cologne in Germany.

"The data are consistent with an ocean of a 100km thickness with a certain salt content of about 5g per one litre of water. But it could equally well be an ocean of only 10km but with 10 times more salt."

The idea that a sub-surface ocean exists on Ganymede is exciting because wherever you have liquid water, you have one of the main ingredients for life.

You need much more, of course - not least a source of energy and some complex carbon chemistry. But understanding the ocean will be one of the primary objectives of the European Space Agency's billion-pound Juice robot when it arrives at Ganymede in 2030.

The orbiter will have a very sensitive magnetometer instrument to study Ganymede's magnetic field in more detail, as well as a radar instrument to look beneath the icy crust. But other types of observations, like gravity measurements, should also elicit additional insights.
'Soggy' Solar System

Heidi Hammel, from the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Washington DC, said the Hubble information represented the "best evidence yet" for the Ganymede's hidden ocean. Although the Galileo orbiter had strongly suggested the water volume was present, it was possible still to interpret its magnetometer information in different ways, she explained.

"There was some ambiguity, which is why the word 'putative' was still used [in relation to the ocean]. But this result takes us out of the realm of ambiguity," she told reporters.

Ganymede is just one of a large list of objects in the Solar System now thought to hide an ocean deep below the surface. These include the dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres; other Jupiter moons - Europa and Calisto; Saturn's moons Enceladus, Titan and Mimas; and possibly Neptune's moon, Triton.

"The Solar System is now looking like a pretty soggy place," joked Jim Green, the US space agency's director of planetary science.
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_59977996_ganymede_comp_624.gif
 
I think that NASA and ESA don't get nearly enough credit for all of the science missions they do. They have really pushed the boundaries on what we know about the universe and how it works and they do it relatively cheaply, all things considered.

Unfortunately, the general public doesn't sit up and notice the kinds of science missions that NASA and ESA do so darn well unless cool pictures come out of it (Hubble, etc) or it involves putting people in danger (moon landings, the ISS, etc). I don't see a good way to change this, however. And I certainly don't mean to insinuate that NASA or ESA should give up on manned space efforts. They could just use better publicity for all the other great things they do.
 
Living in Spain, maybe the least scienctific country in EU, where "culture of science" is almost non-existant, where TVs dedicate 0 minutes weekly to science and where brightest scientific minds have to migrate, i think the issue is the total lack of interest/understanding of science by the overwhelming majority.

Thankfully there are still some technocratic elite governing us from Brussels.
 
Everything that's wrong with Mars One in a single article:


Mars One Finalist Explains Exactly How It‘s Ripping Off Supporters
When Joseph first signed up with Mars One — the media-hyped, one-way mission to colonize the red planet being floated by a Dutch non-profit — he didn’t think much of it. The former NASA researcher said he never really took the application seriously; he was just putting his hat in the ring mostly out of curiosity, and with the hope of bringing public attention to space science.

But eventually Joseph — who is actually Dr. Joseph Roche, an assistant professor at Trinity College’s School of Education in Dublin, with a Ph.D. in physics and astrophysics — found himself on the group’s shortlist of 100 candidates all willing to undertake the theoretical journey. And that’s when he started talking to me about the big problems he was seeing with Mars One.

It was difficult for him to break his silence, but he was spurred into speaking out by the uncritical news coverage. Many basic assumptions about the project remain unchallenged. Most egregiously, many media outlets continue to report that Mars One received applications from 200,000 people who would be happy to die on another planet — when the number it actually received was 2,761.

As Roche observed the process from an insider’s perspective, his concerns increased. Chief among them: that some leading contenders for the mission had bought their way into that position, and are being encouraged to “donate” any appearance fees back to Mars One — which seemed to him very strange for an outfit that needs billions of dollars to complete its objective.

“When you join the ‘Mars One Community,’ which happens automatically if you applied as a candidate, they start giving you points,” Roche explained to me in an email. “You get points for getting through each round of the selection process (but just an arbitrary number of points, not anything to do with ranking), and then the only way to get more points is to buy merchandise from Mars One or to donate money to them.”
Dr. Joseph Roche

“Community members” can redeem points by purchasing merchandise like T-shirts, hoodies, and posters, as well as through gifts and donations: The group also solicits larger investment from its supporters. Others have been encouraged to help the group make financial gains on flurries of media interest. In February, finalists received a list of “tips and tricks” for dealing with press requests, which included this: “If you are offered payment for an interview then feel free to accept it. We do kindly ask for you to donate 75% of your profit to Mars One.”

