There are two possibilities for life on earth: either we’re alone in the universe or we’re not. Each prospect is equally terrifying. However, we may be one step closer to discovering which one is true. 

More than 400 years ago, Galileo discovered Europa, the sixth-closest moon to the planet Jupiter. Since its discovery, scientists have identified water plumes on the moon emitting material from what appears to be a subsurface ocean, according to an article by NASA. It is not unreasonable to imagine there might be some form of life living in the dark sea underneath the moon’s icy crust.

Europa is deemed one of the best candidates for harboring alien life and may contain other important and undiscovered ingredients such as energy sources and organic materials. Sending a spacecraft to study Europa should be a top-priority mission and deserves a loaded budget in order to be completed successfully.

NASA already devised the Europa Clipper mission, which would “send a highly capable, radiation-tolerant spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter to perform repeated close flybys of Europa” in order to complete a detailed investigation, according to a different article by NASA. The goal of the mission is to explore the moon’s conditions and determine whether or not they are favorable for life.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s 2015 budget request only includes $15 million for studying a possible Europa mission, according to an article by The Washington Post. That is a tiny fraction of the $17.5 billion requested for the agency and makes starting the mission – let alone completing it – close to impossible.

According to an article by Scientific American, Obama’s budget proposal for the 2015 fiscal year cuts NASA’s overall budget by about 1 percent from 2014. Although a number of budgets are being slashed this year, NASA’s already small budget should not be one of them.

With the limited amount of funding NASA receives, the administration is forced to choose which programs to focus on and which to push to the side. NASA is specifically focused on boosting the ‘commercial’ side of space right now in order to minimalize their existing reliance on Russians, especially amid the current political crisis in Ukraine.  

Currently, the United States is paying $71 million per seat on Soyuz rockets to get to and from the space station. Officials hope that by 2017, American astronauts can go into space once again on American rockets rather than depending on the Russians, according to an article by The Washington Post. Sadly, programs like these often trump spacecraft exploration and eliminate important missions like Europa.

While the significance of sending American rockets into space cannot be denied, the benefits of exploring Europa are worthy of serious discussion. Many scientists believe Europa may harbor the necessary ingredients for life, such as an energy source, organic materials, and a relatively warm and salty ocean, beneath its exterior ice crust. The possibility of alien fish, octopi, or other aquatic organisms is simply too thrilling to pass up.

Oftentimes the NASA agency proposes and begins programs that ultimately fail to survive the devastating forces of politics and shrinking budgets. The Europa mission should not be one of them. NASA wants to explore Europa for signs of life, and they should be granted a larger budget to do so.

– Ashley Lynn Fisher is a junior English major from Gig Harbor. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.