MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

Martian Republic · 2005-07-20 20:30:20

Besides the atmosphere being 1 1/2 the density of the Earth atmosphere, I doubt that man will be going to TITAN any time soon. There are several things that make going Titan any time soon highly unlikely. With present technologies going to Mars will take about six to seven month with Chemical Rockets and about six months or so with nuclear powered rockets. The current probe that orbiting Saturn and taking picture of Titan left Earth three or four years ago. So even with new technologies, we still are looking at maybe two year trip to Saturn if we make a manned mission. That alone will probably rule out a manned mission to Titan, let alone setting up a colony on Titan.

Larry,

Martin_Tristar · 2005-07-21 03:05:18

Titanman,

I think we should concentrate on the development of earth orbit, Lunar surface, Mars and the Asteroid Mining Operations before we look any further. We will need dozen or so vessels to continuosly work between these regions and multiple space stations and zero gravity platforms and ground installations that will keep us going for the next 100 years but after that we could look at the outer planets and moon with newer drive systems and larger space vessels and could provide a large scale projects such as " Titan Colony Direct " one stop movement of a colony of 100 personnel for Titan or any other planetary body in the outer solar system.

GCNRevenger · 2005-07-21 05:34:26

Just who are these "many scientists" anyway? I want to know so I can ignore them from now on for being idiots

Titan has gravity, it has a thick atmosphere, and it has at least some nitrogen... but the real kicker is, it doesn't have any sunlight. Mars gets like 50% the sunlight that Earth does on the average, but Titan only gets 1-2%. Those pretty pictures sent back by the ESA probe are visible only because of image inhancement and the glow coming off of Saturn, which is probobly weaker then moonlight on Earth.

The lack of sunlight also makes Titan EXTREMELY cold, which is a serious problem for colonization. On Mars, temperatures are warm enough that you can get away with well-insulated greenhouses or "tent" structures, ideal for colonies... but on Titan, it was would be much too cold. Plus, the thick atmosphere here is a real hinderance, since thick cold air transports heat away from things better then cold thin air.

Then there is the water problem to speak of, that if there is no supply of water available (or at least a ready supply of Oxygen) then its just not going to happen. Getting the energy required, which is pretty extreme, to to get it from oxide rocks will be pretty hard on Titan... you'll be spending most of your energy on not freezing to death.

As far as actually -getting- there, no current chemical or solid-core nuclear powerd vehicle will be good enough, the trip would just take too long or consume far too much fuel. A gas-core fission thermal rocket, a nuclear salt water rocket, or perhaps a gas-core reactor powerd VASIMR engine would be needed. Big, heavy, advanced stuff.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2005-07-22 01:12:40

We could go to Titan and will perhaps land people there, Titan would be a fantastic place to study and certainly not as regular as our Moon. This Titan journey would be great, it would be a fantastic mission it could happen some day but not today.
The guys at NASA / ESA did a fantastic job, but there was still an element of luck with the Cassini-Huygens mission. Even down to the last day at the arrival at Saturn they were still correcting minor bugs and technical flaws in the mission. Europe have done Mars Express but have no experience with Mars missions, NASA have done wonderful unmanned Mars missions but also seen a lot of their craft getting smashed on Mars, Russia landed Veneras on Venus and had a Mars probe that survived for a few mins but they have no real know-how of long term manned space slights beyond the orbits of stations like MIR.

Listen to Martian Republic and GCNRevenger there are serious problems with such a mission.

srmeaney · 2005-07-22 02:25:38

Thats what I like to see. The natural assumption that just because the surface of the Moon is a wasteland littered with human presence, that there is nothing else there. For all you know, there is a major breakthrough ten meters below the surface.

If we dont look, we dont discover.

