ASSP on Europa
By Scott M. Sandridge
There had been many setbacks,
but the Europa Orbiter IV was now about to do the task NASA had built it for. The vessel, a cylindrical object with a cone-shaped head flanked by two solar panels twice the size of the main body, approached Jupiter’s ice moon and settled itself into orbit. The head detached from the body and began its descent. Upon landing, the head sent a radio signal to the orbiter who in turn relayed the signal toward Earth.
The cone’s surface split apart and opened into a metallic “flower” with solar “petals.” The “flower’s” tall flat piston descended to become a ramp for the single occupant inside. The ASSP (Artic Surface/Submersible Probe) resembled a four-legged insect about three feet in length. Two camera lenses served as her eyes. She sprouted four communication antennae, two prong-like sensor rods that acted like feelers, a low-density flashlight, and an array of other sensors along her segmented body.
Upon contacting the alien terrain her talon feet left tiny holes in the gray-white surface. She traveled fifty meters from the landing platform, stopped, and made a slow 360˚ circle. It sent digital images to the orbiter which relayed it to Earth.
The view resembled a dark Antarctica with ridges and crevasses along the otherwise smooth icy surface. A geyser off in the horizon shot sulfuric acid into the extremely thin atmosphere. Sol loomed over the horizon, tiny in comparison to the sliver of Jupiter looming in the west. Stars shone faint between sun and planet.
The ASSP lowered her tail segment, bending over nearly in two until her tail’s tip touched the surface at a 45˚ angle. Her inner hum increased in pitch, and her underbelly and tail began to reflect a white glow whiter than the surface. The plasma ejector in her tail liquefied the ice, and she was soon enveloped in hot steam.
~~~~~
The scientists at NASA Space Center whooped and cheered over a job well done, all of them except Robotics Specialist Robert S. Wiley. The mission wasn’t yet finished and only God knew what they would find under Europa’s icy crust. He wringed his hands as he watched his colleagues prepare for the next stage.
They waited in anxious silence, a silence so thick one could almost cut it with a knife. The last mission had failed at this stage. The P.E.D. had malfunctioned, rendering the probe incapable of burning through the layers of ice and rock to get to the ocean beneath. Though they had gotten some good ice samples, the mission’s primary goal had to be aborted.
Wiley paced the floor. His pen fell through the ripped pocket of his shirt. He bent over to pick it up and heard the back of his jeans rip. A couple of muted snickers sounded around the room. He picked his pen off the floor and edged toward the back of the wall, his chubby face red. He lowered his eyes and now had an eclipsed view of his oil-stained sneakers.
He ran his fingers through his curly brown hair as he stared at the image on the large overhead monitor. He whispered, “C’mon ASSP, you can do it. I know you can. I’m the one who built you, right?”
~~~~~
The ASSP held herself in place with her talons as her tail continued melting through the ice. She had been working for six straight hours broken only by the need to let the tail cool down for a minute at two hour intervals. Each time she had done so, she ended up encased by reformed ice as the steam cooled to water then froze within a span of seconds. She now had a six kilometer ceiling over her.
Eventually, the ice gave way to slush then to water. Her sensors detected the environmental change and adapted according to her programming. She dropped slowly at first until the outer lair of her tail segment peeled out like a blooming flower and began rotating to provide thrust.
She began her exploration program of Europa’s ocean. A small portal opened to allow water to flood into a specimen bottle to be studied by her internal sensors. External sensors flared to life, including optical cameras and lights. Her communications antennae began broadcasting again.
~~~~~
Everyone cheered and congratulated each other; everyone except for Wiley, who stood with his back against the wall, a faint trace of a smile on his face. He said, “Doing good, little lady.”
Wiley only half-listened to the conversations around him. Instead he concentrated on the beautiful alien environment seen on the overhead monitor.
“Would you look at that…?”
“Eleven percent sodium chloride; we’ve got salt!”
“Traces of phosphorus and sulfur….”
“We’ve got microbes! There’s plankton! It’s teeming with those little buggers!”
Wiley spotted something in the upper right corner of the screen, some kind of blue-gray metallic reflection. He watched the ASSP’s camera center onto the reflection and zoom in, and the room became silent.
The image shook as two tentacle-like appendages ending with three clawed digits shot toward the ASSP. Then there was an image of double-row sets of razor-sharp teeth, almost like shark’s teeth. The enormous jaws closed in, then a blank screen.
Wiley heard someone mutter, “Thirty-million-dollar machine…and it just became fish chow.”
“Look on the bright side,” Wiley said as he turned pale. He forced a smile onto his face and added, “At least we found life on Europa.”
Then he fainted.