The result, said Roche, is that high-profile prospects — including those in a list of “Top 10 hopefuls” published last month in The Guardian — are, in fact, simply the people who have generated the most money for Mars One. A spokeswoman confirmed by email that the positions were “based on the supporter points that our community can earn,” but said that “this number of points is unrelated to our selection process.”

As Roche also told me, that secretive selection process is hopelessly, and dangerously, flawed.

“I have not met anyone from Mars One in person,” he said. “Initially they’d said there were going to be regional interviews… we would travel there, we’d be interviewed, we’d be tested over several days, and in my mind that sounded at least like something that approached a legitimate astronaut selection process.

“But then they made us sign a non-disclosure agreement if we wanted to be interviewed, and then all of a sudden it changed from being a proper regional interview over several days to being a 10-minute Skype call.”

Mars One’s selection process to date has required candidates to complete a questionnaire, upload a video to the project’s website, and get a medical examination with each candidate’s local doctor (which they had to arrange themselves). Roche said he then had a short Skype conversation with Mars One’s chief medical officer, Norbert Kraft, during which he was quizzed with questions from literature about Mars and the mission that Mars One had provided to all the applicants. No rigorous psychological or psychometric testing was part of the appraisal. Candidates were given a month to rote-learn the material before the interview.

Mars One’s testing methods fall well short of NASA’s stringent astronaut corps requirements — not least in the case of anyone who would be training to be the mission commander, the individual who would actually pilot a theoretical craft to Mars. Commanders at NASA are required to have logged 1,000 jet aircraft flight hours to even be considered as training candidates for spaceflight.

Applicants were told they did not have permission to record the interview or to take any notes. Today, Roche said, he has still never had an in-person meeting with anyone associated with Mars One, and he is not aware that any candidate has ever been interviewed in person to assess their suitability to be sent one-way, forever, on a deep-space mission.

“That means all the info they have collected on me is a crap video I made, an application form that I filled out with mostly one-word answers… and then a 10-minute Skype interview,” Roche said. “That is just not enough info to make a judgment on someone about anything.”

Many other problems with the project were explored in depth in the Matter story I wrote in November. Nearly all of them — such as the small pool of applicants — continue to be ignored by the media.

But some cracks are emerging now. Reports emerged that the contract with the TV production company Endemol — which Mars One claimed could bring in up to $6 billion in revenue — was no longer in place and that the companies had gone their separate ways. And last month the Nobel laureate and theoretical physicist Gerard ’t Hooft — previously listed as an “advisor” to the project — put a realistic timeframe for a crewed mission to Mars at 100 years from now, not 10.

The organization did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money. Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions. Mars One has no TV production partner. Mars One has no publicly known investment partnerships with major brands. Mars One has no plans for a training facility where its candidates would prepare themselves. Mars One’s candidates have been vetted by a single person, in a 10-minute Skype interview.

“My nightmare about it is that people continue to support it and give it money and attention, and it then gets to the point where it inevitably falls on its face,” said Roche. If, as a result, “people lose faith in NASA and possibly even in scientists, then that’s the polar opposite of what I’m about. If I was somehow linked to something that could do damage to the public perception of science, that is my nightmare scenario.”
Click to expand...


I know it's a lot to read but if you have any interest in Mars One, then it's definitely worth a look-see. I had no idea that things were this bad for Mars One.
 
Yeah, frustrating. I really wanted something like to happen.

We've a lot more babysteps before we can do something grand like this. We were sailing and sledding for awhile before people tackled the North Pole and the South Pole. There are a few contenders out there that are helping us babystep towards space, and there's tech progress in general that will help get us there too.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
Everything that's wrong with Mars One in a single article:


Mars One Finalist Explains Exactly How It‘s Ripping Off Supporters



I know it's a lot to read but if you have any interest in Mars One, then it's definitely worth a look-see. I had no idea that things were this bad for Mars One.
Click to expand...

Look. It's simple. This is a game show.

Or a scam.

Or a game show and a scam.

It looks like a game show and it smells like a game show: it's a game show. Much like everything else, in the end.
 
This all really sucks. Don't get me wrong, I've always been super critical of Mars One but only because I actually want them to succeed and they have not given many indications that they knew how to do that. In the end, I was actually quite shocked to read that article. While I didn't believe they had the technical chops to pull it off, I never suspected it was an out-and-out scam.

