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Concept Aquatic Rover May Explore a Lake On Titan
cylonlover writes "Titan is Saturn's largest moon, and it's said to be one of the most Earth-like celestial bodies in the Solar System. It has a thick atmosphere, and is covered with a network of seas, lakes and rivers – albeit ones made up of liquid hydrocarbons instead of water. Now, a team of scientists are proposing sending a boat-like probe to Titan, that would travel across its largest lake. The probe, which is still in the concept stage, is known as TALISE – that stands for Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer, although it's also an Iroquois word for 'beautiful water.' The plan calls for it to land in the middle of Ligeia Mare, which is near the moon's north pole. It would then set out on a six-month to one-year mission, taking scientific measurements and obtaining samples as it makes its way to the closest shore."
If they only get it done before I die (~40 years or so)
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I think we're unlikely to wake you. But not for the reason you think.
Mostly liquid ethane, methane and propane, rather than water. But yeah, one would think a splashdown would be more forgiving.
... don't we have a rover on the bottom of our own planets oceans?
The Europe-built Huygens probe that landed on Titan a few years ago was designed to float in case it had landed on liquid (solid land by luck of the draw). However, it only was designed for a very limited life-time in order to keep it small.
Table-ized A.I.
That's based on a rather narrow and specific definition of what it means to be "earth-like". In human terms, there are many other bodies on the solar system on which we (and any other kind of life as we know it) could live on far easier than Titan.
Better known as 318230.
They may have to design it for a land-based landing in case it misses the liquid target. Plus it may hit an iceberg or the like.
(Hitting an iceberg on Titan...ic, pun fun.)
Table-ized A.I.
Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer
TALISE
Somebody failed with the acronyms. Is that with or without the P? Either way the word does not seem to exist and the closest match is a congenital defect.......
I suppose not every goal is finding extra-terrestrial life, but I almost feel like this is missing the real opportunity on Titan. This is a planet with both lakes of hydrocarbons and volcanic activity, theoretically perfect for life (admittedly neglecting H_2O). Surely a submarine would be more useful than a boat? Wouldn't we rather explore the depths and try to find primitive life where it is most likely to be created (by my admittedly limited understanding of abiogenesis theories)?
They're calling it the Titanic.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I am still waiting for a Europa ocean-going mission. That's the best chance of finding other life in the solar system. We need some sort of easy way to melt through the ice layer, though. (Maybe slowly, though radioactivity?). I suppose that would make the probe more of a submarine than a boat though.
A simillar mission was rejected from NASA funding plans a few weeks ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Mare_Explorer
I'm going to complain here, because no-one else cares...
One of my pet hates is that when the media publishes a measurement, they will give both metric and imperial, and will calculate it to ridiculous significant figures.
For instance, this imaginary robot might weigh, you know, round about 100 kilo - which is 220.5 lbs! Yep, they know know the measurements to the nearest 10th of a pound, but coincidentally it happens to be a really round figure in metric terms.
Rant over. Feel free to ignore.
Yes is does. Of course any water that is found there will be frozen to the point of being indistinguishable from rock.
On that point, shouldn't the thing be called a methanic rover?
A Duck being a craft that goes on land and liquid. Where a body of water may be interesting, One should not pass up the ability to go ashore. If the Atmosphere will support it a balloon hover craft would access both land and ocean.
Icebergs exist because of a property of water that is somewhat unique, where the solid form has a lower density than the liquid form. That is exaggerated even further with water because the "solid" water (Arctic ice sheets as well as calving from glaciers) is generally free of salt but the salt concentration in liquid water tends to have an even higher density than ordinary fresh water... giving additional buoyancy thus letting those "icebergs" float in the liquid of the oceans on the Earth.
That we live in a world where the temperatures on this planet hover near the freezing point of water makes this a common experience as well, or at least something routine to be seeing in everyday life or when you drink a glass of "ice water", lemonade, or Coca-Cola.
Somehow I doubt that Titan will have anything like that, as I don't think frozen Ethane is going to be a problem on Titan. If there are Ethane glaciers though, it would certainly be an interesting experience.
BTW, I love the joke though, if the proposal was for something larger than a rowboat that would be traveling at speeds greater than about 5-10 knots.
Plenty of things do fine without solar, nuclear, or air. The obvious example is the Space Shuttle, using fuel cells. Swedish submarines use cryogenic liquid oxygen with diesel fuel to heat a Stirling engine. German submarines use hydrogen fuel cells.
If you wanted to bet that the lake really is liquid methane/ethane, you could just bring an oxidizer. You could even run a very fuel-rich piston engine.
Non-RTG nuclear is also possible. You have an entire lake of cooling fluid. You can use it as cooling for a traditional reactor or even make a nuclear jet engine.
(not that an RTG is exotic in 2012, nor that you couldn't just purchase that one part)
Plain old alkaline batteries work pretty well too, as long as you don't intend to do all that much work. Get some measurements, send them home, done!
You're getting greedy. Make do with less. Each moment on the surface is less valuable than the preceeding moment. An hour on the surface, without even moving, is pretty damn useful. It probably gets you 90% of the value of spending a year roving around.