Now that you’ve learned all about Europa, checked out the Clipper mission, and followed the exciting new results featured on our blog, you’re probably eager to know how we can get the Clipper mission to Europa. There are a lot of important elements to flying a mission: good science, the support of the scientific community, and public interest. Lucky for us, the Clipper Mission is thoroughly vetted, technologically feasible, and scientifically rich. What we really need now is political support to open a “New Start” for a Europa mission. In a difficult budgetary climate, NASA funding is regularly on the decline, and despite all of the successful robotic missions in the past decade, Planetary Science has been a target of large scale cuts, up to 21% per year, preventing NASA from developing a Europa mission.
A “New Start” is a budget line item to initiate funding for a new program. NASA can make this kind of decision internally, or Congress can specifically request and fund a new line. If Congress puts such a line item in NASA’s budget, then that funding is protected from internal decisions. So if Europa Clipper (or any Europa mission) were given a new start, this funding line would be protected for the duration of the mission, at Congress’ request. Since the budget climate is tumultuous, having a budget line item would allow the Europa mission to go forward without being impacted by changing economic factors.
This type of support from a congressional line item in NASA’s budget has already proven useful for other missions. The James Webb Space Telescope, a huge NASA priority, was recently championed by congress in order to guarantee the safety of its development and launch schedule. Hubble Space Telescope was in danger of being decommissioned and wide public and scientific support for the mission made HST a national priority.
Europa needs you!
NASA has many different priorities, including both exploration and scientific goals, that compete for funding within the agency. On a national scale, NASA’s budget is of course in competition with many other agencies, all of which perform important functions. For these reasons, it’s important to increase funding overall for the sciences, including NASA ,so that there is sufficient support for critical agency programs and room to start funding priorities that are eagerly waiting to go.
How do we navigate this plane to support a new Europa mission? We are hoping that community support for a “New Start” for the Europa Clipper mission will get the ball rolling.
In the following pages, you will find lots of helpful information how you can help garner support for a mission to Europa. There are petitions to sign that advocate for funding increases for fundamental science, example letters to your local and national elected officials, and samples of info sheets to leave behind when you visit your representatives.
Let’s set sail.
With the exciting potential of its ice shell and subsurface ocean, isn’t it time for Europa to become a national scientific priority? A Europa mission has been the highest priority for the planetary science community for the past two decades, without ever getting off the ground, and there is wide community support for the new Europa Clipper mission concept. We’ve seen how having line items for projects like the Mars program have resulted in wide-spread success. Let’s help NASA Planetary Science reach beyond the inner solar system in the next decade.
It is often said that decisions are made by those who show up. We hope you’ll help us mobilize and show broad support for a return to Europa, perhaps our best chance for discovering extraterrestrial life in our own solar system! Let’s tell NASA and Congress: it’s time to set sail!
Head over to the Europa Goes to Congress site for information on communicating Europa to Congress.
I want to help!
