LA Times, Wash. Post, etc: Europa ho! For science, for neighbors, for…jobs?
NASA announced this week that its next big battleship-class solar system probe will head for Jupiter’s moons, and especially for Europa to check the odds it not only has an ocean under its ice, but that the ocean might be conceivably possibly just maybe an abode for life. Or for prebiotic chemistry anyway. Partnering on the project will be the European Space Agency, which will launch its own orbiter toward the Jovian system at the same time, in 2020. They are to be there six years later and send data for at least another three years. A meeting in DC last week cemented an agreement to coordinate the two missions.
Most striking to The Tracker is this sign of the times, from the Whittier Daily News. It is not far from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where critical portions of the big enterprise will gestate. Staffer Tania Chatila writes it under the hed: New JPL mission will provide jobs, discoveries. Note the ordinality of its expected achievements. She does gloss a bit through the actual mission, but nothing in the piece qualifies as an explanation of planetary science.
Other stories:
- Los Angeles Times – John Johnson Jr. : It’s all systems go for Europa ;
- Washington Post – Joel Achenbach: NASA Puts Money on Mission to One of Jupiter’s Moons ;
- BBC – Paul Rincon : Jupiter in space agencies’ sights ;
- Scientific American – John Matson: NASA and ESA headed back to Jupiter’s moons ; Actually, isn’t this a first to Jupiter for ESA?
- New Scientist – Rachel Courtland : Europa trumps Titan in bid for outer planet mission ; Money, she notes, has not yet been secured at either agency.
- Daily Mail (UK) Claire Bates : Destination Jupiter: NASA and ESA plan multi-billion dollar space mission to gas giant ;
- Aviation Week – Jefferson Morris : NASA, ESA Join On Jovian Moons Mission ; Perfectly sound job. But it reminds one to miss the axed Craig Covault.
Grist for the Mill: ESA Press Release ; NASA Press Release ; (essentially identical);