RobS · 2005-07-22 02:52:06

I don't think anyone is calling for colonization or even a mission to Titan any time soon. Even with gaseous core engines you're talking about a 1-2 year trip each way. Water is not a problem on the surface of Titan: the moon is half water. The crust is mostly water (and it's as hard as concrete because of the temperature). But remember you'd essentially be building your base in an environment about as cold as the space shuttle's liquid oxygen tank. Very cold! Antarctica is the Riviera in comparison. Even the Martian south pole doesn't get that cold in the winter (though it's rather close; you'd want to test out equipment for the Galileans and Titan there).

The light situation is even worse than GCN says; Saturn is ten times farther away, so sunlight IN SPACE is 1% as much as Earth, but the thick, smoggy atmosphere probably absorb half of that, so the surface is even darker; and Titan circles Saturn once every two weeks, so a week or dim daylight is followed by a week of blackness. Very cold blackness.

I'd build a base near a cryovolcano so there is a source of geothermal "heat" but I am not sure the heat even will reach room temperature! You'd need several nuclear reactors so you have backups. Raising food will require lighted, heated, insulated greenhouses; might as well put them underground (I'm not sure what liquid methane rainfall would do to the plastic!). Even with advanced superplants, we're probably talking about 25-50 kilowatts of electricity per person to light the plants enough for them to grow, unless the people are willing to eat algae.

And any colony out there will not be a profit maker for a long time if ever. The surface of Titan is essentially a very deep ocean frozen solid. It won't have minerals, except what a few meteorites leave (and they'll mostly be carbonaceous chondrite, not metal). The main purpose of the colony will be studying the Saturnian system. It's size and budget would be greatly enhanced if life were found on Titan, but I suspect that's very unlikely (it's too cold for chemical reactions to proceed).

I wouldn't send a small mission (4-8 people), I'd sent a community of 50 or more in at least three ships (there will be no rescue if there's trouble).

-- RobS

Austin Stanley · 2005-07-22 15:55:45

I imagine things would be tough on Titan, but not entirely impossible I imagine. While it's distance from the sun probably pretty much entirely rules out using solar energy for anything, that may not be as bad a problem as it sounds. Besides some heat energy and light for plants an intial exploration mission would not utilise much solar energy in any event.

The super-cold nature of the planet does pose some worries, but is not necessarily insurmountable. For one, it means that any power-plant that relise on thermo-electric conversion (right now virtualy all of them) will be able to relise much greater efficency than anything we could do here on Earth or in Space. And while the outpust would probably require lots of insulation and active heating, I suspect that this energy burden would be pretty mild in comparison to some of the high energy activities we talk about on these forms, such as the many various means of fuel production, which practicly all require energy intensive hydrolisis. Modern insulation is quite effective and I suspect will perform well even in the face of Titan's tempetures, I mean we have no problem keeping the shuttle fuel sufficently chilled in Florida, it the exact same problem only in reverse. Furthermore even with the higher efficencies of the reactors on Titan, I suspect there will be pleanty of heat energy remaining to chill the colony.

Having to power lights to grow plants is troubling, but probably unavoidable anywhere in the solar system beyond the orbit of Mars. So Titan is not alone in this challange. However Titan has most (if not all) of the key elments for life readily on hand unlike most other destinations. Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen are all present in large quantities and generaly in readily usable forms (Ammonia, Water, Methane, ect). Titan has alot to offer the rest of the solar system and itself in terms of abundent organic mineral resources.

To mean the biggest challange is still getting there. A long trip no matter how you do it. And the thick atmosphere makes take-off more of a challange as well, but does make aerocapture possible.

RobS · 2005-07-22 21:19:21

The issue is gravity; Titan's is lower than the moon's (1/7th of Earth's, rather than 1/6th). This may be too low for humans if they're staying for four or five years.

It may be that telepresence will be very well developed by then and people will stay inside all the time. The advantage they have over earth is the lack of time delay; it takes a radio signal 5,000 seconds (an hour and a half) to travel from Earth to Saturn on average, and the same for a return signal. People won't be doing teleconferencing between Houston and the mission very much!

I wouldn't compare the "efficiency" of the shuttle's liquid oxygen tank with a shelter on Titan. The shuttle's external tank is only insulated well enough to keep cryogenics cold for a short time. On the pad there is constant boiloff that has to be replaced.

