Manned mission to the Jovian system?

Cecil

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Cecil
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Oct 7, 2002
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All this discussion about a manned Mars mission has me thinking about other possibilities. What about sending humans to the moons of Jupiter?

There are 4 mini-planets within a few days of each other. Europa has an ocean of liquid water, (do we know this for sure?) and Ganymede and Callisto have large amounts of ice. Getting water and hydrogen propellant would not be much of a problem. The gravity on all 4 moons is about the same as Earth's moon, ~0.15g. This makes it more fuel efficient to lift propellant from Europa than from Earth.

The main concern is radiation. The 2 year travel time means we'd need some sort of shielding on the ship, and we'd need shielding on the base to protect against the Van Allen belts around Jupiter.

But the view would be amazing. From Europa, the second closest moon, Jupiter is 12 degrees in diameter, wider than your fist at arm's length.

Guesses on how long it's going to take until we go? I figure about 100 years.
 
We'll get there eventually (I hope). However, with today's level of technology, the transit time is prohibitous.
 
I'LL GO! PICK ME! PICK ME!

Seriously, even if it was a one-way trip, I'd go, just to see that world with my own eyes. To be entombed in Jovian orbit...wow.

!*!&$^#$ing spaceship had d*mn well better have a big window...

did
 
diddidit said:
I'LL GO! PICK ME! PICK ME!

Seriously, even if it was a one-way trip, I'd go, just to see that world with my own eyes. To be entombed in Jovian orbit...wow.

!*!&$^#$ing spaceship had d*mn well better have a big window...

did
Click to expand...
All right, you can come with me.
 
Cecil said:
All this discussion about a manned Mars mission has me thinking about other possibilities. What about sending humans to the moons of Jupiter?

There are 4 mini-planets within a few days of each other. Europa has an ocean of liquid water, (do we know this for sure?) and Ganymede and Callisto have large amounts of ice. Getting water and hydrogen propellant would not be much of a problem. The gravity on all 4 moons is about the same as Earth's moon, ~0.15g. This makes it more fuel efficient to lift propellant from Europa than from Earth.

The main concern is radiation. The 2 year travel time means we'd need some sort of shielding on the ship, and we'd need shielding on the base to protect against the Van Allen belts around Jupiter.

But the view would be amazing. From Europa, the second closest moon, Jupiter is 12 degrees in diameter, wider than your fist at arm's length.

Guesses on how long it's going to take until we go? I figure about 100 years.
Click to expand...

Yes it would be great going to the moons of Jupiter! Much more interesting than mars. But Jupiter is a horrendous distance away. In 150 years perhaps.
 
If at all possible, we should find a way to convert the entire mass of Jupiter into something which will enable us to test String Theory...

(Who really gives a crap about Jupiter anyway...)
 
Sure we could, and we would also find a black monolith orbiting Io.

I bet we could get the right tech in 10 to 20 years or perhaps even less, if we had the politicall will to do it.

Radiation insulation, power plant, life support system, crew quarters... All of this would not be radically different from what's currently used on a nuclear sub. Get a nuclear sub on orbit, give it a central rotating section for "artificial gravity", a supply of unmanned and remotely-controlled probes, a couple of landing vehicles, a propulsion engine (perhaps ion drive), and the propper sensor array. Here's our long-range exploration vessel.

OK, its not that easy, but it's nothing that would take 100 years to be built.
 
Correa Neto said:
Sure we could, and we would also find a black monolith orbiting Io.

I bet we could get the right tech in 10 to 20 years or perhaps even less, if we had the politicall will to do it.

Radiation insulation, power plant, life support system, crew quarters... All of this would not be radically different from what's currently used on a nuclear sub. Get a nuclear sub on orbit, give it a central rotating section for "artificial gravity", a supply of unmanned and remotely-controlled probes, a couple of landing vehicles, a propulsion engine (perhaps ion drive), and the propper sensor array. Here's our long-range exploration vessel.

OK, its not that easy, but it's nothing that would take 100 years to be built.
Click to expand...

Nah you're talking about 150 years.
 
50 years, with the proper focus and emphasis, and we could have the technology, no doubt in my mind. Radiation shielding used in modern nuke subs would be comparable, minimal artificial gravity (it needed be 1g. .3G would be sufficient to prevent or slow bone/muscle loss. The BIG thing that NASA/EU, and (most importantly) the private sector should be working on is PROPULSION. The rest is actually the easy stuff, becase we already have a lot of the tech for the rest of the needs (shielding, grav, habitation, etc).
 
Correa Neto said:
All of this would not be radically different from what's currently used on a nuclear sub. Get a nuclear sub on orbit, give it a central rotating section for "artificial gravity", a supply of unmanned and remotely-controlled probes, a couple of landing vehicles, a propulsion engine (perhaps ion drive), and the propper sensor array. Here's our long-range exploration vessel.
Click to expand...

Then all you'd need is to give it a Wave Motion Gun and we'd be set.
 
Darwin'sGoat said:


Then all you'd need is to give it a Wave Motion Gun and we'd be set.
Click to expand...

Ah, Starblazers... Brings back memories from my childhood and middle-teens... Well, the Yamato may be a little too rusty by now and with a few holes to be of any practical use...

Back on track, the only use I see nowdays for the ISS is as a test bed for life-support systems to be used long-term manned missions. Propulsion is the hardest technical objective to be achieved, as someone else wrote before.
 
The bigest obstacle isn't a technical one - it the financial one. If going to Mars would be expensive, going to Jupiter would be vastly more so. Until we find a cheaper way to put stuff into orbit, maned missions to other planets will remain financially unfeasible. Space elevator maybe?
 
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