I expect people to visit NEOs before Mars, and I expect them to visit Phobos before the Martian surface, but I wonder if people will visit Ceres before visting the Martian surface, albeit not before visiting Phobos. We’ll have to see if Dawn’s visit to Ceres in 2015 demonstrates that Ceres is as interesting as people expect. It may even have a liquid sub-surface ocean — I’ll link to the wikipedia article in such a way that you can click on Thomas McCord’s research on the subject, or you can scroll up to get a refresher course on what a neat place Ceres is.
“en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)#cite_note-McCord2005-58” or click on my name
Ceres … contains a third (32%) of the belt’s total mass.
Whoa.
<Johnny Carson voice> I did not know that! </Johnny Carson voice>
Uh-hum…
(Let me get my best teenage girl voice on before I say this)
Duh!
thank you
Of course we should be going to NEO’s before Mars. Why do we need to go to mars anyway? Is there anything we need or want to take from that dead world? NEO’s have a much higher chance of having stuff we find valuable. Where do we want to spend money and effort to go, somewhere of value or a dead rusty stinky hole. I mean if I wanted to go to a dead rusty stinky armpit of the solar system we could send our mission to Trona CA for a lot less money. (Sorry Trona)
Trona reminds me of Las Vegas, since they both have a lot of playas.
I think when we get the deep space capability to reach Ceres, Europa should be number one on our list of destinations. It has the best chance (if slim…) of having life larger then a bacterium. Imagine exploring it with nuclear versions of the Alvin or Ben Franklin submarines? Imagine if we find organisms the size of whales and just as smart? Now that would make for some great National Geographic specials 🙂
Even if there is no life many of the ideas for living under the ocean here on Earth might be applied to Europa. A ocean is nice insulation and a makes a great shield for radiation. And you are surrounded by a source for rocket fuel. I would not be surprised if the first self-sustaining societies beyond Earth-Lunar actually end up being on Europa. And of course you have all the resources of the Jupiter system to exploit as a bonus.
Thomas, nice idea but there is a problem; the small matter of huge amounts of ionising radiation trapped in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. It’s not as bad as the environment around Io, but it’s bad enough.
For similar reasons to yours, Ganymede or perhaps Callisto might be a better bet.
One further problem is that any construction in the Europan ocean has to be free-floating. The ocean there is likely to be a hundred kilometres deep (at least); even under less than Earth’s gravity I doubt we could build anything to stand that sort of pressure.
Yes, radiation is one of the problems to solve in getting to Europa. I was thinking of free floating habitats, far enough down to protect against radiation but without the pressure issues. They key also is how thick is the ice.
Ganymede and Callisto may well be better options for the first settlement. But one thing I like about Buzz Aldrin’s flexible option is that we have been too hung up on Moon-Mars. The Moon is critical as the first step, but after it there are many better opportunities for settlement then Mars if we start looking beyond the inner Solar System.
I expect people to visit NEOs before Mars, and I expect them to visit Phobos before the Martian surface, but I wonder if people will visit Ceres before visting the Martian surface, albeit not before visiting Phobos. We’ll have to see if Dawn’s visit to Ceres in 2015 demonstrates that Ceres is as interesting as people expect. It may even have a liquid sub-surface ocean — I’ll link to the wikipedia article in such a way that you can click on Thomas McCord’s research on the subject, or you can scroll up to get a refresher course on what a neat place Ceres is.
“en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)#cite_note-McCord2005-58” or click on my name
From the Wikipedia article:
Whoa.
<Johnny Carson voice> I did not know that! </Johnny Carson voice>
Uh-hum…
(Let me get my best teenage girl voice on before I say this)
Duh!
thank you
Of course we should be going to NEO’s before Mars. Why do we need to go to mars anyway? Is there anything we need or want to take from that dead world? NEO’s have a much higher chance of having stuff we find valuable. Where do we want to spend money and effort to go, somewhere of value or a dead rusty stinky hole. I mean if I wanted to go to a dead rusty stinky armpit of the solar system we could send our mission to Trona CA for a lot less money. (Sorry Trona)
Trona reminds me of Las Vegas, since they both have a lot of playas.
I think when we get the deep space capability to reach Ceres, Europa should be number one on our list of destinations. It has the best chance (if slim…) of having life larger then a bacterium. Imagine exploring it with nuclear versions of the Alvin or Ben Franklin submarines? Imagine if we find organisms the size of whales and just as smart? Now that would make for some great National Geographic specials 🙂
Even if there is no life many of the ideas for living under the ocean here on Earth might be applied to Europa. A ocean is nice insulation and a makes a great shield for radiation. And you are surrounded by a source for rocket fuel. I would not be surprised if the first self-sustaining societies beyond Earth-Lunar actually end up being on Europa. And of course you have all the resources of the Jupiter system to exploit as a bonus.
Thomas, nice idea but there is a problem; the small matter of huge amounts of ionising radiation trapped in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. It’s not as bad as the environment around Io, but it’s bad enough.
For similar reasons to yours, Ganymede or perhaps Callisto might be a better bet.
One further problem is that any construction in the Europan ocean has to be free-floating. The ocean there is likely to be a hundred kilometres deep (at least); even under less than Earth’s gravity I doubt we could build anything to stand that sort of pressure.
Yes, radiation is one of the problems to solve in getting to Europa. I was thinking of free floating habitats, far enough down to protect against radiation but without the pressure issues. They key also is how thick is the ice.
Ganymede and Callisto may well be better options for the first settlement. But one thing I like about Buzz Aldrin’s flexible option is that we have been too hung up on Moon-Mars. The Moon is critical as the first step, but after it there are many better opportunities for settlement then Mars if we start looking beyond the inner Solar System.