-- RobS

Stormrage · 2005-07-23 05:06:31

I find it odd that these "many" scientists are willing to go the future and see what we are up to then and then telling us about it. Isn't that breaking the Temporal Prime Directive?

Commodore · 2005-07-23 22:15:13

If we have the closed loop life support, the agriculture, and propulsion in place for a Mars mission, theres no good reason we can't go to Titan. Its a matter of a few more "are we there yet's".

Extra challenges include a possible gravity assist by Jupiter, which will mean major radiation exposure (Saturn has quite a bit too).

And of course the surface itself and atmosphere itself. Its so freaking cold! Any Rover will require a reactor just to keep warm, and I can't imagine the space suits.

That said, I'm sure we'll be there by the end of century or shortly there after. It probably won't be my first for landing in the Saturn system. It's the biggest gravity well, but I'm not sure theres much of anything usefull there. Its thick atmosphere does provide ample radiation protection for human habitation however.

PurduesUSAFguy · 2005-07-23 23:02:14

Well I definitely doubt that there are 'many' scientist calling for this but…

idk, if in the next 20 years we have some sort of major break through in magnetically confined or pulse fusion, or the ability to create anti-matter in gram quantities relatively cheaply combined with some sort of hydrogen sulfide induced hibernation system, maybe humans to titan might happen by 2040, but I don't really see any of those things happening in the next 40 years, but then again in 40 years we went from the Wright brothers to the first fighter jets so you never know....

Grypd · 2005-07-24 05:18:58

One problem with this supercold surfaces is that if there is heat leakage from a manned sorce very nasty things could happen. If the heat was applied guickly you could have the frozen gasses quickly become a gas. The effect will be explosive and very life threatening. And the heat needed is not that great where talking only 20 to 30 degrees. Bases must be so insulated they will likely be padded structures.

This means humans who cannot have enough insulation placed on there suits to protect them cannot walk on the surface. This puts a severe hindrance to any scientific plans

GCNRevenger · 2005-07-24 09:17:05

"If we have the closed loop life support, the agriculture, and propulsion in place for a Mars mission, theres no good reason we can't go to Titan. Its a matter of a few more "are we there yet's"

I disagree, you can't keep a crew bottled up in a ship for multiple years, artifical gravity or no. Their mental health would deteriorate and that would hurt them just as surely as radiation-induced cancer. Speed is nessesarry, we have to be able to get to Titan in a timely fasion.

The simplest solution, which Purdues seems to have overlooked entirely, is to hurry up and develop a gas-core nuclear fission reactor. Such a reactor offers much better specific power outputs (for VASIMR) or could be operated at temperatures far beyond the reactors' melting point as a rocket (GCNR). Either option would provide enough performance to make such a trip possible. These things aren't that difficult compared to fusion power or antimatter.

Another option that is even simpler, which I don't think has garnerd enough attention, is Bob Zubrin's nuclear saltwater rocket concept. If the pump/nozzle could be perfected, and the Uranium solution made in space, then this would give more then enough performance. Then we are talking a year or so for transit if we can build a Bush-I SEI class ship.

Keeping warm will be a serious challenge on the surface will be a serious challenge; the reason the Shuttle external tank isn't loaded until just before launch is that the fuel would all boil away. Now we are talking a situation where you are trying to keep a comperably large volume warm even if it rains liquid hydrocarbons. Major active heating would be a must, which should be possible with a high-thermal nuclear reactor, like the bigger brothers of the SP-100.

As far as space suits, it should be possible to insulate them well enough for short walks: since the air pressure is high and gravity low, you can reallocate the mass and flexibility into keeping warm rather then maintaining pressure. If an astronaut did step in a puddle of liquid methane or on a patch of CO2 snow, the low heat capacity of the boot shouldn't cause a "big explosion" either. Make the bottom a perforated metal plate that stands off from the rest of the boot, so the gasses could escape around it. Extended walks are a problem though, that you would need some kind of portable heat source to keep from freezing to death (RTG?).

