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Projects: Europa Mission Campaign

A Letter from the Executive Director

Dear Members and Supporters,

There may be life out there beyond our pale blue planet...life with no connection to us, life with an ancient history of its own, life that -- if discovered -- would rewrite natural history as we know it.

That life may even be right here in our solar system. Close enough for us to reach, to examine, to awe us, to view in its natural environment, and to give our science a massive push forward.

I’m speaking of the tantalizing Jovian moon Europa. In a solar system full of astonishing planets and their moons, Europa stands out. Scientists believe that beneath its unique frozen and cracked surface, there may exist an enormous ocean of liquid water, perhaps twice as much as in all of Earth’s oceans.

The evidence for this -- knowledge gained during past missions, such as the twin Voyager probes and the Galileo orbiter -- is so compelling that just two years ago, the National Research Council’s Decadal Study (a project of the U.S. National Academy of Science) deemed a mission to explore Europa to be of the highest scientific priority.

Yet today, there is no mission going to Europa.

That’s a terrible omission, which is why The Planetary Society is now launching our international Explore Europa Campaign -- a full-bore effort to convince the world’s space agencies to immediately unite and commit to sending a spacecraft to this intriguing world.

Exploring Europa will be among the most challenging missions ever attempted, taxing to the limit even the most experienced space agency. Which means it may be best conducted -- and perhaps only conducted -- if the spacefaring nations of Earth work together.

Who better to advance that international cooperation in the search for non-terrestrial life than The Planetary Society and its Members, people with the clout and the expertise to demand -- and get -- action on a Europa mission?

So, I’m writing you today to tell you about this urgent Campaign -- to brief you on all the reasons why we think a mission to Europa is exceptionally important, and to explain exactly what the Society plans to do to launch our world on a quest that could potentially alter natural history.

I’m also hoping to enlist you directly in the Explore Europa Campaign. Today, as we launch this effort, we urgently need your endorsement, partnership and support. So, I’m asking you to make a special contribution aimed at getting the Campaign up to full speed as quickly as possible.

The Planetary Society, with Members like you, is not content to sit back and wait for government bureaucracies worldwide to act. We’re seizing the opportunity to move forward now.

So today we’ve created the International Europa Task Force. We’ll bring together the most talented scientists and engineers -- many of whom are already working to convince space agencies of the importance of a Europa mission -- who can lay out the best possible way to explore this Jovian moon. With your help, we’ll start immediately.

The first step in our Explore Europa Campaign will be to convince government and space agency leaders worldwide of the value -- and the necessity -- of a mission to Europa. We’ll meet with space program leaders in the U.S. and other spacefaring nations that might play a role.

Armed with facts, figures, and recommendations from Earth’s leading planetary scientists and engineers, we’ll show them that a mission to Europa might well be among humankind’s most glorious missions of exploration.

Second, we will use our international reputation and recognized clout to engage working scientists and engineers worldwide, harnessing their knowledge, expertise and desire for a Europa mission. Putting them to work will make it happen.

The Society is perfectly positioned to bring together the best space program managers, scientists and engineers -- the people with real-world experience -- to focus on Europa exploration. We’ll give these experts a forum for sharing ideas…weighing each agency’s capabilities…reconsidering budgets…working trade-offs among launch vehicles, orbits and payloads…and hammering out a plan that can create a “do-able” mission of exploration to Europa.

Backed by high-level Members like you, The Planetary Society is the only organization that can even consider a project of this scope. In fact, our decades of work and tremendous successes initiating new missions mean that no one is better positioned to pull off such a feat than the Society.

In a minute, I’ll tell you more about our Explore Europa Campaign, and your role in it. First, I need to explain exactly why there is no Europa mission on the space agencies’ drawing boards.

It starts with a little secret that NASA has been hoping no one would notice. You see, the lack of any missions planned for Europa is not the result of a simple oversight, or even a principled disagreement about space agency priorities. No, this is a case of NASA ignoring the warnings of the Society and others who were deeply concerned that the space agency was pinning all its hopes on one overly ambitious, unrealistic mission. Read on.

You see, two years ago -- just about the same time that the U.S. National Research Council was recommending Europa as a top priority for exploration -- NASA was creating a “nuclear systems initiative” that is now called Project Prometheus. The purpose: to develop nuclear technologies for planetary exploration.

That was certainly understandable, for it has long been clear that extensive and rapid exploration of the outer solar system (not to mention human visits to Mars and other worlds) will only be possible with innovative new energy and propulsion systems.

So NASA’s Project Prometheus was begun...and the very first mission selected for nuclear-electric propulsion was the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO). Once JIMO was scheduled, all work on a conventional mission to Europa was cancelled. Because only this one technology had been developed to explore the outer solar system, we supported Prometheus. But we also warned that it was a serious mistake to tie all plans for exploring Europa to this single project.

