November 1st Project Icepick update

[RomeoRaven]

Objective:
       Come up with a radio controlled working model, that can bore 500'
into an ice sheet, and leave a trail of 5 transponders at intervals of 100'
feet.
       The principle purpose is not to develop new technology, but to use
extremely cheap, off the shelf parts to make a publicity boost for the Europa
project. The launch and boring would be recorded on video camera to present
to Natl. Geographic, Science, NASA, newspapers, government, and any other
interested group, in conjunction with a strong written presentation of what
would be possible with a true Icepick, on Europa



Deadline 1: Oct. 28 2002
Come up with name
Progress - Completed
Icepick

Deadline 2: November 15, 2002
Come up with a list of 7-10 people who can participate time/energy/money to this project, and post it on the internet.

Progress as of Oct. 31
- Website domain name <www.europa-icepick.org> proposed by Joe Latrell. 500mb space
- Information collection and organization
Gail Leatherwood and Dennis Frye
- Project coordinator
John Byrne
- Publicist (Grant proposals and public relations)
Gary McMurtry
- Technical engineers, science advisors, general brainiacs
Bruce Moomaw
Larry Klaes
Joe Latrell
Julie Edwards
Mickey Schmidt
Robert Crawley
Scott Christlieb
Jack Reeve
Ray Bradbury
Dr. Everett (Skip) Carter
Gary McMurtry
Marcus Robertsson

*If I have missed any current participants on this list don't worry, and keep the info coming. This is a work in progress. From what I have gathered so far we have a very diverse group of expertise and interest. More than what the US/German V-2 project had when it started as John Byrne pointed out. When we get the full list of the skills we have available we will start breaking the project down into groups then.


Deadline 3: December 1, 2002
Come up with a rough sketch, that we can break down and assign groups to work on each part.
Progress
Joe Latrell's 'napkin drawing' Icepick iA
<http://www.beyond-earth.com/proteus/proteus_0_0_1.pdf>
is the first of many such sketches which we must do. The process of sketching, erasing, and resketching will take up several weeks of haggling. Once we figure out our preliminary sketches, we can make a nice sketch, and really come up with a working model, on paper. We can also use that sketch for presentation purposes

Marcus Robertsson Icepick iiA
http://www.cs.umu.se/~fys98mrn/napkin_design2.bmp



Final Testing location has been determined to be Colorado.
       From finding out where each person is from we have all agreed that the final testing location will be in Colorado since it has all the necessary environment we need and a central location to most of the major players in the actual building phase including Mickey Schmidt (CO), Joe Latrell (CO), Scott Christlieb (ND), Gail Leatherwood (NV), Jack Reeve (TX)?, Robert Crawley (TX), Skip Carter (CA), and Bruce Moomaw (CA)

       *We'll do the underwater probe when it comes time in a much warmer place like Hawaii or Florida =)

       We have also decide it is best to wait until we have a working model to do any kind of publicity for obvious reasons. a C. Y. A.  policy.  

       More updates to come as we are working on them. John is trying to develop a Progress Journal to keep tabs on everything instead of everyone having to go through the probably thousands of emails from the last few years. Also we will start adding these heading titles to the bottom of our emails to get in the habit and make everything much easier to organize.

Heating and Power (because right now they are so interrelated)
Communication and Control (includes transponders)
Casing design and dimensions ('napkin drawings')
Preliminary experiments and Locations (such as the culverts and ice block suggestions)
Future contacts or sponsors
Future Europa design information (so we keep this area going, but not get in the way of the current design phase, this includes astrobiology, underwater vehicle info, power sources such as antimatter and plutonium, general space news)


-- Dennis Frye