1. Would it be possible for people to land on Jupiter? Solar System ProjectErik Östberg, 7d2009-11-09

2. Would it be possible for people to land on Jupiter? Logicalbreakdown of question: Would it be possible to transport humans to Jupiter safely? Does the planet have a surfacesuitable for landing?

3. Would it be possible to transport humans to Jupiter safely? Facts: Severalspacecrafthavebeen sent to Jupiter, for example Viking 1& 2 and Galileo, butthesewereonlyprobeswithoutany humans onboard, onlymeasurementequipment. None of thesehavereturned back to Earth. Galileo needed 4-6 years just to get to Jupiter. [Ref1,2] No humans haveevertravelled to other planets, only to the Moon. [Ref2] Manned missions to Mars havesince the 1950ies beenplanned to takeplacearound 30 yearsahead, and still are. [Ref3,4] NASA is building a spacecraft that is intented for taking humans to the Moon and possiblyalso to Mars. [Ref5]

4. Would it be possible to transport humans to Jupiter safely? Challenges are great for interplanetarytravel: Humans need a largesupply of air to breathe, water and food, wealsoneed to handlewaste, bacteria and more like it, medicalissues, muscleexercise, radiation, mental impact from isolation and so on. [Ref4] There are great risks at launch, reentry and landing. [Ref7] The technology for such a spacecraft is lacking at the moment (but under development), for example motor and energyuse and radio communicationto Earth. [Ref3,5] Travel should start only at certaintimeswhere the orbits of the planets make the traveldistance as short as possible, and using special techniques to reduce the need for motor energy. [Ref3: ”Economicaltraveltechniques”]

5. Distance diagram Density Earth Mars Moon Jupiter Distance AU = Astronomical Unit, “a unit of length roughly equal to the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is approximately 150 million kilometres” [Ref6, Ref8]

6. Does the planet have a surfacesuitable for landing? Facts: Jupiter is a gas planet, it does not have a solid surface. If it at all has any solid materia, it would be in the core of the planet where it is 24000 degreesCentigrade hot and where the pressure is extremely high. [Ref1]

7. Conclusion The answer to the key question ” Would it be possible for people to land on Jupiter? ” is No. It doesn’tseemimpossible to get there in the far future, butthere is no solid surface to land on.

8. References Gierasch, Peter J., and Philip D. Nicholson. "Jupiter." World Book Online Reference Center. 2004. World Book, Inc. (http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/jupiter_worldbook.html) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/galileo0309.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_travel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_mission_to_Mars http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_spaceflight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit Date for References1-8: 2009-11-09