Commodore · 2005-07-24 21:13:40

"If we have the closed loop life support, the agriculture, and propulsion in place for a Mars mission, theres no good reason we can't go to Titan. Its a matter of a few more "are we there yet's"
I disagree, you can't keep a crew bottled up in a ship for multiple years, artifical gravity or no. Their mental health would deteriorate and that would hurt them just as surely as radiation-induced cancer. Speed is nessesarry, we have to be able to get to Titan in a timely fasion.

While we should certainly provide them with all the speed we can provide, I don't believe we should limit our desitinations to "day trips". Theres going to be points when our life support capabilites Out reach out propulsion capabilities forcing explorers to make treks of multiple years, and theres no reason we shouldn't let them. It might mean making use of different measures to ease the trip, such as building larger ships, with more personal space, with larger crews, with "families", and eventually with "ports of call", such as they are.

But we can't be afraid of long trips. We just have to make then cozier.

Austin Stanley · 2005-07-25 00:12:40

I still think the everone is overstating the hardship the cold would cause. Warming the base Nitrogen atomposhere from a chilly 93K to a comfortable 300K (27*C) only requires ~6kJ a mole or about ~250J/L. In comparison electrolisis of a comparable amount of water requires ~200kJ/L (~3.6MJ/mol). Clearly heating the interior air is a minor energy requirment. And waste heat from a reactor could be used for this purpouse. Even assuming heat is lost at a realitivly high rate, say 2L worth of air returns to surface temp a secound, we still are only looking at energy use of considerably less than a kW, which realy isn't that signifigant.

I won't argue with most of the other points though. Titan is certianly difficult to get to and the lack of sunlight and low G aren't that great. BUT it's great abundance of organic resources still make it an atractive target.

GCNRevenger · 2005-07-25 00:54:53

The trouble isn't warming up a fixed volume of gas one time and it holding its heat in, thats aproaching it from the wrong angle... the question is really very simple, how easily can you ensure that you can pump heat into the HAB faster then it is lost to the ultracold environment.

Austin Stanley · 2005-07-25 01:40:33

I don't have the right back ground to make an educated guess at the rate the ultracold enviroment would sap heat from a habitat, other than to compare it to the rate other devices lose their heat energy. A conventional Dewar flask loses it's heat MUCH MUCH more slowly than the 500W or so I was estimating for a colony. The Dewar's I have delt with generaly return only a fraction of a liter to room temperature a day, maybe 1/100 of their total volume at worst. Now obviously we can't reach that level of insulation in a large realtivly light-weight colony, but my estimate is still conserative by >4 orders of magnitude from that optimal situation. Quite a comfortable margine.

I don't belive their could possibly be a problem with the colony losing heat faster than it could generate it. If you have sufficent energy there is realy little practical limit as to the rate you pump it into the system. Heaters can be very small for the amount of energy they pump out. A 500W heater would realy be chump change. Short of some drastic disaster such as a breach a large breach in base's wall that lets the surrounding atmosphere pour in (which would definetly be a bad thing), it's hard to imagine such a situation.

One last note, obviously the rate of heat loss is most variable with respect to the size of the base we are talking about. Large bases would obviously lose more heat (having more to lose) but lose it more efficently having less surface area for their volume. If there is going to be a problem with heat it is going to be with space suits, like you said. Which have the most surface area and the least possiblity for insulation.

idiom · 2005-07-27 01:42:27

The question about titan, is how do you manufacture more base? Mars has iron pretty much trying to get into your Hab, what can you build out of methane without breaking it all the way down to carbon and working your way up?

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2005-07-27 10:23:58

They suspect other minerals may be on Titan, and some foreign material from asteroid and comets, plus some iron, nickel but its mainly rich in stuff like Hydro-Carbon and hydrogen which might be good for the creation of polymer and plastics, petrochemical, synthetic fibers, and gasoline and propane....Titan has a lot more material than Mars but its is so far away, is very cold, and you have little solar power plus all the other problems a risky mission like this would create that other newmars posters mentioned

GCNRevenger · 2005-07-27 10:54:40

The question about titan, is how do you manufacture more base? Mars has iron pretty much trying to get into your Hab, what can you build out of methane without breaking it all the way down to carbon and working your way up?

