It turns out that JPL has now set up a website on its Cryobot design effort
( http://fuego.jpl.nasa.gov ). It isn't nearly as detailed as I would have
hoped, but does contain some useful information (and very good pictorials).
==
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After looking over some of the plans on the NASA cryobot site 2 thoughts came to mind. One thing that Robert Crawley said...
"You can pretty much get one part for the same cost as a hundred"
Is there a public company that made the parts for these guys? If so would it be possible to buy the same
That should work. I will just need to present him
with a presentation of what we need, and what he will get out of it, and he
should go for it. But that certainly wont count as off the shelf parts.
Oh, and a more humorous note, I have done some
directional boring in my time. But it
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 9:42 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Latest News from the Astrobiology Magazine Licancabur Expedition Journal: Part TwoA team of scientists has traveled to the Andes mountains to
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Are we going to have this thing radio controlled or a cable/wire attached to
it?
From the CalTech glaciology website...
For electromagnetic waves with frequencies from 5 to 300 MHz the loss of
energy by absorption in ice is sufficiently small
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Shouldn't we include in our goals a cryobot and hydrobot that could test for
life in a place like Lake Vostok?
The folks from NSF/NASA are working on this. Its been an ongoing effort
for a decade or more. Serious scientists will scream very
On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
(By the way, the Cryobot does NOT generate hydraulic pressure when it melts
ice -- quite apart from the fact that any such pressure would be in every
direction anyway, remember that water ice is one of the very few substances
that SHRINKS when it
It is worth noting that according to:
http://helios.jpl.nasa.gov/%7Ebehar/AntWebSite/MainPage/documents/JPLAntIceProbe.pdf
Slide #26 of 48, that the Hot-water jet drilling required 480kw of power.
That is *not* a small amount of power (its approximately equal to 24 homes
drawing their full
I noticed that there was a date set for actually putting the Cryobot on
Europa, 2020. In my experience, group projects are rarely completed unless a
specific completion date is set for each phase of the work. Since I'm very
new to this group, I may have missed the date that was set for the
In geotechnical engineering we use what is called a piezocone:
http://www.tecnotest.it/Products/Soil%20Penetrometers/piezocone_description.htm
This device may or may not be helpful in working out some potential design
issues. Is real time data as the probe explores beneath the ice absolutely
Using a chemical reaction to melt through miles of ice won't work. The
chemical reaction to melt or dissociate water to clear a path to open water
will require thousands of tons or reactants, even lithium!
Maybe we should be thinking of a way to use Jupiter's magnetic field to
generate
Please tell me what is wrong with the name Icepick? Larry - Original Message - From: Gail Leatherwood Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2002 1:33 PM To: Europa Subject: Working Model I seem to have volunteered to help organize and circulate the ideas we've come up with. I'll start
In a message dated 10/26/2002 7:48:28 PM Alaskan Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
The safest, most accessible (easy hike from a road that is open for much of
the year) and thickest glacier in the lower 48 states is on Mt. Rainier,
less than 3 hours from downtown seattle.
Nothing is wrong with it. But I dont think we
are proposing making this thing fully operational on Europa just yet However,
we could simply add roman numerals to the end as we upgrade the design. And say
IcePIC VIII might be the guy that actually makes it to Europa.
Robert
Crawley
Nothing. However, I thinkit might be well to choose a name that specificallydifferentiates our current "off the shelf" experimental effort from the full-scale nuclear powered multimillion dollar years long project that actually goes to Europa with all the bells, whistles, lights, and sirens.
