Getting To Enceladus and Europa Under Tough NASA Budget

Getting to Enceladus is cool. However, it's not yet possible because there isn't enough budget for it. How can we make missions like that happen despite the budget limitations? Finding out the answers with Dr Manasvi Lingam.
👉 Manasvi Lingam's Google Scholar Page:
scholar.google.com/citations?...
🦄 Support us on Patreon:
/ universetoday
📚 Suggest books in the book club:
/ universe-today-book-club
00:00 Intro
02:17 Why Enceladus
03:46 How can NASA cut costs
08:24 Mission profile
15:06 The science
24:23 Alternative approaches
31:21 Practical demonstration
37:44 Out of the box ideas
52:57 Current obsessions
58:41 Final thoughts
📰 EMAIL NEWSLETTER
Read by 70,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads.
Subscribe for Free: universetoday.com/newsletter
🎧 PODCASTS
Universe Today: universetoday.fireside.fm/
Astronomy Cast: www.astronomycast.com/
🤳 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA
Mastodon: astrodon.social/@fcain
Twitter: / fcain
Twitter: / universetoday
Facebook: / universetoday
Instagram: / universetoday
📩 CONTACT FRASER
[e-mail]
⚖️ LICENSE
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
You are free to use my work for any purpose you like, just mention me as the source and link back to this video.

[@billionsandbillionsofstars]

Fraser, you’re a treasure to us all. Your enthusiasm is absolutely contagious. We’re all lucky to have you. You’re the only science communicator on KZbin who takes the time to do a Q&A with the viewers. Other science communicators don’t even want to answer any questions in the comments, let alone do a weekly Q&A. I’ve unsubscribed from almost every channel except for yours and a handful of others. Please, never retire because we’ll lose our very own “scientist”. ❤

[@XJapa1n09]

I absolutely love these interviews Frazer, thank you! The best part is that I never have to worry if you’re gonna ask the questions I would ask! I watch them multiple times because they’re just so dense. If you ever wonder if you’re appreciated, you shouldn’t! You have no idea who I am but you’re one of my favorite people.

[@ZobtheWise]

I am impressed with Dr Lingam. One of the best interviewees. Broad, deep, logical, precise. Respect! Thanks Fraser for this brilliant interview!

[@yoseidman4166]

This is why I joined Fraser's Patreon. Incredible info that is serious and presented by the researchers themselves. Thank you Fraser as always and Dr Lingam for joining.

[@anandian]

Under that layer of ice, is a deep layer of Enchiladas, hence the name Enceladus... It's the only conclusion one can reach with such a name.

[@prehistoricbody]

Love everything about this. I have an Enceladus question for your Q&A… how does the significantly lower than earth gravity affect how water behaves? A much deeper ocean but under lower gravity must change how it behaves. How might this affect the prospects for life, and what kind of life we could anticipate there?

[@garyswift9347]

Man, I've been reading your work since before you did videos, though I didn't know who you were till later. Then you started video and I feel like I've followed you on this amazing journey about cool stuff for so many years. Thanks a lot for sharing all these years of discovery with me.

[@TNM001]

nice interview. its nice to have ppl who not only like to explore fringe ideas but can also underpin them with math. super valuable.

[@dnocturn84]

You got me with "there is even Lagrange point papers". A perfect match indeed.

[@rhoddryice5412]

I need to wait. I’ll be watching this in the morning.

[@steverafferty4114]

I was planning on an early night, but this looks so good I need to watch it now.

[@lyledal]

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Dr. Lingam! He has SO many amazing ideas! I'll certainly be going to read his papers. Thanks, Fraser! Wait..what? Lagrange Points??

[@BitcoinMeister]

Fraser is correct about visiting this guy's Google scholar page! He is insanely prolific and interesting. Does anyone write more interesting papers than him? 7 years with a Solar Sail to get to Planet 9! YES THAT IS A PAPER OF HIS! I love it!

[@BitcoinMeister]

I loved how you tossed Triton in to your intro! Stick with that Neptune obsession and thread it into all videos that are even somewhat relevant. You are doing your part in keeping it in the broader conversation. I also want it to become a reality and the 1st step is just mentioning it.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Have you interviewed Jonathan Lunine? Enceladus Life Finder (ELF) was a concept from a few years ago.

