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Liquid Lakes On Saturn's Moon Confirmed
Riding with Robots writes "Scientists have been using the robotic spacecraft Cassini to explore what looked to be large lakes of hydrocarbons on the surface of Saturn's planet-sized moon Titan. But they couldn't be entirely sure that the features were actually liquid lakes, and not simply very smooth, solid material. Now, new findings seem to confirm that the observations really do show extensive seas of liquid ethane and other hydrocarbons. In fact, Titan seems to have an entire 'water' cycle of ethane evaporation, rain and rivers."
Other than burning hydrocarbons, what would you do with them?
TFA says that theres methane, ethane and other light hydrocarbons. You can make CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs and that kind of fun stuff with methane and ethane, but to make polymers you need ethylene or other hydrocarbons with double or triple bonds.
It probably wouldn't be feasible to transport hydrocarbons from Titan back to Earth for consumption here, the energy costs alone would be astronomical; that and the whole climate change and tendancy to move away from hydrocarbons... The only thing I can see this being "useful" for is if we wanted a "refueling station" in space where we could just load up a spaceship with what is essentially natural gas. The only problem would be finding oxygen to combust it with...
I'm critical, not cynical...
Cool idea, but the UAV-carrying aspect of the blimp is an expensive disappointment waiting to happen...imagine how disappointing it would be when one or more of the UAVs crashes, and when you try to fly an autonomous UAV around an alien planet, it will happen, and probably in short order. Also in a thick atmosphere, while the aircraft would need smaller lifting surfaces / lift bags they'd also need to be big and heavy so they won't be blown around like a styrofoam take-out box if there's any wind at all, which is exactly what would happen to a tiny UAV (actually they're not a whole lot better off than that on earth in my experience).
A blimp might work but a blimp that launches fixed-wing UAVs is asking for trouble. Maybe a blimp that can transport mini-rovers would be more useful.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The hydrocarbons are pretty simple relative to organically-produced ones. You get the more complicated ones on Titan by photo-chemical reactions in the atmosphere. (UV from the Sun breaks bonds which recombine in new and exciting ways.)
More importantly, Since when do spacecraft BURN Hydrocarbons to provide propulsion?
I was under the impression that the primary stages of most space-capable rockets were Liquid Hydrogen-Oxygen fueled, with a solid fuel as a secondary booster stage, and then more liquid Hy/Ox fuel for space-based boosting and maneuvers.
Since when did we start putting V8's in our rockets?
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory