MyKell

Europa seems like a very likely candidate for life to evolve. Does anyone know what NASA's plans for a mission to Europa are?

avalanche:ix

no need to insult europeans!

Shadowy Man

Europa Orbiter:

Jamie_L

Damn. I might have had a chance to work on that.

Jamie

Shadowy Man

Well, it'll be back. Remember that they've been proposing a Pluto mission for ages and I think they've finally been given a real budget.

Valentine Pontifex

Too be fair that mission never got beyond the most preliminary development. A lot of missions get that far and get scrapped no matter what Administration is in power.

A bit more emphasis as of late has been put on Mars. The Pluto mission as noted seems to be back on again.

BTW, Europa is not that likely a candidate for life IMHO. NASA will call anything evidence of life since that is the tactic it uses in order to try to get more funding. Merely having water does not life make and no evidence has even been suggested that even hints that Europa has life. I am skeptical in the extreme about life existing in Europa though I would love to be wrong. I think that Europa would be a very interesting world for an orbiter to go to based merely on geology.

=========

And a bit of news: The flight team for the Galileo spacecraft disbanded today (Friday) as their function is done. The probe's scientific data has been transmitted and it on course to Jupiter in September. It will not being doing any more science to very shortly before the end. The end being burned up in Jupiter's atmosphere to prevent it from ever colliding with Europa.

enigma555

Yes, the Pluto mission just got its funding approved by Dubya about a week or two ago. Launch is sheduled for 2006 with a 2015 arrival date.

Oxymoron

If NASA could get something to Europe and back in one piece that'd be a bit of a turn up for the books

(not funny, really).

MyKell

A couple of things:

Why is there a mission scheduled to Pluto in the first place? What is Nasa specifically looking for

When is NASA planning to send the first Manned-mission to Mars?

Why don't you think that Europa would have life? I mean it seems to have an atmosphere (that has some oxygen), water, and the complex organic molecules seem to be universally abundant

Abacus

Pluto is the only planet that a probe hasn't visited yet.

Nobody knows. Right now, I would say it is questionable if it'll happen in our lifetimes.

I think you're confusing Europa with Titan. Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has any significant atmosphere. Europa has no atmosphere, but it may have a liquid water ocean underneath its icy surface.