And, as we feared, JIMO did not go forward. In fact, it never really got off the ground before budget constraints and administrative changes at NASA caused it to be effectively cancelled. With JIMO now all-but-dead, there is still no Europa mission of any kind.

Worse, no missions are planned by the European Space Agency, Japan, Russia, or anyone else.

It’s absurd. Space scientists worldwide have agreed that Europa is one of our best chances for finding non-terrestrial life, and it deserves to be one of the highest priorities for exploration.

Here’s why: If all our observations are correct, and we’re right in how we’re reading the data, then several kilometers beneath Europa’s icy surface exist huge reservoirs of liquid water...great, vast oceans kept above freezing by the immense tidal forces exerted on the small world by the enormity of nearby Jupiter and smaller tugs from Jupiter’s other moons.

Where there’s liquid water, life might exist…life very different from what we’re used to here on Earth, but life nonetheless. On Europa, what we’d likely find would be similar to what we call “extremophiles” -- forms of life that thrive in environments that seem to us to be impossible.

There are, for example, bacteria that make their homes in the boiling water of natural hot springs and volcanic vents. We’ve found creatures that can only live in intensely salty water. The very deepest pits of our oceans -- where water pressures are unimaginably extreme -- have complete thriving ecosystems in them.

Besides water, life requires energy. On Earth, that starts with sunlight, something in short supply on Europa. But even here there are exceptions. Life exists in the cold, lightless conditions at the bottoms of our oceans, living off the energy from volcanic vents, and also in deep caves and solid rock far below the surface. Perhaps the same conditions exist on Europa, as well.

Which means that by every measure we know, these oceans could be vast breeding grounds for life. Imagine what that would mean.

There’s only one way we can answer the question of life on Europa -- and the countless other questions scientists have about its utterly unique geology: we must explore it directly. Someone’s got to take the initiative and make this happen.

That’s where the Society’s Explore Europa Campaign comes in -- and where you can play a huge role. Because as you well know, you and your fellow key Members are instrumental in helping the Society shape space exploration.

Of course, Europa is hard to reach. It will take a powerful launch vehicle to get there. And exploring icy, radiation-bathed Europa requires a sophisticated, complex, and extremely capable spacecraft. While an orbiter could do part of the work, most scientists agree that a lander -- an inherently more complex and danger-fraught mission -- would be far better. The cost of such a mission will, of course, be extremely high.

So high, indeed, that it would be difficult for NASA to conduct a mission of this scope on its own. And despite the tremendous success ESA has enjoyed with Huygens, Mars Express and Rosetta, they, too, are unwilling to shoulder the entire burden of a Europa mission.

Which means a mission to Europa absolutely must be an international effort, bringing together the human and financial resources of two or more of the world’s space agencies. The wonderful Cassini/Huygens mission is a good model to follow.

Today, all the pieces needed for a Europa mission already exist. They just need to be pulled together. NASA knows how to build successful exploratory probes. Both Europe and Russia have launch vehicles that could do the job right now. Leading officials at the European Space Agency have expressed interest in Europa. The Chinese and Japanese space agencies may also want to participate.

So all the components of the mission are ready. It’s up to us to put them together, something The Planetary Society has the international connections, the credibility, the expertise and the perseverance to do. Remember, we link together not only thousands upon thousands of knowledgeable citizens committed to exploration, but also a veritable “Who’s Who” of space scientists and engineers.

Plus, we have a 25-year history of successes in political advocacy, such as success in saving the Pluto mission, which is finally set for launch this year, thanks in part to Members like you. Indeed, the Society has a 25-year history of uniting experts from all over the world to shape space exploration.

But the most powerful weapon we have in our arsenal is you. Please help us conduct this crucial, international Explore Europa Campaign by making a generous contribution to the Society to help launch and carry out this pivotal mission.

It may well be that only The Planetary Society can pull this off. We have the international connections, credibility and commitment to make this happen. And only The Planetary Society has the support and backing of thousands of far-sighted people like you.

Getting Europa back on the agenda -- getting a thrilling new mission into development -- is going to take a lot of very hard work. But we at the Society are confident we can do it, if every Society Member helps shoulder part of the burden. Please, stand with us on this crucial Campaign, and together, we’ll make history.

Sincerely,

Louis Friedman
Executive Director

P.S. Exploring Europa is one of the most important and urgent goals for all the spacefaring nations. It’s time for someone to step up and make a Europa mission happen. Please help the Society be that “someone” by supporting our Explore Europa Campaign today. Thank you.