Have you guys ever heard of HOPE -- Human Outer Planet Exploration? It was a mission concept NASA looked at one time. Link here (from the wikipedia entry on Callisto):
NASA PDF File (Adobe Reader) about HOPE
Basically, the idea is, you send a crewed mission, nuclear reactor powered, to Jupiter. The ship orbits Callisto. You probably send a landing party down there for exploration and to set a base that can be used by future crews and/or for colonization. Then you send a submarine probe to Europa, which you can operate in real time, because you're at Jupiter. You might send some probes into the atmosphere of Jupiter too, etc.
Callisto could be an important port in the far future, because it is the largest natural satellite of Jupiter which is not exposed to large amounts of radiation. It is a good place for a spacecraft to stop and get more propellant before heading off to the Oort Cloud or Kuiper Belt, or Pluto, because it has natural resources which might be used to make rocket fuel (water ice, primarily).
Pretty cool eh? I say they assemble it in orbit so it can have artificial gravity, like in 2001!!! Plus they should use my favorite rocket, VASIMR!!!
I'm not sure how much power it would take to get VASIMR to put out 9.81 N of thrust so that artificial gravity is not necessary...in the PDF they talk about using a nuclear thermal rocket, you would do one major nuclear thermal rocket burn from the L1 point and coast from there, in their scenario.
While we're at it, some have said that you could build floating cities in the atmospheres of the gas giants. I think there might be an issue with radiation, though. But I heard there are altitudes inside of Jupiter in which the sky would look blue, like Earth!
--Brian
NASA PDF File (Adobe Reader) about HOPE
Basically, the idea is, you send a crewed mission, nuclear reactor powered, to Jupiter. The ship orbits Callisto. You probably send a landing party down there for exploration and to set a base that can be used by future crews and/or for colonization. Then you send a submarine probe to Europa, which you can operate in real time, because you're at Jupiter. You might send some probes into the atmosphere of Jupiter too, etc.
Callisto could be an important port in the far future, because it is the largest natural satellite of Jupiter which is not exposed to large amounts of radiation. It is a good place for a spacecraft to stop and get more propellant before heading off to the Oort Cloud or Kuiper Belt, or Pluto, because it has natural resources which might be used to make rocket fuel (water ice, primarily).
Pretty cool eh? I say they assemble it in orbit so it can have artificial gravity, like in 2001!!! Plus they should use my favorite rocket, VASIMR!!!
I'm not sure how much power it would take to get VASIMR to put out 9.81 N of thrust so that artificial gravity is not necessary...in the PDF they talk about using a nuclear thermal rocket, you would do one major nuclear thermal rocket burn from the L1 point and coast from there, in their scenario.While we're at it, some have said that you could build floating cities in the atmospheres of the gas giants. I think there might be an issue with radiation, though. But I heard there are altitudes inside of Jupiter in which the sky would look blue, like Earth!
--Brian
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