Europa Contagion

by Nicholas Thorp

  As the drones made their way back Sonya had called Felix and had him ready the moment both drones docked. Felix, Sonya, and Kato waited as Little Missy was brought back up to the docking bay first and was decontaminated. Once the procedure was complete, Felix began to work on Little Missy. When he had the device loose, Sonya swooped in and took it. She hopped out of the room toward the lab.

  Felix and Kato looked at each other, both thinking the same thing: What exactly had they just done? They wanted to see what Sonya was on about, but they had work to do so they left her to her work.

  Hopping quickly into the lab, Sonya almost crashed into Alice. Alice had just finished with her research for the day and was leaving the lab to do her regular workout.

  “Hey, careful!” Alice said as she quickly dodged the incoming Sonya.

  Sonya, though, brushed past her without a second thought. Sonya was so focused on the device she was carrying that she hadn’t even heard Alice’s cry.

  Finally, back in the lab, Sonya hooked up the device to her computer and began to run some tests. She entered the data and, rather dramatically and harshly pressed the Enter key on the keyboard, telling the computer to do its work. Now all that was left to do was wait.

  Sonya sat on her chair with her feet up on the counter, her legs crossed. Minutes passed. The computer beeped, indicating it was done. Graphs and other data appeared on the screen.

  “Now, that’s interesting,” Sonya mumbled to herself.

  If there is such a thing as a universal truth, it is that if a doctor says that something is interesting, it is a very bad thing. However, if a physicist says something is very interesting, that means they were on the cusp of discovering something significant. The more Sonya looked at the data, the more intrigued she was. When the computer fully finished its problem and displayed the results, she was sure it was a big discovery. She made sure she had all the data she needed on her tablet and left the lab quickly.

  Only fifteen minutes later she had Kato, Alice, Navya, and Felix in the mess hall. Everyone sat at the circular table in the middle of the room and was waiting to hear what she had to say. Alice was sweaty from her workout and Felix had a large black mark across his face that Sonya guessed was some kind of grease. Only Navya’s and Kato’s appearance were undisturbed by the quick meeting. Everyone had some sort of work to do, but Sonya had told everyone she had an important announcement.

  “We’re all here,” Navya said. “Now what is it you wanted to show us?”

  “Alright,” Sonya began. She was standing next to a large display monitor. “I know that this is rather sudden, but it’s very important. Does everyone remember the most recent outing that Kato and Alice went on?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “I had almost forgotten about it,” Alice joked. She typically had a dry sense of humor.

  Sonya ignored the comment and continued. “I know, I know. The Nomad was damaged and all that. But what’s important is what the RIID on the Nomad picked up.” The RIID stood for Radioactive Isotope Identification Device. It was one of many devices installed on the Nomad meant to take numerous readings on the surface.

  “When you guys went out on your trip, the RIID picked up a strange signal: gamma radiation. Not only that, but the satellite also picked up on it.” As Sonya finished she took her tablet and sent the graph on it to the large display monitor next to her. The graph reflected what Sonya was saying.

  Navya pitched in, “Gamma radiation? I did a full test on Kato and Alice on the UMAC. It didn’t pick up on any more radiation than would be expected.”

  “Yes, that’s because the gamma radiation didn’t come into the Nomad at all.” Sonya paused just for a second for dramatic effect before continuing. “In fact, it didn’t even come from the sky. It was coming from the bottom of the ocean floor.”

  At this, everyone sat forward. They all had an inquisitive look on their face. Radiation was a very real danger, and the crew had studied it before their mission in some depth. Gamma radiation especially could be fatal to humans.

  “From the ocean floor? How is that possible? Gamma radiation is only something we have to worry about from the magnetosphere of Jupiter,” Alice retorted.

  “Yeah, I almost didn’t believe it myself either. That’s why I had to make sure the RIID did record it,” Sonya said. “I had both Felix and Kato help me with that. We hooked up the RIID to the drones and took them to the location that the signal seemed to be coming from. I’ve definitely confirmed it: there is gamma radiation radiating from somewhere on the ocean floor.”

  At this Kato finally made the connection. The interference he was getting when he was piloting the drones must have been from the radiation.

  “Is this gamma radiation a danger to us here in the Habitat?” Navya asked.

  “Right now? No, not particularly. But that’s not the interesting part. What is interesting is this,” Sonya said. She once again pulled up a few graphs and two pictures on her tablet and sent them to the display monitor. These two pictures were topographical pictures of the area that Kato and Alice had been in during the earthquake. The pictures looked nearly identical next to each other, but the graphs looked different.

  “This first picture and graph show the area the last time we took readings from this area, about,” Sonya looked down at her tablet, “twenty-seven days ago. It didn’t show any abnormal signs of gamma radiation. The second picture is from right after the earthquake. This one does show the gamma radiation.”

  Sonya stopped speaking to let the information sink in. For a moment no one said anything.

  Alice broke the silence, and asked, “So the gamma radiation wasn’t there before the earthquake? What could be causing it?”

