Less than a year after the arrival of the Galileo spacecraft in Jupiter  NASA organized a meeting at San Juan Capistrano, California, "The Europa Ocean Conference".
There were preliminary discussions related to extraterrestrial oceans (Pappalardo et al., 1996), submarine volcanism (Shoemaker, 1996) and biological activity (Bada, 1996). Habitability was also discussed in terms of microbiology (Chela-Flores, 1996), but more importantly, there was the suggestion of using novel instrumentation. Firstly, the possibility of exploring Europa’s habitability in the ocean was raised by means of a submersible called a "hydrobot" that would have been coupled to an ice-breker, called a "cryobot" (Trowell et al., 1996; Horvath et al., 1997).


Bada, J., Europa as an analogue of an Ice-covered Primitive Earth, In Europa Ocean Conference at San Juan Capistrano Research Institute. San Juan Capistrano, CA, 12–14 November, 1996, pp. 11-12.

Chela-Flores, J., Habitability of Europa: possible degree of evolution of Europan biota. In Europa Ocean Conference at San Juan Capistrano Research Institute. San Juan Capistrano, CA, 12–14 November, 1996, pp. 21–21a, 1996.

Horvath, J., Carsey, F., Cutts, J. Jones, J. Johnson, E.. Landry, B., Lane, L., Lynch, G., Chela-Flores, J., Jeng, T-W. and Bradley, A. (1997). Searching for ice and ocean biogenic activity on Europa and Earth. Instruments, Methods and Missions for Investigation of Extraterrestrial Microorganisms, (R.B. Hoover, ed.), Proc. SPIE, 3111, pp. 490-500.

Shoemaker, E. M., The age of Europa's surface. In Europa Ocean Conference at San Juan Capistrano Research Institute. San Juan Capistrano, CA, 12–14 November, 1996, pp. 65-66, 1996.

Squyres,S. W., What we thought we "knew" about Europa. In Europa Ocean Conference at San Juan Capistrano Research Institute. San Juan Capistrano, CA, 12–14 November, 1996, pp. 67-68.

Trowell, Stephen; Wild, James; Horvath, Joan; Jones, Jack; Johnson, Elizabeth; Cutts, James, Through the Europan Ice: Advanced Lander Mission Options. In Europa Ocean Conference at San Juan Capistrano Research Institute. San Juan Capistrano, CA, 12–14 November, 1996, p. 76, 1996 (for a more detailed explanation, cf., Horvath et al., 1997).