I'm kind of excited to see what their response to this article (and about the half dozen others I've come across already today) will be.
 
Yeah I dunno, I kinda felt like that was probably a scam from day one. Just sounded way too shoestring and haphazard to be serious.

hobbsyoyo said:
Also this:
nasa.si.jpg

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31855395


_59977996_ganymede_comp_624.gif
Click to expand...

My uninformed hunch is liquid water (and maybe life) turns out to be way more common throughout the universe on icy & seemingly barren moons of large gas giants, as opposed to earth-like planets.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
This all really sucks. Don't get me wrong, I've always been super critical of Mars One but only because I actually want them to succeed and they have not given many indications that they knew how to do that. In the end, I was actually quite shocked to read that article. While I didn't believe they had the technical chops to pull it off, I never suspected it was an out-and-out scam.

I'm kind of excited to see what their response to this article (and about the half dozen others I've come across already today) will be.
Click to expand...

Don't know. It depends how sophisticated they are.

They could probably spin it out indefinitely. I can just see them having some kind of Big Brother trial Mars expedition here on Earth. All they need do is keep a group of people isolated somewhere for a long period of time and sell the viewing rights.

When, or if, commercial space flight becomes a viable option, they could do the same thing in a space station.

They might even spin it out long enough to take a group to Mars, in the end! It would still be a game show.
 
illram said:
Yeah I dunno, I kinda felt like that was probably a scam from day one. Just sounded way too shoestring and haphazard to be serious.
Click to expand...
I was too hopeful. :sad:

My uninformed hunch is liquid water (and maybe life) turns out to be way more common throughout the universe on icy & seemingly barren moons of large gas giants, as opposed to earth-like planets.
Click to expand...
And if our solar system is any example, you're certainly right!

Borachio said:
Don't know. It depends how sophisticated they are.

They could probably spin it out indefinitely. I can just see them having some kind of Big Brother trial Mars expedition here on Earth. All they need do is keep a group of people isolated somewhere for a long period of time and sell the viewing rights.

When, or if, commercial space flight becomes a viable option, they could do the same thing in a space station.

They might even spin it out long enough to take a group to Mars, in the end! It would still be a game show.
Click to expand...
Right, but this is exactly what they tried to do. They even had Endemol (the production company behind Big Brother itself) on the books as the production company for the reality series they were going to make about the astronaut candidates. But Endemol pulled out and no one else is nibbling. I also think the backlash from this article is going to really hurt their efforts to get anything done, including creating a reality TV series.
 
There are other private orgs to keep watching (and maybe help, if you're of that style). B612 has a really important project. There are various groups shooting for the Google Lunar X-Prize. Planetary Resources could use some help, but they just might make it.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
I was too hopeful. :sad:


And if our solar system is any example, you're certainly right!


Right, but this is exactly what they tried to do. They even had Endemol (the production company behind Big Brother itself) on the books as the production company for the reality series they were going to make about the astronaut candidates. But Endemol pulled out and no one else is nibbling. I also think the backlash from this article is going to really hurt their efforts to get anything done, including creating a reality TV series.
Click to expand...

Maybe in the beginning they were trying to do something real, but when everything fell through and they realized it was an idiotic plan, they settled for the scam. A man has to earn a living after all :lol:
 
So it was all a scam? :(


Link to video.

However, a Big Brother where all participants die in some horrible way at the end would be a great success IMO!
 
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Is Titan submarine the most daring space mission yet?
But one concept mission being studied by the US space agency could top even that.

Scientists are proposing to send a robot submarine to the oily seas of Saturn's moon Titan. The seas are filled not with water, but with hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.

These compounds exist in their liquid state on the moon, where the temperature averages -180C.

The plan is funded by an initiative called Nasa Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), where researchers are encouraged to think out of the box.

"That's quite liberating," says the scientist behind the project, Dr Ralph Lorenz, who is outlining the concept here at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas.
Titan lakes Titan's north pole is a land of hydrocarbon seas and lakes

"You can take a step back and really let your imagination run riot."

But Dr Lorenz believes the mission is eminently achievable with the right resources, timing and technology.

Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) are now widely used for military purposes, by search teams, in oil exploration and scientific investigation. So existing technologies could be adapted for use on another world.

One of the most striking aspects of the proposal is a plan to deliver the sub in a variant of the US military's secretive mini-space shuttle, the X-37B.

