About Ethics and Nuking Europa

[orionrider]

In another thread there has been an interesting discussion about the ethical aspects of discovering life on Mars and the dangers of disrupting it by further study, exploration or colonization.
Now, what about this idea:

Europa is believed to hide a global ocean covered by miles of solid ice, making it a prime target for exobiology. But how do you get to the water? All proposals require many tons of equipment and very risky scenarios, with cryobots and hydrobots progressing in unknown terrain...
However, an impactor containing a thermonuclear charge :shock: could be used to project a large plume to be analyzed by a space probe. It would be just like an asteroid strike, something that happens all the time out there. You wouldn't even have to design a lander, material could be scooped right from space. Even an orbiter is not necessary, the probe could fly a 'free return trajectory' bringing it back to LEO using minimal reaction mass. A very cheap sample return mission

Of course there is the problem of ethics and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 :?

What do you think? Would it be feasible and/or desirable :?:

 

[nimbus]

Clumsy. There's enough science to be done cleanly and on the cheap elsewhere, in the mean time.

 

[Woggles]

thermonuclear charge :

Great now we start nuking?? I think that is a pretty bad idea myself. I personally don't think we have a right to start nuking a place that may have the potential for life and contaminating it. However what a great Hollywood movie it could be. We nuke europa and europa life goes to war with us!! As from another thread, what a great outer limits story line!!

 

[orionrider]

'on the cheap'?
Well, it would be much cheaper than many less ambitious experiments. Somewhere in the same price tag as LCROSS or a Discovery-class mission. Perhaps even cheaper since you wouldn't need a heavy impactor. A 1Mt charge would have a mass of less than 300kg.

'Clumsy' and not 'clean'?
I believe it would be very efficient. The blast would be much smaller than the Tunguska event, comparable to a small asteroid impact, a frequent event around Jupiter. It would be cleaner than anything we land on the surface, with no biological contamination. The radioactive fallout would be negligible compared to the current 540 rem daily rate.

doing science 'elsewhere'?
Europa should be a top priority. The only reason it doesn't get more attention is that we don't know how to do science there at a reasonable price.

 

[orionrider]

I personally don't think we have a right to start nuking a place that may have the potential for life

Yet not many people would oppose terraforming Mars, indigenous bacterial life or not. And not many people would rather walk than drive, oil plumes be damned...

So it all comes down to ethics: why would this experiment be 'wrong' when we do many worse things here?

 

[Woggles]

Yet not many people would oppose terraforming Mars, indigenous bacterial life or not. And not many people would rather walk than drive, oil plumes be damned...

I can't argue with you on that, however we are many years if not 1000's years away from that goal. Perhaps in time we will find life of any kind on Mars and the ethical debate will take place as it should. As for dependency on oil and people choice to walk or not comes down to how it will affect their pocket book and not there ethics. Sure it would be nice if all of mankind who think that way as you propose, however it will always come down to their pocket book for change. However that is a debate for another thread and what you have posted here. As I say "I personally don't think we have a right to start nuking a place that may have the potential for life and contaminating it."

So it all comes down to ethics: why would this experiment be 'wrong' when we do many worse things here?

You said it! When we do things worse here, and on that statement I believe do have the right to bring our problems and those ways we treat our planet to any place, on till we clean up our act here.

 

[kg]

Since Europa has a young surface then material must naturally be rising to the surface. Why not just find a geologicaly active area and drop a lander there? You could collect samples, (the surface is mostly water ice isn't it?) concentrait it by removing the water (how hard could it be to distill water in a vaccume?) then send it back to earth.

 

[nimbus]

'on the cheap'?[...]
Alright, I'm not convinced though. If it really does tally that cheap (not gonna take it for granted till I see actual numbers), and there's an opportunity for such an approach as there was for LCROSS, sure. You still have to beat nuke opposition, at the very least.

'Clumsy' and not 'clean'?
Not what I'm saying. It's a sledgehammer can opener approach. See kg's post.

doing science 'elsewhere' / Europa priority
It is a major priority. There's plenty of other science that's as much of a priority as Europa, that can be done with cleaner methods and without getting off on the wrong foot as nuking a planet or moon would, with a non-negligible part of the public.

 

[Gravity_Ray]

the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 :?

