As much as I want to test out some thermate, I think the water jets idea is
definitely going work. Needs a rotating head with a bit on the tip, so
either an electric motor, or have its spinning motion powered by the water
pump (which would last a lot longer), which sucks the water back in, heats
it up, and spits it back out.
A sticking point here is to create a rotary head that won't clog up with silt, dirt, rocks, and so forth. That's why we might need to design this without a rotary head at all, or have it internalized, that is, just enough to suck a little water in, where it is heated, and then forced out through jets again to continue the process.
A gallon of antifreeze would probably go a
really long way. Is there such a thing as non-toxic anti-freeze?
How about road salt? Road salt is a somewhat different chemical than ordinary table salt, and melts ice down to about -15 faranheit.
Heating the
water on Europa will need a radioactive power source, but we can probably
get away with batteries here. So you could probably get the thing to the
point that all you would have to do is switch out the power source (and
upgrade to rad hardened) and it would be ready to ship to Europa.
Now that, my friend, is a LONG way off. Still, 2015 is a long way off, and a lot of things can happen in 12 years. Who knows, but that something we come up with here, faced with the obstacles we are facing, won't actually be useful on Europa, in 2015?
-- JHB
The
biggest problem I can foresee is jets getting clogged. Which can probably
mostly be solved by coating the inside of the hoses with RainX and adding a
couple ounces of RedLine Water Wetter to the anti-freeze to break down the
water tension.
Robert Crawley
Elite Precision Fabricators, Inc.
Programming
(936) 449-6823
