NASA was dealt a lucky hand when the White House proposed to set aside a casual $18.5 billion in the 2016 fiscal budget to fund various projects. One project in particular is a $30 million trip to Europa. No, that isn’t Europe’s weird cousin continent. It’s Jupiter’s smallest moon, which is about the size of Earth.
At first, you might be afraid — are we being replaced? Is there going to be an alien invasion? Have no fear, because NASA doesn’t have any proof of life. Yet.
Let me take you on a house tour or, rather, a moon tour. First, there’s about 62 miles of ocean that lie underneath a thick crust of ice. Since there’s this dense coating on the outside, all of the water is being contained. And where there’s water, there could be life.
There might be a huge hypothermia-adapted army of fish plotting our death right now. And rightly so. We’re the ones disrupting their lives, after all.
But, the “Europa Clipper” hopes not to disturb habitats that might be full of life. This space expedition just wants to see if there are the necessary elements for sustaining life, like organic compounds.
Unfortunately, Jupiter has this super cool magnetic field that could be deadly for a spacecraft. Also, another bummer is this operation won’t be ready for takeoff until the next decade or so. See y’all in 2030, folks.
Clearly, it’s all very iffy as to whether this will even happen, but I’d bet a thousand dollars that if Miss Frizzle and her pet lizard knew about Europa, they’d be doing some weird jig right about now.
Coincidentally, the spacecraft will have similar dimensions to a school bus, about 18 feet long. All I can picture is a wide-eyed 40-year-old version of myself watching a 3D adventure on the magic school bus. I’m pumped to see that movie when it ?(hopefully) comes out.
On the other, not-so-comical hand of this story is the money. We live in a world where there isn’t enough money, so why are we throwing it away at another, quite possibly inhabitable world?
Directly looking at the White House’s 2016 budget request, there are some striking statistics that show where the money is being put. The Environmental Protection Agency is set to receive $8.6 billion, less than half of what NASA is ?receiving.
Where the White House’s priorities lie is clear. More money is being invested into an unknown environment than to our very own, one that quite frankly needs all of the funding it can get.
The report’s reasoning for this is because it is necessary to strengthen space security. Straight from the White House website, it can be seen that “the Budget also supports the development of capabilities to defend and enhance the resilience of these space systems. These capabilities help deter and defeat interference with, and attacks on, U.S. space systems.”
This statement is ?exceedingly vague.
Who is going to attack? I understand the U.S. has the fundamental purpose to aid in scientific discoveries, etc. But it’s clear there is no direction where exactly our government wants to spend the money.
The bottom line is, there is no reason to grant so much money to an organization that is funding a job that’s still in the planning stages.
jlkarl@indiana.edu