  Sonya stood for a moment, thinking about Alice’s question. Then Sonya replied, “That’s the thing. I’ve been trying to think of what could cause this. I have ideas, but most of them don’t make much sense. I think we have a good reason to use the construction bots again. If the earthquake is the cause of the gamma radiation over where the Nomad was, another earthquake could cause gamma radiation near here. And that’s something we need to know about.”

  Everyone knew that Sonya was the physicist of the group and therefore was the most knowledgeable about the topic. They also knew that gamma radiation was extremely dangerous to them. They all knew this issue had to be inspected.

  FIVE

  Beneath the Deep Blue

  The mission to Europa wasn’t any ordinary manned mission. After the Apollo Moon Missions and the eventual Moon Base, this would only be the second time man would be sent out into the unknown of space. This wouldn’t simply be a ship sent to Europa with a small crew. This would be the most expensive exploration project ever undertaken.

  Carbon nanotubes - an incredibly light and strong material - had started to be mass-produced on Earth. With their widespread dissemination came a surge of innovative and technological advancements. Where once something like a space elevator could only be a dream, it could now become a reality. The world's governments had come together, a huge amount of resources had been dedicated, and many years had been spent to create the first space elevator. With a space elevator operational, the cost of sending materials to space decreased several orders of magnitude. When objects were first being rocketed to low-earth orbit, it cost about $40,000 per pound. With the space elevator and subsequent efficiency improvements, the cost decreased to about $1 per pound.

  Only a few years after the space elevator was constructed, a permanent base was established on Earth’s Moon. Water had been discovered in Clavius Crater, making the colonization process much easier. As the infrastructure became more realized, the possibility of sending probes and humans deeper into the solar system also became real.

  Europa was one of the first major places of interest to scientists. The scientific consensus was that it contained the best location in the solar system for extant extraterrestrial life. Humanity’s desire to know whether life existed outside of Earth pushe
d them to do what was necessary to find out. So far, Mars had been a disappointment in this regard. Thus, the Europa Mission was conceived, and it had been decided that no expense would be spared for the mission.

  Many probes were sent to Europa to learn as much as possible. Early probes sent to Europa suffered from a bombardment of heavy radiation, reducing the time that any probe could visit. Subsequent satellites were built with extra radiation shielding. One such satellite was put in a very elliptical orbit that mapped the entire surface in great detail and would later become the staging satellite for all Europa-related communication.

  After much deliberation, it was finally decided where the best location would be for a manned mission: Conamara Chaos. It was the best compromise between the amount of radiation it received and relatively little geologic activity - although no place was truly safe from earthquakes on Europa. Conamara Chaos also sported some of the thinnest ice crust around the small moon.

  Of the many exhaustive ideas planned for the Europa Mission, it had been decided that, in addition to the Habitat, a small mobile station could be assembled at the will of the crew while they were on Europa. The station wouldn’t just serve as a place where people could stay for short periods of time, it also housed a room for drilling. The construction bots that built the Habitat were still on Europa, and not using them would be a waste. They could be programmed to assemble or repair almost anything at the discretion of the crew.

  All the construction bots were powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators, making them potentially dangerous to humans. Thus, a small structure was built to separate and house the bots after the completion of the Habitat.

  Adjusted for inflation, one hundred billion dollars had been spent on the first Apollo missions to Earth’s Moon. For the Europa Mission, well over a trillion dollars had been spent. Humans were going to be sent to the outer solar system with no shortcuts.

  ----------

  A hangar stood on the surface of Europa next to the Habitat. The large doors had been closed and everything around and in the hangar had remained dormant for years. The interior of the hangar was pitch black and there was no sign of any activity.

  Then, seemingly without warning, a small red light lit up. Then another red light. Then another. Soon, there were twenty red lights. The red lights all blinked for several minutes. One by one, in the order that the lights turned red, the lights turned green. More lights began to flicker and come to life.

  Two motors engaged, and the two large hangar doors began to pull apart, letting the dim sunlight in and revealing the contents of the hangar. Inside sat twenty robots. These were the construction bots that had been sent ahead of time to build the habitat for the Europa Mission. All the construction bots had begun to go through their boot-up process. Wheels turned left and right to ensure full movement. The arms that the construction bots used to carry and place materials swiveled and extended, making sure that all the hydraulics were still pressurized. Cameras turned on and infrared lights shot out, measuring distances to other objects.

  Thirty minutes passed as the construction drones finished their checks. All drones passed their tests and sat motionless, silently waiting for instruction.

  Then, in perfect unison, the drones moved to the back of the hangar and started retrieving materials: sheet metal, aluminum, steel, pipes, carbon nano-tubes, and even the thermal drill was taken from storage. Once the construction bots had their cargo at capacity, they began to file out of the hangar and moved toward a specified location. This location was very near the same location the Nomad had been traveling upon when the earthquake shook the ground. Working day and night, the bots began to assemble a new station.

  The first probe sent to the surface of Europa had confirmed the scientists’ estimates of the depth of the oceans. Europa’s oceans were, on average, about sixty miles deep. For comparison, the deepest ocean on Earth was about seven miles deep. For this reason, the crew hadn’t been able to explore the deepest parts of Europa’s oceans.

