>>>Any crewed expedition to Europa would be a six-year round trip... so don't
forget to include an engineer to deal with *six years* of accumulated
Mir-style gremlins, and a medic/psychologist.
Well, by the time we could send an actual freakin' submarine to Europa, I'd expect
we'd have established at least a semipermanent staging base within the ice crust
itself, deep enough to shielf from Jupiter's radiation, but not so deep that ice
pressures aren't a constant danger of crushing said base. There'd have to be a fairly
large staff onhand to support sub and research operations -- I guess that didn't go
without saying (although I assumed it did). It'd be interesting tho to see designs for
a self-contained sub that could navigate the distance from Earth to Europa under its
own power, bore through the ice, and then swim around underneat for months on end
doing fun research type stuff...
Jayme Lynn Blaschke
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