No one is actually stepping on my toes here. I am certainly open to a good name for our Europa probe. I liked Icepick because it denotes an easy-to-access image to the public of what our probe will do at Jupiter's moon. Proteus could also work in terms of naming another part of the craft, just
A few miles of light-transmitting
fiber spooled out behind the cryobot shouldn't weigh any more than the
proposed transmission "pucks". Also, if a metallic filament
were adjacent the optical line(s), it could be periodically heated to
reposition and de-stress itself in the event of ice
In easily accessible regions of Canada and the US are numerous glaciers with
access to their undersides. Further, the ice is thick, often dirty and
stratified with rocky inclusions and other debris. Plus, glaciers are
dynamic, with all sorts of internal stress and movement as they work their
Robert,
If I understand this correctly, lithium makes lithium hydroxide and hydrogen
after being exposed to water. Could there be a chemical way to revitalize
this process without adding tons of materials? Is anyone on this list a
chemical engineer?
Generally speaking in chemistry you are
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Reeve, Jack W. wrote:
A few miles of light-transmitting fiber spooled out behind the cryobot
shouldn't weigh any more than the proposed transmission pucks. Also, if a
metallic filament were adjacent the optical line(s), it could be
periodically heated to reposition and
I was trying to come up with a self-renewable chemical energy source. But
I'm a tad bit of my league on that one. I was even thinking along the lines
of using microbes to help the process. But littering Europa with dead
microbes probably isn't acceptable.
Robert Crawley
Elite Precision
I know this is essentially just brainstorming at this point, but...
A few miles of light-transmitting fiber... or radioisotopes, or various other things:
1. Where would we get such things?
2. Who in our group has the knowledge/skill, etc., to put them together and make them work?
Light
Greetings,
Forgive the intrusion but I wanted to introduce myself to your group.
My name is Joe and I am very interested in your project. Designs using
off the shelf parts are intriguing and doable without a lot of fuss and
I'd like to contribute.
I am currently trying to catch up on the log
A little additional thought would be to enshroud the data fibers with a
metallic outer wrap, then energize that for heat for repositioning and
distressing in the event of ice movement. Another potential advantage of a
light cable spooled out from the probe is it would give the probe purchase
Since we're brain storming...
When I was in the military we used white phosphorus grenades to melt down
large metal filing cabinets. One grenade would go through the whole cabinet
in a few moments. On a larger scale, could we control and direct this type
of energy to quickly
Actually, there is no Russian section (or American section, either) in
Antarctica. Under terms of the Antarctic treaty, it's been an international
regime reserved for scientific exploration. Under the terms of the treaty,
each nation is responsible for regulating its own citizens doing research
Optical fiber can be used to send information pulses in the form of
light from point a to point b. virtually all major communication on
the internet relies on a fiber backbone (or 2 or 3). It is possible to
get the equipment for something like this, but it is not all that cheap.
I'll ask some
How big is this thing supposed to be? Depending on the mass, crawling
back up a fire optic cable is almost guaranteed to break it. Fiber is
small and it does not have a lot of tensile strength.
Joe
On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 13:42, Reeve, Jack W. wrote:
A little additional thought would be to
I am assuming we are discussing a trial model here on Earth.
It'll be in a water environment, so its buoyancy could be made whatever you
want, but I'd say 30-40% of its weight in air. Also, the tether would have
considerable tensile strength via its metal sheath, not from the optical
fibers.
Yes, that should work nicely. Let's see... drop grenade on ice. Wait 30-45
minutes. Drop grenade #2 down the hole. Wait a few minutes before it gets to
the bottom. Wait another 30-45 minutes. Drop grenade #3... this might take a
little while. Now we need to figure out how to get down the 10-mile
What about some kind of kinetic energy system ... shooting a stream of small rocky
objects at the target site before breaking into orbit. No matter what we do, we are
going to have to transfer a lot of energy to the ice; kinetic energy is the one thing
we have an abundance of (maybe too much
I would expect that to be like pecking at the surface, and the more
efficient the projectile, the heavier it would have to be. Then it has to
get out of the way.
Robert Crawley
Elite Precision Fabricators, Inc.
Programming
(936) 449-6823
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
LOL - We're brainstorming right?
That's not exactly what I was thinking. This would not be a grenade simply
exploding in all directions, but a sustained white phosphorus charge.
