About a month ago, I got an invitation to go onto a cable news show. They wanted me to argue with someone about some small issue that no one was going to remember in a week.
I said no, but then I pitched them a different idea.
“You know, I’m on the Space Subcommittee. NASA is doing a mission to Europa later this year and it’s going to be amazing. How about I come on and talk about that?”
I’ll never forget his response. He laughed a little and said, “No, that would make people feel good.”
Well, I think you deserve to feel good about something. So I’m going to tell you about the mission to Europa - because we’re all paying for it as taxpayers, and because it really is amazing.
So here’s the deal:
Jupiter has nearly 100 moons.
The four largest ones were spotted by Galileo about 400 years ago.
One of those four - Europa - is generally considered to have the best chance for life anywhere in our solar system other than Earth.
Why?
Lots of water.
Europa has a huge ocean and is completely covered in water. It’s got more water than Earth.
But it’s very cold, so all that water is covered beneath a layer of ice.
We can tell from the coloration of the ice that a variety of minerals are present. We also believe there’s heat coming off the ocean floor.
That means Europa has water + minerals + heat. A very tempting place to explore.
So tempting, in fact, that about ten years ago Congress actually passed a law mandating that NASA explore the planet.
After years of work, NASA is almost done assembling the probe:
If all goes well, it will blast off on top of SpaceX’s biggest rocket this October.
Then it will travel 1.8 billion miles at a speed of 25,000 mph for about five years to reach Europa.
Once it arrives, it will spend several years doing close passes - but not landing. (That’s the next mission, and it’s also legally required.)
We’re going to learn a lot about what’s under the ice, but we’re also going to look for some deep cracks in the ice that would serve as good landing spots for the next mission. That way, drilling through the ice - and sending a swimming probe into the ocean depths - will be easier when we return.
BUT there’s another great feature of Europa: We think it ejects some of its water into space in vast, frozen plumes. That means the probe might be able to fly through the plumes, collect the frozen water, and analyze it - giving us a sense of the composition of the water without having to land, drill, and swim.
Obviously I have no idea what we’ll find. Nothing is certain.
But I am certain that this kind of project represents some of the best qualities of humanity, and our country.
It’s extraordinary that we’re capable of this, that we’ve built teams of people who are dedicating their lives to it, and that they’ve overcome countless setbacks in pursuit of such a momentous goal. I’m grateful to live in a country that’s capable of tackling this kind of challenge.
I get why that doesn’t make for great TV these days. It’s the opposite of outrage - it’s excellence, and excellence isn’t as addictive as outrage.
But these folks deserve our strongest possible thank you - and here they are, the Europa team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory:
I don’t expect any of them to read this, but if they happen to, JOB WELL DONE. We’re so proud of you.
Now carry on!
Campaign update - everyone’s invited to a Zoom event
Each quarter our campaign holds a Zoom fundraiser to support my campaign for Attorney General. It started last December as an experiment to see if anyone would attend, and hundreds of you did. So a tradition was born.
This one is special because Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell is joining as our guest.
We’ll focus on what to expect as the election gets closer: the polling, our strategy, and the North Carolina political landscape. (And maybe some discussion about what’s going on in Congress, since I’m still there.)
It’ll be a very informal conversation and it would be great to have you join us.
It’s on Tuesday, June 25th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. You can use this link to get your ticket. Hope to see you then.
Best,
Jeff Jackson
P.S. - One last piece of joy for you.
This week, I finally got around to hanging up the swing in our front yard. Marisa thought Avery would enjoy it, but I thought maybe she was too old for it.
Looks like Marisa was right:
I know this takes time and that the path to this is often convoluted and filled with compromises and what not, but Man, I am so hoping to see you someday as a presidential candidate.
It’s tempting to ask “why spend $$$ to go to space to explore another possible living environment, while we are destroying the planet we live on” but it is nice to hear normal news too!
It’s nice to hear that not everything is a shtshow and people in America are still doing great, inspiring things, despite such a conflicted time.
So I appreciate that somewhere in this country, there are functional groups doing important work and still showing that we can do things that made us world leaders in the past!