Communicating with a Europan sub

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willpittenger

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I figure that a Europan sub would be RTG powered. You need RTGs in the surface transmitter, the subsurface relay, the sub itself, and a relay satellite. The satellite might need to be placed in a Lagrange point. Given we don't really know how thick the ice layer is, we should probably use a microwave relay between the surface and subsurface relays as a cable might not be long enough. (Somehow, you then need to prevent the hole from filling up.)<br /><br />We also might prefer to not use a cable-based connection between the sub and the subsurface relay. Such a connection would limit the sub's range. That makes our only option be a sound-based system. I would have to insist that any such system not hurt whatever life is there. (One example of that would be the Navy making whales deaf. However, I am not claiming whales are swimming in Europan Oceans.) Even with little microbes, it would be easy for loud noises to crush them. (At those scales, water is very viscous and would hit like a hammer.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
 
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qso1

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Big problem with trying not to kill anything. If its microbiological as is most likely to be the case...almost anything you do will result in death to large numbers of microbiota. The best one can do is accept that any activity we undertake will likely result in killing microbiological organisms one way or another. The upside is that there will likely be far more microbiological organisms present than we could ever kill off with a few probes. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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