Fiberglass and plastic, which is what you would want to build your base out of anyway, and not metal which would sap heat away.

idiom · 2005-07-27 14:08:57

I suppose if your base is founded on a series of large reactors then energy will probably be of little enough concern to run intensive processes like that.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-03-27 09:06:12

GCNRevenger wrote:

Just who are these "many scientists" anyway? I want to know so I can ignore them from now on for being idiots
Titan has gravity, it has a thick atmosphere, and it has at least some nitrogen... but the real kicker is, it doesn't have any sunlight. Mars gets like 50% the sunlight that Earth does on the average, but Titan only gets 1-2%. Those pretty pictures sent back by the ESA probe are visible only because of image inhancement and the glow coming off of Saturn, which is probobly weaker then moonlight on Earth.
The lack of sunlight also makes Titan EXTREMELY cold, which is a serious problem for colonization. On Mars, temperatures are warm enough that you can get away with well-insulated greenhouses or "tent" structures, ideal for colonies... but on Titan, it was would be much too cold. Plus, the thick atmosphere here is a real hinderance, since thick cold air transports heat away from things better then cold thin air.
Then there is the water problem to speak of, that if there is no supply of water available (or at least a ready supply of Oxygen) then its just not going to happen. Getting the energy required, which is pretty extreme, to to get it from oxide rocks will be pretty hard on Titan... you'll be spending most of your energy on not freezing to death.

There is plenty of water on Titan, you just have to melt it, that's all!

As far as actually -getting- there, no current chemical or solid-core nuclear powerd vehicle will be good enough, the trip would just take too long or consume far too much fuel. A gas-core fission thermal rocket, a nuclear salt water rocket, or perhaps a gas-core reactor powerd VASIMR engine would be needed. Big, heavy, advanced stuff.

Could a human being survive four years in space? Now the good news, you only have to wait a year and a month at Saturn for the planets to realign for the return trip back to Earth, not the two years for the trip from Mars! The actual trip back would take as long as getting their, unfortunately, so what you really need is a traveling space station. th?&id=OIP.M85028c1c02ae16ad68360778f3ca882eo0&w=299&h=179&c=0&pid=1.9&rs=0&p=0&r=0
Something that looks something like this, however with radiator panels instead of Solar Panels perhaps.

SpaceNut · 2016-03-27 09:25:28

I agree as the level of solar at Saturn is pitiful...nice artificial gravity wheel...

SpaceNut · 2021-08-19 20:06:00

I went to delete members post in MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!
Titanman http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 783#p75783

All functions come back with a bad post number....

Will try to delete the user with the delete banned function....

just tested and that cleared the post that started the topic

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2005-07-20 20:30:20

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#2 2005-07-21 03:05:18

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#3 2005-07-21 05:34:26

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#4 2005-07-22 01:12:40

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#5 2005-07-22 02:25:38

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#6 2005-07-22 02:52:06

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#7 2005-07-22 15:55:45

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#8 2005-07-22 21:19:21

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#9 2005-07-23 05:06:31

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#10 2005-07-23 22:15:13

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#11 2005-07-23 23:02:14

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#12 2005-07-24 05:18:58

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#13 2005-07-24 09:17:05

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#14 2005-07-24 21:13:40

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#15 2005-07-25 00:12:40

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#16 2005-07-25 00:54:53

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#17 2005-07-25 01:40:33

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#18 2005-07-27 01:42:27

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#19 2005-07-27 10:23:58

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#20 2005-07-27 10:54:40

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#21 2005-07-27 14:08:57

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#22 2016-03-27 09:06:12

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#23 2016-03-27 09:25:28

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

#24 2021-08-19 20:06:00

Re: MANNED MISSION TO TITAN BY 2040!!!!

Board footer