The sub would fit in the payload bay of the unmanned shuttle, with the stack then launched on a rocket. Once at Titan, the shuttle and its payload would glide down through the moon's soupy atmosphere.
Deep-freeze

The sub could be deployed in one of two ways. The X-37B could open its payload bay doors whilst in flight, jettisoning the robotic sub.

The submersible would then open a parachute and splash down in the sea. This method has been used before by the US military to deploy a bomb called the MOAB.

Alternatively, the shuttle could ditch in the sea, opening its doors to deploy the sub before sinking.

Titan resembles a deep frozen version of Earth, making it an attractive target for exploration. It was visited by the European Huygens probe, which touched down on the surface in 2005.

A mission called the Titan Mare Explorer (TiME), in which Ralph Lorenz was involved, would have returned there with a floating lander that gathered data from the sea surface.
X-37B The X-37B military mini-shuttle could be used to deliver the sub to Titan

TiME was one of three finalists in the selection process for a Nasa low-cost Discovery mission, but eventually lost out to a Mars proposal called InSight. The new Titan concept combines some of TiME's science objectives with others enabled by the use of a submersible.

"You can do everything that a mission like TiME could do, particularly at the shoreline and measure the weather and the composition at the sea surface, measure the waves," Ralph Lorenz tells me.

"But it also lets you carry out detailed mapping of the sea floor, where there's a rich buried record of Titan's climate history."
Fizzy drink

Around shorelines on Titan are sediments left behind when liquid hydrocarbons evaporate; they suggest sea levels on the moon have periodically risen and fallen.

Indeed, while the seas are today concentrated in the moon's far north, natural cycles determined by the properties of Titan's orbit may cause these bodies of liquid to jump between poles every 30,000 years.

A sub could shed light on the basin in which the seas lie, including the possibility that it's a giant eroded impact crater.

The mission might see layering in the liquid column like that seen in Earth's Black Sea, where a salty, oxygen-poor layer exists beneath fresher (though still brackish) surface waters.
TiME artwork The TiME mission would have performed the first investigation of an extra-terrestrial ocean

"One could imagine that kind of compositional layering in Titan's seas; you may have more ethane-rich liquid at the base and a 'fresher' methane rich layer at the surface. But maybe tidal and wind-driven currents are enough to stir everything up and mix it."

The $100,000 Niac study didn't identify instruments to be carried by the torpedo-shaped vessel. But sidescan sonar, a camera, and a seafloor sampling system are obvious candidates.

However, operating a sub in Titan's same-but-different environment presents unique challenges. For example, military submarines face a problem called cavitation, where the propellers cause bubbling that's audible to sonar. This can give away their presence to the enemy.

If Titan's seas are methane-rich, and have nitrogen dissolved in them (as scientists think), changing the temperature of the liquid hydrocarbon by just a few Kelvin could cause the nitrogen to come out of solution. This means the sub's system for getting rid of waste heat would cause fizzing that might interfere with sonar measurements.

But Dr Lorenz says tweaking the design of the heat rejection system, or using the sonar when the sub is at rest could help mitigate.
Above us the waves

Communications are also a vital consideration. TiME would have taken advantage of a geometric window of opportunity when Titan's north pole was pointed towards Earth, allowing direct communication with our planet.

But as the end of the decade approaches, Earth gets lower and lower on the horizon - making it more difficult to send data directly. So the submarine mission is being targeted for 2040 - the next point when the direct mode becomes possible.

To save everyone the wait, an orbiting spacecraft could accompany the sub to Titan in order to relay data to Earth. This would enable the mission to launch at any time, but also add considerable cost.

Another crucial factor is power. Spacecraft that stay within the inner Solar System can use solar panels to generate electricity.

But missions venturing beyond the asteroid belt need radioactive power generators, usually fuelled by the decay of plutonium-238. However, the US stopped production in the 1980s and supplies have been running out, causing consternation within the planetary science community.

Without this radioactive fuel, outer Solar System destinations like Titan are shut down to exploration.

TiME was to have used a novel power system called an Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator, which would have made the most efficient use of valuable remaining plutonium-238.

But its development was hit by delays, and the project was eventually placed on ice in 2013 - when the US officially re-started plutonium production.

"If TiME had been selected, we'd be launching 13 months from now. It was on the path to implementation... it was a real thing," says Dr Lorenz.

He estimates that between $5m and $10m were spent on its development. But there's now the potential to send a lander that can dive as well as float.

Saturn's biggest moon will continue to fascinate and inspire, making a return inevitable. And when we do go back, it may just be with a submarine.
Click to expand...
 
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