[@DerWaldBistDu]

Great guy 👍

[@revmsj]

What an interesting fella.🧐👍🏾 Thank both of you for all you do for our species.

[@joshmiller7870]

2010 the year we make contact. That movie made me very interested in these gas giants and the moons around them.

[@chipkrug4191]

Regarding encounter velocity: There must be a trade off between altitude and encounter velocity.

[@martinwhatman5027]

Idea 1 - As you're flying through the plume, expose an "aerogel" capture medium, which would also soften the molecule impacts. Idea 2 - Have gimbal jets on the light-sail payload to help it into orbit around Enceladus in line with the plumes. Idea 3 - Have the light-sail payload drop sensors into the plume cracks on the surface or even exploring robots. I believe Enceladus is humanity's best shot of finding more life in our solar system. Cheers.

[@MrMomo182]

Bring him back on, please. He's really interesting.

[@tbounds4812]

3:01 enceladus FPV pilot is shredding

[@pablohsfranco]

I liked this concept that there could be planets ~0.5 light years away from the solar system. This reminded me of the anime "Astra Lost In Space" in which the group was teleported far away from the star system in which they live, they ended up in the orbit of a planet and luckily there was a ship there, unfortunately the ship was unable to make a direct return trip, but luckily they found a route where they could stop on some planets to refuel and continue the trip... Could it be that with the development of better telescopes these worlds could be found and with luck perhaps a route to the Proxima Centauri? Like, planets every ~0.5 light years away, to be colonized and serve as a base to go to the next planet and so on until they reach the Proxima Centauri? It would be incredible 😲

[@badrinair]

thank you

[@TommySaucierPlourde0]

What a nice exchange!

[@oldestgamer]

Enceladus is an important mission as it is one of the most likely planetary bodies to have live developed on it in our solar system. If we are asking the question about life developing outside of Earth, then this would be one of the main places to look.As far as "intelligent" life, that is a whole different thing, life has existed on Earth for many millions of years and yet, intelligent life has only one real example. Life in the universe? Most likely, Intelligent life? A MUCH harder question to answer.

[@FFXIgwyn]

If we all put a few bucks together we could fund our own Enchiladus.

[@FreeYoutubeChat]

Very interesting

[@cirospaciari5015]

I just wanna frequently missions for Europa, Titan and Enceladus but for sure is hard to get money for this. If we find any type of life for sure will be more missions

[@Sq7Arno]

This is another of those things that, to me, just makes more sense to try from the Moon.

[@blogsfred3187]

Lockheed delivered a 500kw laser last year, I’m not sure if it’s continues though

[@mr.transposon5017]

Wait, what other platforms are there besides YT? 😅

[@picksalot1]

If the Earth intersects the "previous orbits" of various moons and planets in our Solar System, or gets close to the orbits, sample collection might be possible without actually going to the distant moon or planet location. For example, I can physically go to the Post Office to pick up my mail, or I can wait for the mail to be delivered to my Mail Box, which is much closer, and then I can walk out to my Mail Box to pick up the same mail. It's much more convenient and cost effective for me to wait for the mail to be delivered nearby, where I can easily collect it. If possible, I think the same method should be use to collect samples from other moons and planets in our Solar System. We may be passing through or close to the previous orbits of some interesting objects in the Solar System right now.

[@andreypopov6958]

at what latitudes would it be optimal to position the lasers?

[@ameliadiaz8040]

What about Uranus' big moon Titania, which is also cryovolcanic?

[@agentdarkboote]

Why do the plumes on Enceladus exist in the first place? Is it that the ocean is both under high pressure from the ice, but also in places open to the vacuum, which causes it to boil?

[@EinsteinsHair]

Just a guess, it might be moving ice, perhaps from tidal effects. Such as one ice sheet moving towards another sheet, with water squeezed between.

[@ericsmith6394]

Take a book and bend it. If you tried to keep all the pages stuck to each other the inner bend pages would be squished and the outer pages stretched. Tidal forces bend the ice and the outer layers get stretched to fit the new curve. Ice doesn't stretch, so it cracks. The inner layers get squished, but ice melts under pressure. The tide moves around the planet and the layers return to a flatter curve. Any water that got into the temporary cracks gets squeezed out. That's what I think, anyway.

[@olorin4317]

I hope we find a local drifter planet in the next decade.

[@bucko4597]

when can we expect a satellite around Enceladus??? Even a small one ejected by the mother ship??

