Joint Europe-US Europa Probe

[adzel_3000]

Good fall-out from the Cassini-Huygens collaboration....<br /><br />http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4347571.stm<br /><br />--A3K

 

[claywoman]

How way-cool!!!

 

[bushuser]

2 lessons learned from Huygens which will not be repeated:<br /><br />1] The doppler-shift debacle<br /><br />2] Software bug which lost 1 channel of Huygen's data<br /><br />Both demonstrated a need for more thorough testing of communication link between spacecraft from separate manufacturers<br /><br /><br />And yes, That's way cool!

 

[yg1968]

Thank you, Europe for visiting Europa!<br /><br />While you are at it, could you also fix Hubble? <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />While I like the idea of sending humans back to the Moon and onto Mars, I am afraid that exploration to the rest of the solar system will take a back seat.<br /><br />Hopefully, the European Space Agency will complement what is now being dropped by NASA (because of Nasa's focus on human exploration of the Moon and Mars).<br /><br />I am half serious when I say that I hope that Europe will make a new Hubble (as there is no plan in the US for a new Hubble). <br />

 

[5stone10]

Thankfully - this proposed effort only took several hundred beatings about the head !!<br /><br />I hope they can make it happen.

 

[vogon13]

I hesitate to bring this up, however....<br /><br />The administrative 'overhead' that comes out of NASA's budget every year is probably staggering (and I have no idea of what the actual figure is). And I'm sure Russia, and Europe and Japan and India and China also have 'high overhead'. Space exploration is expensive enough as it is. With all the burden duplicating overhead is inflicting on all the space programs around the world, is it possible the various governments might cooperate a little more than just what we have seen so far?<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[nacnud]

No, rather than the different goverments colaborate let the different institutions colaborate directly.

 

[yurkin]

That’s awesome, sort of a Galileo Mark II as opposed to JIMO. It’s definitely doable, but it’s a little too early to tell if this idea gets any traction or not. It took almost thirty for Cassini to get from first idea to dropping a probe on Titan so I guess there’s still plenty of time.<br /><br />Yg<br />There are plans for a new larger space telescope. Not just plans but funding and development as well.<br />http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/<br />

 

[yg1968]

Yurkin,<br /><br />I am aware of the James Webb telescope. but it doesn't seem like it will "trully" be a replacement for Hubble. First, it is an infra-red telescope that does not take images in the visual spectrum. Secondly, the telescope will only be operational from 5 to 10 years. It will not be serviced given that it will not be in earth's orbit.

 

[CalliArcale]

I thought it was going to be in Earth orbit, just not a near-Earth orbit? After all, why expend the delta-vee to break Earth orbit if you don't have to?<br /><br />Chandra is a good example of a non-servicable space telescope in Earth orbit. Its orbit is well beyond the reach of Shuttle. If I understand it correctly, this was to place it outside of the Van Allen Belts so that it gets less interferance in its x-ray observations. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[remcook]

no, it will go to Sun-Earth L2, where there is very little IR radiation (NGST is an infrared telescope and the Earth emits a lot of IR radiation). It does not cost a lot to go to L2. Don't have the numbers, but take a look at Genesis

 

[yurkin]

Just to be technical E-S L2 is an Earth orbit its just a solar orbit as well.<br /><br />Yg<br />JWST can see red, orange, yellow and green, but it is optimized for infra-red. With adaptive optics and other improvements future visible spectrum telescopes will be ground based.<br />