  With such incredibly deep oceans, there had to be a way to explore at least some of the depths. In addition to an astoundingly long 35-mile cable connected to Big Bertha - such were the wonders of carbon nano-tubes - there was also the completely remote-controlled drone sent to Europa, Little Missy. Not all parts of the ocean were sixty miles deep, though. Some areas were deeper, while others were more shallow. Some parts of the ocean were within reach of the tethered drone from the Habitat. Some of these areas had been explored quite extensively; many others had not.

  ----------

  While construction of the new station was underway, Alice continued with her research. She brushed her blonde hair away from her blue eyes, took a step back from her workstation and stretched her back. Unique among the crew, Alice was taller than average, standing five feet eleven inches in height. She had spent many years working as a research biologist at Harvard before being accepted into the Moon base program. Like other high-achievement people, Alice tended to be very impatient.

  It was her dream to visit another terrestrial body and do research there. Beyond even her wildest hopes, she was eventually chosen as a candidate for the Europa mission and ended up being one of only eight people selected for primary mission slots. When the crew had first landed on Europa, everything had been groundbreaking. She could barely contain herself when she had the first water sample in the lab. It had been the first time anyone had done anything like this.

  Alice had always thought that Europa was one of the most interesting places in the solar system. When Galileo looked at Jupiter closely for the first time, he thought there were only four moons. Once better telescopes were produced, it became clear there were more than just four moons. Over time, the number of moons kept increasing. By the time of the Europa Mission, Europa was one of over eighty known moons orbiting Jupiter.

  Europa’s surface is the smoothest of any moon or planet; there are very few craters and no mountains to speak of. This seemed to indicate that the surface is relatively young, otherwise, it would be covered in craters like Earth’s Moon. If the surface was relatively young, this would indicate that Europa is still geologically active.

  Not only this, but initial reports seemed to indicate that the moon’s surface was made of frozen water. This was confirmed when large plumes of water ejected into space were captured in pictures by the now-decommissioned Hubble Space Telescope.

  With a geologically active surface spewing water plumes into space, could there be a liquid ocean under the icy crust?

  It quickly became the consensus of scientists, including Alice, that it was very likely. On Earth, a similar feature occurred under the Antarctic ice in a place called Lake Vostok. Several thousand feet under the ice in the middle of Antarctica, scientists found a lake of liquid water. The ice above created a small layer of insulation, which helped keep the temperatures warm enough for liquid water to occur. Considering the similarities to Lake Vostok, it wasn’t a huge leap to think that there was a liquid water ocean under the crust of Europa as well.

  When the first probe, the Empiricist, landed on Europa it detected and confirmed there was a liquid ocean. Where there is water, there could also be life. It was hoped that there might be some kind of presence of life on the surface, even if it was only tell-tale signs. Often geysers would erupt around Europa’s otherwise pristine and icy surface. Perhaps the eruptions would spew up lifeforms of some kind to the surface. The scientific community was disappointed to find that the probe did not detect any forms of life or any presence of it on Europa’s surface. Thus, the search turned directly to the ocean, deep beneath the icy-crust.

  Even before humans touched foot on Europa, thermal drills had been making their way through the crust to the ocean. The idea behind the thermal drills was relatively simple: the crust was made of ice, so anything warmer would melt the ice. Before it was known that hot spots existed that could be used for power, the thermal drill was powered by radioactive isotopes. This was why the drill was use
d before the crew arrived: to minimize the time that humans spent around radiation. Once the thermal drill had done its job and made a path to the ocean, it had been removed and placed away from the Habitat in storage.

  All the preparation ahead of time meant when the crew had first arrived on Europa, they had immediate access to the ocean.

  That first sample taken from the ocean was profoundly exciting, but also disappointing; there seemed to be no sign of life. Although not what Alice had hoped, it didn’t mean there was no life. Perhaps the specific area they had drilled to had no life, but other areas could still harbor it. It had been a simple extraction from the very surface of the ocean. Perhaps elsewhere there was life. Maybe even deep down on the ocean floor.

  Many ideas were exhausted when planning the manned mission. One thing that was without dispute, though, was the exploration of the ocean. Two underwater drones had been sent to Europa when the Habitat was under construction. The first drone was connected directly to the Habitat via a long cable and was the one called Big Bertha by the crew. Since the power to the drone was coming from the Habitat itself, it could use many instruments and even use extremely bright floodlights that consumed copious power.

  The second drone, dubbed Little Missy, was remotely operated. Powered by batteries, it had limited capabilities, but it could also travel farther and without the worry of getting a cable caught on anything in the ocean.

  After the lack of life found in the initial sample, Big Bertha was sent on missions traveling deeper in the ocean. It wasn’t long until they made the next big discovery: extremely hot thermal vents, similar to the ones found on Earth’s mid-ocean ridges. These hydrothermal vents heated the surrounding area to 550-750 degrees Fahrenheit. This was the source of the extra heat that the initial probes had discovered and what was helping power the geysers often erupting on the surface.