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Feasibility

Transportation

The transportation of humans to Europa would be one of the primary challenges to overcome for colonization to be possible. Since Jupiter is on average 630.4 million kilometers away from Earth at a given time, it would take at least 3 years just to get into Europa's orbit plus additional time to land. In an effort to develop transportation methods to Mars and other planets, NASA has announced a program called NextSTEP that will merge the efforts of public and private industry to begin the research and architectural design necessary to create an Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) system. This system designed for Martian based operations will be called the Deep Space Transport (DTS) and will allow for missions up to 2.75 years. The transport vehicle to Europa will be similar to the DST and International Space Station (ISS), but will be different in several key aspects. Most importantly, the transport vehicle for Europa would need to be completely self-sufficient so that all the nutritional supplies are included at the onset of the flight, along with the ability to repair any systems that malfunction or break on the voyage. Another major differentiating factor would need to be the vehicle’s resistance to radiation. Since the levels of this trip would be significantly higher, shielding would also need to be increased. While these considerations are preventatively cost expensive and require development of current technologies, it is not altogether impossible that a continuation of the DTS would meet the requirements necessary to complete this journey at some future date.

Numerous difficulties will also arise due to the physical and mental effects of prolonged spaceflight. See also: Effect of spaceflight on the human body.