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Cassini Finds Evidence For Ocean Inside Titan
Riding with Robots writes "NASA reports that by using data from the Cassini probe's radar, scientists established the locations of 50 unique landmarks on the surface of Saturn's planet-size moon Titan. They then searched for these same lakes, canyons and mountains in the data after subsequent Titan flybys. They found that the features had shifted from their expected positions by up to 30 kilometers. NASA says a systematic displacement of surface features would be difficult to explain unless the moon's icy crust was decoupled from its core by an internal ocean, making it easier for the crust to move. If confirmed, this discovery would add to the growing list of moons in the solar system that are icy on the outside and warm and liquid inside, providing potential habitats. We've previously discussed Titan's hydrocarbon lakes and potential cryovolcano."
I, for one, welcome our Titan Overlords!
I really liked Arthur C. Clark's works. I liked 'Songs of a Distant Earth' the best. The 2001,2010,2060,3001 series was fantastic.
But it was science fiction. It will never be true, not the alien intelligence, not HAL, not monoliths on the moon, and especially not human travel to distant planets. Don't mod me down or call me a Luddite, but it's just not going to happen.
Guys, these are not distant points on the Earth like Antarctica or some other place that you can climb into to a machine, fill it with fuel and just go to. These are dots in the night sky. They are millions of miles away. And there is nothing there that can justify the unbelievably large public expense and the near-certain failure of such a journey. The prospect of increasing quote unquote scientific knowledge just doesn't cut it anymore.
Guess what! We're broke! We pissed away all the funds that you would have liked to have spent on space travel on wars, debt service, and bail-outs for sub-prime mortgage banks. Remember the senator who said fifty years ago, "A billion here, a billion there, soon you start talking about real money!". Well we spent a hundred billion here and a hundred billion there, lost a few hundred billion here and there and didn't log in a few hundred billion over the years on account of secret 'black box' projects. And now we're broke.
Not only are we broke, but we are facing climate change, overpopulation (and its endless expensive wars), and economic meltdown. The US dollar lost 50% of its value next to the world's second major currency (the euro) in less than five years. Housing prices are falling 5% a quarter, food costs are rising 10-20% a year, oil is over $100 a barrel, and gold is over $1000 an ounce. And we're broke, and deeply in debt on all levels.
Gentlemen, we must accept the finality of reality after having expired all the other options. There isn't going to be any manned space travel program to other planets. There is unlikely to be any more trips to the moon.
It was great, it was fun, it fired the imagination of generations. But it's over.
At least we still have Star Trek reruns.
Again, don't mod me down for pointing out the reality of our current situation. It is real and the space program no longer is.
Thank you. Damn. Slashdaughters are the toughest audience to explain this to. Go put your brains into solving some real problems. Forget space exploration.