Ambient office  = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 176 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 178 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 124 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

        Recently I wrote about the shortage of plutonium-238 which is used to provide power to U.S. satellites on deep space missions. Today, I am going to write about a different use of nuclear isotopes for space exploration.

       NASA probes to Mars have included equipment to detect signs of current or ancient life on Mars. The scientists are not expecting to find anything more complex than singled celled life, if that. In analyzing the astronomical bodies in our solar system, it is thought that Europa, a moon of Jupiter may harbor more complex life. Some scientists think that there may be complex multicellular life there.
       The surface of Europa is covered in ice that can be from a mile and a half thick to eighteen miles thick. It has been speculated that there may be a salty liquid ocean on Europa beneath the ice. We do not have definitive proof of the existence of such an ocean, but we have witnessed periodic eruptions of liquid water from the surface of Europa. NASA scientists believe that the best way to penetrate the ice to the probable ocean beneath Europa is by employing a nuclear power robot that could melt its way through the ice.
       The Glenn Research Center at NASA is home to the multidisciplinary COMPASS team which was created to develop technology to meet the challenges of space exploration. The COMPASS team has carried out a conceptual study about technologies which would be able to penetrate the icy surface of Europa. They feel that a “tunnelbot” would be the best bet.
       Nuclear energy is the most compact and efficient energy source that can be utilized for space exploration. The tunnelbot does not even have to contain a nuclear reactor although such a reactor was one of the possible designs that were produced by the study. The simplest design for the tunnelbot would be to contain bricks of radioactive material in a tube-shaped probe with a round tip. As the heat from the radioactivity turned the ice to slush beneath the probe, the probe would slowly sink down through the ice. A lander would drop the probe onto the surface of Europa and a cable containing fiber optic string to carry information back to the lander would be uncoiled behind the probe as it sank into the ice.
       The tunnelbot would contain instruments that would take samples of the liquid water in the tunnel as the probe melted through the ice. It would also sample the underside of the ice if the probe reaches the predicted ocean as well as samples of the water-ice interface where the surface of the ocean meets the icy ceiling.
       Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Andrew Dombard from the University of Illinois at Chicago is a member of the COMPASS team. He said, “Estimates of the thickness of the ice shell range between 2 and 30 kilometers (1.2 and 18.6 miles), and is a major barrier any lander will have to overcome in order to access areas we think have a chance of holding biosignatures representative of life on Europa. We didn’t worry about how our tunnelbot would make it to Europa or get deployed into the ice. We just assumed it could get there and we focused on how it would work during descent to the ocean.” 
       The proposal for the tunnelbot was presented to the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC this week by the COMPASS team. Now the proposal will go to Congress for possible inclusion in a future NASA budget. This may be difficult to accomplish. The main advocate for the tunnelbot project in Congress was Texas Republican John Culberson who lost his seat in the House of Representatives in the November election. President Trump has shown no interest in funding a Europa lander. On the other hand, Democrats now control the House of Representatives which is the place where all budget bills must originate. Democrats have been more prone to fund NASA projects than Republicans in the past.
     Critics of the project say that it was more a matter of a project that some of the members of Congress wanted to fund than a project that could stand on its scientific merits alone. On the other hand, supporters of the project say that there would need to be a long lead time for such a project and it would be best to start working on such a project as soon as possible.
      The Europa Clipper mission is a space probe that will fly to Europa and go into orbit around it. It will orbit Europa at altitudes as low as sixteen miles. The purpose of the mission is to map the surface of Europa in detail and to attempt to carry out a chemical analysis of the plumes of liquid water being ejected into space. The mission has received initial funding and it is hoped that it can be ready for launch by 2022. It will take six years for the probe to reach Europa and go into orbit.
       The Europa Clipper mission might add important information to our knowledge of Europa that could be useful in the planning for a tunnelbot mission. Hopefully, Congress will find the will and the funds to begin work on the Europa tunnelbot mission soon.
       There has been much speculation about the existence of life beyond the Earth. It would be a very important scientific discovery to find life and especially complex life in the oceans under the ice on Europa. It would certainly have a profound impact on our understanding of life and its origins. A big question will be just how much life on Europa would resemble life on Earth. If there is a complex ecosystem in the oceans of Europa, there is the question of how much damage the radioactive materials could do to the life under the ice.

Ambient office  = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 156 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 161 nanosieverts per hour

Cauliflower from Central Market = 59 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 48 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 41 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office  = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 153 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 157 nanosieverts per hour

Acorn squash from Central Market = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 75 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office  = 85 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 117 nanosieverts per hour

White onion from Central Market = 145 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 77 nanosieverts per hour

Dover sole – Caught in USA = 110 nanosieverts per hour

        The Republic of Kazakhstan biggest country that is landlocked. It is the ninth biggest country inf the world. While the southern parts of the country are located on the continent of Asia, the northern parts are located on the continent of Europe. Kazakhstan is considered to be the economically dominant country of Central Asia. It accounts for about sixty percent of the GDP of the whole region.
       Uranium exploration began in Kazakhstan in 1943 but was not a viable business until the 1970. In the past fifty years, it has been a major global source of uranium for nuclear power reactors and nuclear weapons. Analysts say that Kazakhstan has about fifteen percent of the natural uranium reserves in the world in fifty deposits in six provinces. At this time, there are seventeen operational uranium mines that produce about twenty five percent of the uranium on the global market.
      In 2009, Kazakhstan became the leading producer of uranium in the world. In that year, it produced almost twenty eight percent of the worlds uranium. It accounted for thirty three percent in 2010, forty one percent in 2015 and thirty nine percent in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, uranium production peaked at twenty four thousand six hundred tons. Twenty three thousand four hundred tons was produced in 2018. There are plans to reduce production by about eight percent in 2018.
        Canada is the second biggest producer of uranium behind Kazakhstan. It used to be the biggest producer in the world but its production has been declining and it fell behind Kazakhstan in 2015. In 2014, it produced only about nine thousand tons. In 2015 production rose to about thirteen thousand three hundred tons. Canada started mining uranium in the 1940s and production rose and fell as market conditions and government involvement rose and fell. Since 2006, productions hovered around eleven thousand tons until rising to fifteen thousand seven hundred tons in 2015, sixteen thousand five hundred tons in 2016 and fifteen thousand tons in 2017. A major Canadian mine was shut down indefinitely in 2018.
       The spot price of uranium rose to almost thirty dollars a pound last week. This represents an increase of almost twenty percent since the beginning of 2018. The highest cost of uranium on the world market was one hundred and forty dollars in 2007.
        An analysis from BMO Capital Markets stated that the rise in uranium prices will continue as Kazakhstan and Canada cut production and stockpiles of uranium are dropping for the first time in ten years. The analysis predicts that uranium prices will rise slowly and may reach fifty five dollars a pound by 2023. The cut backs by top producers will halt the dropping prices and rising stockpiles that resulted from the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
       The price of uranium may be rising and stock piles diminishing but considering what happened to the Uranium market after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, all it will take is one major nuclear accident to cause another crash in world uranium prices.