http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/moons/images/PIA07799-br500.jpg

Encelados, moon of Titan has it all:

water
heat
ice

and life can exists there as bacteria for sure.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/images/inset-sat_enceladus-large.jpg

Encelados has an atmosphere, as deteced by Cassini's probe magnetometer.

Why all the talk on Titan when we need to focus on drilling that ice on Encelados? :shrug:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA06209_modest.jpg

id love to find out.

Those "tiger stripes" on the south pole could be tensions between ice creating opportunity for water release.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/moons/images/PIA07799-br500.jpg

Encelados, moon of Titan has it all:

water
heat
ice

and life can exists there as bacteria for sure.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/images/inset-sat_enceladus-large.jpg

Encelados has an atmosphere, as deteced by Cassini's probe magnetometer.

Why all the talk on Titan when we need to focus on drilling that ice on Encelados? :shrug:

Easy way to find out if there is an ocean underneath all that ice is to blast a hole with 1 megaton warhead and start fishing.

Easy way to find out if there is an ocean underneath all that ice is to blast a hole with 1 megaton warhead and start fishing.

that would be barbaric. There is a lake Vostok underneath the Antarctica ice shelf in the southeast. This lake lies 5km beneath the surface of the ice, the hole made by humans is 100m away from reaching the end of the lake...well they are not going further because they are afraid to contaminate the lake with already clean procedure, and you here are suggesting to blast it all.

And what if there are indeed intelligent life out there? what are we now but the aliens painted by us a horror full creatures in movies.

that would be barbaric. There is a lake Vostok underneath the Antarctica ice shelf in the southeast. This lake lies 5km beneath the surface of the ice, the hole made by humans is 100m away from reaching the end of the lake...well they are not going further because they are afraid to contaminate the lake with already clean procedure, and you here are suggesting to blast it all.

And what if there are indeed intelligent life out there? what are we now but the aliens painted by us a horror full creatures in movies.

If you were an alien with an advanced technology that traveled from a nearby solar system and landed somewhere on planet Earth 100 million years ago, guess who your welcoming party would be? Yep. Probably a bunch of 10 ton hungry T-Rexes looking forward to the first handshake.

If you were an alien with an advanced technology that traveled from a nearby solar system and landed somewhere on planet Earth 100 million years ago, guess who your welcoming party would be? Yep. Probably a bunch of 10 ton hungry T-Rexes looking forward to the first handshake.

more like a teethshake (sciforums encyclopedia)

few questions i would like to ask.
what is the thickness of ice on the encelados ???
because if its something like 5km we would need few megaton bombs one after another because blast causes to split heat or energy into different directions but not much into the deepness.
second whats the pemperature on the top of the encelados coz if its something -150 dont know what type of robot could even survive this cold.

few questions i would like to ask.
what is the thickness of ice on the encelados ???
because if its something like 5km we would need few megaton bombs one after another because blast causes to split heat or energy into different directions but not much into the deepness.
second whats the pemperature on the top of the encelados coz if its something -150 dont know what type of robot could even survive this cold.

as I said earlier scientists/engineers do not employ militaristic ways.
Here on Earth the closest thing to Europa is an under-ice lake Vostok in Antarctica...well no one blew it up to get to the lake...we drilled it carefully with ethanol to keep the hole from freezing again and than once there was only 200 meters left, we left it alone because the scientific team was afraid of contaminating the lake...the legendary million age isolated environment.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mstuding/lake_vostok_cartoon_low.jpg

Same thing with Encelados...the only thing to do is to drill it.

Now they dont use military weapons but lets say in cooming 50years or later attemps will appear knowing that somekind meteor is headind on the earth side and is possibility that it might hit us in something about 2025-2050 dont remember all the facts about this.So if this would to happen there will be possibility of weapons use.

and to your topic again lets say they will send robot how long robot could drill knowing that it needs a lot of energy wich only could be gotten from sun.Example would be mars rovers wich survived for more than year but it only drove something like 5kms :) and we here speaking about drilling ice without sun energy and in difficult climate.
It mitght be possible but not now. :)

Now they dont use military weapons but lets say in cooming 50years or later attemps will appear knowing that somekind meteor is headind on the earth side and is possibility that it might hit us in something about 2025-2050 dont remember all the facts about this.So if this would to happen there will be possibility of weapons use.