[@nirorbach8046]

Thanks for (another) interesting interview, that explores a futuristic way to easier exploration of space. I have a thought about the geopolitics that could promote the laser infrastructure you are concerning: If these big lasers can first serve as protection devices against ballistic missiles coming from evil countries...

[@agentdarkboote]

There is a company out of MIT that's working on a tiny mass spec... I don't know what they're called but I'd bet their device is on the order of a kg

[@mr.transposon5017]

Tiny probes, with tiny transmitters. Tiny rtg to spare the limited nuclear fuel. Or the newer solar magnifier space tech for the jovians i keep reading about. Cheaper launches will become common. But for smaller craft, we require space relays and improve the dsn. Otherwise you need larger craft, more powerful, to use the existing network

[@ineed2fly91]

I wonder instead of a ground based laser or space based laser, could you not use a “telescope”, essentially “backwards” to gather sunlight, focus it into a beam and use that to propel the spacecrafts. The sun FOR SURE has enough power/intensity for that, it’s just a matter of how big that light collector/diameter would need to be and is that practical.

[@joshmiller7870]

I just had an idea. Combine the Spin Launch system with these Solar Sail sats and we might have something very capable?

[@EddyA1337]

I love these conversations but man your guest's audio sounds like he is underwater it's distracting.

[@tactileslut]

I took it as a health issue. He sounds like he's exhausted by speech, couldn't hold a note and might pass out after walking from the car to the office.

[@jamess.2599]

The missions to these water worlds should be #1 priority. A place where life would most likely exist under the ice for radiation protection. But we’ll go to the dead desert planet of Mars instead.

[@dreweab]

3:00 and all I want is for him to say chocolate rain.. or maybe asteroid rain?

[@contraplano3157]

It can sail at bolina? Against the wind?

[@tactileslut]

There's no keel...

[@Jason-gq8fo]

A fully operational starship will help. Then nasa doesn’t have to worry so much about the payload being as small and light as possible. Will make the design process and materials a lot cheaper

[@Spacexgeek]

Regardless the cost WE HAVE TO GO!!!!

[@Sq7Arno]

You always have to worry, a lot, about the weight of a spacecraft - Especially when you're talking about exploration of the outer solar system and beyond. The more weight, the more propulsion you need. Use rocket engines and you need ever more fuel to reach high speeds. Use ion engines, and you're limited again by the power of the engines and their electricity consumption. Juno pushed the limits. A 3.5ish metric ton spacecraft. Reaching a maximum velocity of nearly a quarter million kph. Using ion propulsion. Still took 5 years to reach Jupiter. Light sails are theoretically great, because no fuel or propellant of any kind is needed. Nor electricity. But of course - The bigger the craft, the bigger the light sail needs to be. And materials have limits. We can only make a light sails, or the booms to support them, so big. Starship is sort of designed, at the far limit, for barely practical travel between Earth and Mars. Theoretically. Though at worst it will likely open up access to the Moon drastically. And that's no small thing. Extremely economic access to the Moon would be a huge deal - Not least for future space exploration, because it's so much easier to launch from the Moon with it's low escape velocity.

[@Roguescienceguy]

Looks like they can make the booster part work somewhat. Prop a more conventional second stage on that and we are good. Though all of it in a disposable way. Other than that I don't see the starship amounting to anything really. A lot of money is being spent on a madman's dream imho

[@michaelmcconnell7302]

A fully armed and operational battlestation 🤓

[@xGORJAx]

​@@Roguescienceguy alot of that man's money.

[@australien6611]

Surely 100mw of power would melt any type of sail and how would you change course

[@ericsmith6394]

You can steer with solar sails. You just can't slow down without light from the other side. The heat applied to the sail is only the light that is absorbed. Reflected light doesn't heat the sail. A perfectly reflective sail could survive the death star laser, but would be accelerated to a good fraction of light speed.

[@cyrusthevirus9878]

Have they thought about possibly using magnesium tubes to burn through the ice?

[@philochristos]

If I were a billionaire, I'd be making grants for projects like these. I don't know why billionaires throw money away on politicians when they could be funding science.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Jeff hired the guy who was PI on Spirit and Opportunity. I hope something good comes out of that but Blue is very secretive.

[@DrDeuteron]

@@zapfanzapfan who?