The charge would be contained and directed to the sides of the vehicle,
super heating the head of the vehicle and
Again ... I am no rocket scientist! ;-)
-Original Message-
From: Robert Crawley [mailto:programming-epfi;txucom.net]
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 4:42 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: No power sources available
I would expect that to be like pecking at the surface, and the more
Of course the fuel does not have to be White Phosphorus. Maybe hypergolic
fuels would be better suited. It would be safer to store for such a long
trip. I just thought WP would be a good example because it will burn
anywhere, even in water.
-Original Message-
From: Robert Crawley
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Christlieb, Scott F. wrote:
One grenade would go through the whole cabinet
in a few moments. On a larger scale, could we control and direct this type
of energy to quickly clear a path for Icepick? It would be a fast way to the
bottom of the ice.
The problem is that
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Robert Crawley wrote:
Yes, that should work nicely. Let's see... drop grenade on ice. Wait 30-45
minutes. Drop grenade #2 down the hole. Wait a few minutes before it gets to
the bottom. Wait another 30-45 minutes. Drop grenade #3... this might take a
little while.
Rob,
10 miles is an estimate. Some say more, others say less. But considering the
radius of heat, and rate at which the ice gets sublimated into steam, it
should make a nice clean hole pretty damn fast. One of those, hey, ya'll
watch this kind of deals.
And about those brakes, I wonder if there's
We're talking about a model that can slowly cut through 500' of ice --
that's all. So, warm water jets, creating an envelope of warm water around
the model as it works through the ice, should be sufficient without any
significant danger of hydraulic pressure. So, we're decided: warm water
These grenades don't so much as create a blast, as just sit there and
generate a lot of heat. A lot like a flare. You can set one of these things
on the hood of a truck and it will quickly find its way to the ground. About
the only way to put it out, is to either let itself burn out or apply
In a message dated 10/28/2002 11:52:17 AM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Actually, there is no "Russian section" (or "American section", either) in
Antarctica. Under terms of the Antarctic treaty, it's been an international
regime reserved for scientific exploration. Under the
There are 25 glaciers on Rainier. Carbon, the thickest glacier on Rainier is
700', Nisqually is 400' thick. Carbon is much longer hike and would require
some technical climbing. Nisqually is flat, close and easy. What is the
minimum thickness for testing?
Leonardo DiFrancesco, M.S., P.E.
In a message dated 10/28/2002 12:59:45 PM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Yes, that should work nicely. Let's see... drop grenade on ice. Wait 30-45
minutes. Drop grenade #2 down the hole. Wait a few minutes before it gets to
the bottom. Wait another 30-45 minutes. Drop grenade
In a message dated 10/28/2002 2:03:22 PM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Of course the fuel does not have to be White Phosphorus. Maybe hypergolic
fuels would be better suited. It would be safer to store for such a long
trip. I just thought WP would be a good example because it
Also, are there plans to retrieve the device, either the model or the actual
one to Europa? The entire ice sheets moves at an average
of inches to a foot per year. Some places moving much faster or slower.
The surface can move much fasteron Rainier though, I
was hit by a TV-sized ice
In a message dated 10/28/2002 2:22:52 PM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I don't see what the point is of the IcePIC group attempting to
drop a probe 500' when NASA has already gone much further (though
they drilled the holes with non-probe machinery).
The point is to do it,
In a message dated 10/28/2002 3:34:43 PM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
There are 25 glaciers on Rainier. Carbon, the thickest glacier on Rainier is
700', Nisqually is 400' thick. Carbon is much longer hike and would require
some technical climbing. Nisqually is flat, close
In a message dated 10/28/2002 6:02:26 PM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Why not stack blocks of ice? It would be a lot simpler than hauling our gear out to some ice-bound wasteland.
Funny you should mention that. Joe Latrell, our newest victim here on the website, may have a
It's established. Rainier won't cut it. We don't need big chunks of ice
tearing down the mountan, as we're trudging up with a 100 pound model.
This is what we're looking for. If not this actual place, then something
quite similar.
http://www.escobosa.com/image.asp?CollectionID=7ImageID=57
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