NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX are focused on getting astronauts to Mars and even establishing a colony on the Red Planet one day - but what if their attention was directed the other way? Recently, an article appeared in the Journal of Astrobiology & Outreach in which people are invited to establish a colony on Titan, the orange moon of Saturn, which is similar to Earth in youth and which can hide unknown life. Instead of sending people on a one-way mission to look for life on the surface, the new job offers to equip an outpost of the future on Titan.
In many ways, Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is one of the most Earth-like worlds we've discovered to date,”says NASA on its website. "Thanks to its thick atmosphere and organic chemistry, Titan resembles a frozen version of the Earth as it was several billion years ago, before life began pumping oxygen into our atmosphere."
To be fair, Titan may have microbes - or at least chemistry reminiscent of prebiotic life - but it's still not Earth. This moon is covered with orange clouds and its atmosphere is not the most friendly. But Titan's gravity allows walking on the surface (14% of the Earth's), radiation on the surface is less than on Mars due to thick clouds, and the satellite also offers various sources for generating energy.
Titan contains vast reserves of hydrocarbons, compounds commonly associated with oil and gas. Data from NASA's Cassini probe showed that Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all known reserves of oil and natural gas on Earth.
People on Titan could get energy from these compounds if they used a separate combustion source that could work in the absence of oxygen. The new study is looking at other ways to generate chemical energy, such as treating acetylene (of which there is a lot) with hydrogen.
“In this work, I wanted to dig deeper into the chemical energy option and the alternative energy options,” says Anne Hendricks, a scientist at the nonprofit Institute of Planetary Sciences. “My co-author Yuk Jung and I have explored the chemical, nuclear, geothermal, solar, hydropower and wind options for generating power on Titan. The work is intended to be the first high-level work on these topics."
While Hendrix says it's entirely possible to generate all of this energy using our current technology, she notes that with proper research, we could and should find ways to get more out of Titan's environment. For example, if we examine the possibilities of different materials for photovoltaic cells, we could extract more solar energy - and it is especially important to do this given the conditions of Titan.
Hydropower would require better mapping of Titan's abundant lake regions, including their topography and their current velocity. Even wind power will require some research into airborne wind turbines. But all these directions, according to Hendrix, are promising.
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“I imagine that, just like on Earth, a combination of energy sources would be beneficial on Titan,” she says. - In particular, solar energy (using large arrays of elements) and wind (using air turbines)."
With the right approach, this energy will be more than enough for a small outpost. Rather than simply sending people on a one-way mission to find life, for example, Hendrix sees a future in which energy is generated to meet all the needs of the colonists. Solar panels covering, for example, 10% of Titan's surface could provide the energy needed to meet the needs of 300 million people. Of course, this is only a preliminary estimate so far.
And yet, with NASA intent on putting humans on Mars by the 2030s, the space agency remains focused on Mars exploration. Although he admits that "there is no money."
Ilya Khel