[vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]The White House is requesting a $18.58B boost to NASA in their new budget proposal. Included within this is funding for the exploration of one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, the official mission being to “understand habitability; the ingredients for life.”
This, from Discovery News via the following link:
NASA’s Kepler Mission is to discover “earth-like” planets orbiting other stars, identifying those considered to be in the “habitable zone” for potentially supporting life as we know it.
But what makes Europa fascinating is that it’s on our doorstep, relatively speaking.
The scientists stress the Europa mission is not to be a “life hunting” mission because that would require a “technological feat that is currently out of our scope.”
Basically, there’s an ice layer that needs to be cut through to get to the rich oceans of Europa.
Still, if a mission such as this delivers concrete data indicating a true probability that life could exist, one would have to imagine this might motivate Washington to fund an initiative to mount a larger operation with the intent to discover life out there.
What a bold challenge it would be if the White House charged NASA with the following objective: Discover life on another celestial body.
There is a much different space race happening right now, with multiple governments and institutions out there all reaching out into the heavens, all developing technology advances to explore further and discover more on behalf of their respective countries.
What would it mean to the world to be the first country to discover life in outer space?
Just a short time ago, our solar system seemed a heck of a lot smaller and it was still vast. Today, we’re learning about new planets beyond Pluto, and planets in habitable zones beyond that.
So much on earth is a fight for resources, for territory, for ideology.
But somewhere “out there” are resources beyond our imagination, worlds we can colonize and survive on, and plenty of room for everyone to live as they see fit.
Right now, it all seems so far away, and yet, those faraway places seem so much closer today as our technology advances.
NASA’s New Horizons probe has just returned the first new images of Pluto, and its orbiting moon, Charon. Its mission is to explore these and Pluto’s other moons, Nix and Hydra, as well as the asteroid field these reside in, the Kuiper Belt. From there, the probe will continue to fly out into deep space, collecting data all along the way.
These are thrilling times for space exploration. We are going further than we’ve ever gone before. There are more and more discoveries happening faster and faster every day.
It’s only a matter of time before life is found on another planet. It probably won’t have evolved intelligence. It may be as small as a microbe or a bacteria. But this minuscule discovery will have a monumental impact on us as human beings. It will have greater significance than “man” first landing on the moon. It will change everything. In my opinion, for the better.
Who is going to be the first?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]