Journal FortKnox's Journal: Cracking Open Europa 7
Y! has an article (from Space.com) about NASA's JPL discussing missions to break into Europa's Ice in attempts to find biology. The basic idea is there may be a giant ocean underneith the ice with volcanic activity to allow life to thrive. Quite an interesting article, but something at the pit of my stomach, makes me not want this mission to go on. I always imagined Europa to be a pure planet covered entirely in Ice. Cracking into it just seems like desecrating it...
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They were comparing one of the submerged lakes in antarctica to Europa. Further they mentioned how slow things are going, as nobody wants to disturb this until they are 99.44% sure that they aren't going to screw things up too much.
It also talked about how the finds in this environment have a direct bearing on Europa exploration. The Antarctic lakes are about as close to Europan conditions as can be met on Earth, allowing calibration of sensors and equipment. Also, it would allow testing of launch and landing vehicles sent to Europa.