[@zapfanzapfan]

@@DrDeuteron Steven Squyres

[@infiniteloopcounter9444]

Probably because these people you mention get more money back than they spend -- hence, keeping them and their kids richer than most others.

[@michaelmcconnell7302]

Encealadus is the new Ganymede

[@frasercain]

Which is the new Europa.

[@mr.transposon5017]

With less radiation. Well Ganymede you could survive on, with some proper protection. Just not Europa...Stay the **** off of Europa...Europa monolith cannons not required. *Die at your own risk more likely

[@michaelmcconnell7302]

@@frasercain 2058: Triton is the new Encealadus!

[@zapfanzapfan]

@@michaelmcconnell7302 I hope we don't have to wait that long for a mission to Triton.

[@ameliadiaz8040]

Titania is the new Triton!

[@Martin_Hermann]

What did he say?

[@seditt5146]

We can likely create very powerful lasers if we made them in space. Hell, I suspect the suns Corona to be a lasable material that should operate in the IR range. A suitable laser might be (roughly) as simple as sending up a couple mirrors and needed heat shield to create something beyond our wildest dreams. Gas lasers would be dirt cheap in space as no need for the vacuum pump. Super radiant lasers like copper vapor, or likely better Nitrogen lasers, can be done without mirrors so no need for cooling them. The copper vapor matter fact needs to be very hot and has unreasonable peak power around 5000KW for a single reasonable size laser and can pulse up to 100KHz making it virtually continuous. IDK what could be done with it in space or if there are limits to that yet but a power supply, copper vapor and a mess of laser tubes could create a beast. Those are just the basics though, surely NASA could kill it in this area finding something exotic to propel our future. I dislike government bloat and waste but damn they got the best scientist around. IDK, just spit balling but really don't think enough research has been put into using Stellar medium or onboard gaseous materials for space lasers. I mean.... cmon.... its 2024.... Where are my friggin Space Lasers!

[@ericsmith6394]

Love the enthusiasm, but if you're using the vacuum of space you're also venting to space. You'll need refills, which is harder than a pump.

[@savage5757]

10:40 Won't these lasers burn through a small window in the earth's ozone layer?

[@Seadalgo]

Was Lightcraft a scam? Disappearing 15 years ago with no public acknowledgement of updated challenges of feasibility I can't help but think that the people who made a living researching it may have known for some time that it wasn't going to orbit

[@itsmodsiw]

[@fayelitzinger9824]

europa pa europa pa

[@michaelmcconnell7302]

This guy is low key charismatic. Slightly awkward delivery but very informative and a little entertaining.

[@ScumfuckMcDoucheface]

haha very well said... I was thinking how fascinating his voice, I'm amazed that he can roll R's at all, let alone so well with what sounds like maybe a cleft pallet..? I think he's got a beautiful, extremely unique voice... but then I've always enjoyed that indian accent =)

[@RuralJuror420]

NASA could have funded this mission if they hadn’t lit $4.5B on fire by giving that Starliner contract to Boeing. I think we can get there if we’re smart with our budgets!

[@SirHefferlot581]

audio too bad

[@verdi2310]

Why not accelerate that 100 kg payload at 1% of speed of light? It would take only 400 million megawatts😂

[@mickeymelnick2230]

Was he b speaking thru a bottle?

[@ricardogcbr1676]

Ok… Raj from Big Bang?

[@tech5298]

No water on Europa, sorry. Enceladus much better prospect for exploration

[@seditt5146]

Gimme a quarter of whatever their lowest ballpark numbers comes to and I would produce twice the science. Governments are just wasteful.

[@jackdeez3290]

Make Ukraine send back the 120 billion and spend it on this mission. Would be better value

[@giokun100]

Indian Darth Vader

[@pmcelraft]

Gov MM mm

[@ozne_2358]

It's not enough budget, it's that a huge slice of the budget has been hogged by Mars missions. Even Titan Mare had to be bumped off by Insight, yet another Mars mission. An obsession lacking of scientific diversity.

[@GOT_MILK414]

TERRIBLE AUDIO FRASIER had to stop watching 5 mins in bro

[@jamysmith7891]

The Efficient Engineer makes a great leap from its usual terrestrial primers with: How to Build a Satellite kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6fSgpmHhLmYo5osi=RYYeL6tBc3evePej Quite a few key points I was unaware of, such as overcoming actuator saturation

[@smeeself]

Thanks 👍