I don’t have a problem with using a small nuclear charge to shoot materials into space from Europa for a sample mission, but it comes down to this line in your post. This treaty precludes the use of nuclear weapons in space. This will become political very quickly, for one reason or another. Imagine if US plans this and a country like North Korea or Iran will say, WTF and will proceed to score points against the US policy of containing nuclear weapons!

No I don’t see this as being feasible not because of technology or ethics, but purely for a political reason.

Anyway, why would you even need a nuke? Any mass traveling fast enough will have plenty of kinetic energy! Slam anything including an inert mass into Europa with enough velocity and you will get a largish plume anyway.

 

[orionrider]

KG's idea is excellent. Transporting water to Earth is like bringing ice to Antarctica
But because Europa is subjected to intense radiation, anything on the surface would be severely degraded. And the crust may be young, it is still 20 to 180 million years old. Long past the Best Before Date.

The blast from an asteroid (if we care to wait) - or an 'active' impactor - would project a large plume right into space. There is no way to get to the ocean if the ice is miles thick, but you would at least get some relatively recent (pristine) chemicals trapped in the ice. If there really are jellyfishes down there, you will see amino-acids and bio markers all over the place. the critters swimming kilometers below should be spared from the bombardment. :mrgreen:

 

[nimbus]

If there really are jellyfishes down there, you will see amino-acids and bio markers all over the place. the critters swimming kilometers below should be spared from the bombardment. :mrgreen:

So this thread was just a joke, right?

 

[orionrider]

The 1967 Treaty is a problem. From Wikipedia:

"bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind"

Is the impactor a 'weapon'? Not if it is used for peaceful purposes. And it would not technically be 'stationed' on a celestial body, not in the military meaning.


If the effort is internationally backed, it would probably be authorized. But there still would be huge opposition from many different parties.

 

[orionrider]

So this thread was just a joke, right?

Nimbus,

I wouldn't write that in 'Nature', but to chat on SDC one can spare long words and stiff prose
In fact, the 'jellyfishes' were meant to please the fans of 2010 (the novel).

Now, seriously, what I mean is that it takes a really, really big blast to disturb some life form at the bottom of 100km of water of which the top 1/3rd is ice as hard as granite. A 1Mt charge wouldn't even be felt. But the top layer, just below the surface, would definitely bear unambiguous traces of biological activity. Just like glaciers and icebergs on Earth preserve bacteria and organic matter for thousands of years.

Incidentally, it also means that any life form on Europa is perfectly safe from all meteoroids and most asteroids and comets.

 

[nimbus]

Of course, you won't know any of that till you actually see freezing "fishes" flopping around in the plume. Which illustrates a good part of why I see it as too crude a method.

 

[andrew_t1000]

Who is suggesting we nuke anything?
If NASA or whoever can barely afford a probe how the hell could they afford a nuke?
Is the OP a "friends of the moon" woo woo?

Get real!!

 

[orionrider]

Andrew, You are way off if you think there is nothing more going on, or NASA is the one and only player. Nearly all missions these days are international. This year alone several interplanetary probes are scheduled to take-off.

The list of current missions you can find here, and it's quite long: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html
By the way, there is one returning on Sunday, courtesy of the Japanese Space Agency :idea:

 

[nimbus]

And what's the basis for "safely" assuming that if there's "life" on Europa, it won't be near the liquid oceans' surface, or that it won't be so fragile that such a nuke would have negligible consequences on it?

 

[SteveCNC]

Why would we want to contaminate something we can use , because it's the easy way of doing something ? Sorta like fishing with dynamite except you can't eat the fish . There's plenty of better ways that don't require contaminating anything . Besides , better safe than sorry .

 

[orionrider]

SteveCNC:

There's plenty of better ways

That's the point, there are no other ways, at least not with the current technology. Maybe in 50 years, using Vasimr engines. Hauling a large enough static impactor to Europa would be very expensive. A lander, drilling rig and sample return rocket would be immensely expensive.

In fact, there is only one probe scheduled to fly to Europe. It is part of the international EJSM mission and is 'just' an orbiter. ETA: 2026 at the earliest.

 

[3488]

Hi orionrider,

I share your frustration of there being no lander, but the orbiter is very capable, should return mulitispectral imagery of the entire globe at 10 metres resolution, possible down to 5 metres in an extended mission with points of interest down to only 30 CM reso, possibly to 15 CM in a few spots.