and to your topic again lets say they will send robot how long robot could drill knowing that it needs a lot of energy wich only could be gotten from sun.Example would be mars rovers wich survived for more than year but it only drove something like 5kms :) and we here speaking about drilling ice without sun energy and in difficult climate.
It mitght be possible but not now. :)

There are other ways. One can have an in-situ utilization fuel generator, which will use ice on Encelados and melt it to water, than electrolysis until hydrogen and oxygen and there we have fuel. Or we can use the obvious energy source...geothermal or even the enormous gravity of JuPiter to somehow harness that energy and use it for electricity to drill. Or we can have a nuclear to electricity generator on the surface and suPPly electricity via cable that trails behind the drilling mechanism while it drills down. Energy of the sun via solar cells? yeah right...it will be useless there.

I like chicken Encelados (with the green sauce, not the red).

thats what im saying Dragon now its immposible in near future it will be because it takes millions of $$$ for such projects and they have to be invented.

I like chicken Encelados (with the green sauce, not the red).

Green sauce is the shiz-nit!

Why all the talk on Titan when we need to focus on drilling that ice on Encelados?

Because it is easier (and thus, a higher probability of a successful mission) to land something on a surface than to drill through kilometers of ice.

I read about Lake Vostok in National Geographic. Have they drilled in it yet? I thought the Jet Propulsion Lab was working on a plan using a cryobot. I don't see how it wouldn't contaminate the lake though??
Anyone know?

I read about Lake Vostok .... Jet Propulsion Lab was working on a plan using a cryobot...
________ _____________ ________ _____________
| |^^^| | | |^^^| |
| ice | | | | | | |
| | |<-refrozen | | | | |
| |___| | | |___| |
| | _ |<-water | | | | |
| |( )| | | | _ | |
| || || | | |( )| |
| || ||<-cryobot | | || || |
| |(_)| | | || || <-cryobot |
| |___| | | |(_)| |
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ / ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| lake | | / |
|_ | |_ |<> <-hydrobot |
| \_____ vents | | \_____ |
| \___ __/| | \___ __/|
| bedrock \_()__()/ | | \_()__()/ |
|_______________________| |_______________________|

http://nai.nasa.gov/news_stories/news_detail.cfm?ID=37

Interesting dragon. What happens to the melted ice that is left behind the bot? Won't it just refeeze itself making the bot stuck at whatever level it gets through to? If the ice is that thick there then how will it ever get a signal through that much ice?

Interesting dragon. What happens to the melted ice that is left behind the bot? Won't it just refeeze itself making the bot stuck at whatever level it gets through to? If the ice is that thick there then how will it ever get a signal through that much ice?

I am sure the bot is automated A.I...just like Spirit and Opportunity rover designed by Jpl on Mars are automated, so is this cryobot automated.

Yes the thing refreezes, making it easier for contamination to not occur, however the cryobot melts that ice once more

Yeah, the cryobot is not made to return. But if it has oil in it, won't that contaminate the lake?

Yeah, the cryobot is not made to return. But if it has oil in it, won't that contaminate the lake?

the cryobot is made so it returns with a sample, it extracts the sample mechanically in a sealed container. Only mechanical parts are exposed, only mechanical and heat energy is given out to the environment. No need for oil.

How does it make its way back up through the 20 miles of ice once the hole it came down freezes up?

How does it make its way back up through the 20 miles of ice once the hole it came down freezes up?

It drills and melts the ice a bit and displaces that melted ice down whereas itself moves up.

What makes it move upward? I can understand that gravity will let it go down without a problem but trying to come back up the way you suggest would be rather difficult without something on it to make it move.

What makes it move upward? I can understand that gravity will let it go down without a problem but trying to come back up the way you suggest would be rather difficult without something on it to make it move.

ok than imagine this...you have a screw and it has to be screwed :p lol .... on a ceiling...the reason this screw will move up is because when it twists it uses the groves to move itself up. Same thing with snow...it is melted until the cryobot can screw itself up and because it is twisting it will lift itself up through snow.

ok than imagine this...you have a screw and it has to be screwed :p lol .... on a ceiling...the reason this screw will move up is because when it twists it uses the groves to move itself up. Same thing with snow...it is melted until the cryobot can screw itself up and because it is twisting it will lift itself up through snow.

So its a screwed up piece of work then?

So its a screwed up piece of work then?

:mad:

:mad:

:mad:

Cheer up, I was only kidding! :p