The entire globe will be radar mapped, giving an accurate size & shape of surface features & will detect deformation due to tidal forces from Jupiter, Io & Ganymede, thus helping to answer once & for frelling all, is there a sub surface ocean???

Global magnetospheric studies will be carried out, night time Jupiter, Io, Ganymede lit obs will be carried out. There will be four death defying close passes of volcanic Io, aiming to pass through at least one volcanic plume & six of Europa itself prior to Europa orbital insetion, (the Io phase I will try & get involved in the observations idea pool & have some ideas for Europa too), there will be many observations of Jupiter, possibly of Thebe, Amalthea & the rings during this phase & some will continue during the Europa orbital phase as well as further Io obs from Europa orbit.

This is one hell of a mission, would have loved a fully instrumented lander, also one to have been dropped on Io too, but beggars cannot be choosers.

BTW the ESA are providing a Ganymede orbiter, virtually a clone of the NASA Europa Orbiter, will pass Callisto very closely six times & carry out very detailed obs of the outermost giant Mercury sized moon of Jupiter prior to Ganymede orbital insertion & will carry out a similar mission around Ganymede. Also once again, would have loved to see both Callisto & Ganymede landers, but as we all know, Beggars cannot be choosers.

I am disappointed there are no landers, but still these are incredible joint missions.

Hopefully both craft will make close Main Belt Asteroid passes post launch & possibly closely pass at least one minor out lying Jupiter moon such as Pasiphae, Sinope or Himalia, etc, inbound.

BTW we should not nuke Europa. I am not a welfare claiming, vegan, sandal wearing, dope smoking, tree hugger, but just feel that is not the way to go. Impacting craft i.e LCROSS & Deep Impact are fine, not nukes, though I am not against nuclear power or RTG power in space.

Andrew Brown.

 

[orionrider]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you so much for sharing this information. This is great news
I didn't know so much could be achieved by a long range orbiter; this is going to be a mind-boggling mission!
I hope the raw data will be published, like the MER pictures were.

I wonder how the scientific community is going to cope with so much prime material :shock:
They should involve science classes all over the world in some of the processing, maybe the kids will become more interested in learning the real stuff than in shooting playstation aliens :roll:

As for the nuke, I understand that it is not politically correct. There is too much trauma associated with the weapons. Anyway, by the time the EJSM data gets processed, the new propulsion systems will probably make such dramatic methods unnecessary.

Thanks again for the update

 

[NebularNeblactics]

what happens if the rocket launching the nuke explodes while its trying to lift off?

 

[nimbus]

Game over man!

 

[orionrider]

what happens if the rocket launching the nuke explodes while its trying to lift off?

Ironically, nuclear weapons are among the safest devices built by man. The safeties in place are incredibly advanced in order to avoid an accidental or unauthorized detonation. Until not so long ago, aircraft carrying warheads were patrolling 24/7. Submarines still do. Over the course of the years there have been several aircraft and submarine accidents. No weapon ever detonated.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mi ... _accidents

It takes a very precise pattern of compression plus the physical presence of reflectors and other chemicals at the core to trigger a catastrophic chain reaction. The explosion of a rocket would rather disturb this delicate process. Even if the high explosive charge went off, the result would be a dispersion of the fissile materials instead of a nuclear blast.
While a scattering of radioactive debris is possible, it would be unlikely because the charge would be secured inside a hard shell that would be ejected by the explosion. Like the 'black box' of an aircraft often survives the most devastating impacts, the shell would confine the nuclear material.

Add to that the fact that the charge would probably be physically assembled in-flight, shortly before arriving at destination, and you see the risk of a thermonuclear explosion at liftoff is about nil
The worst case scenario would be the dispersion of the plutonium in the sea or in the atmosphere. About the same risk is already taken when satellites and probes depart with an RTG on board.

If VASIMR holds its promises, the number and size of nuclear generators used in spacecraft will dramatically increase. Consequently, the safety measures will likely improve, reducing the risk even more.

 

[NebularNeblactics]

Thank you for explaining the safety of nuclear technology to me.Im glad to see that they take safety measures seriously. I guess the only thing to worry bout is that one catastrophic event that wont ever happen...*coughBPcough*