[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Researcher Touts Saturn’s Titan As New Exploration Goal
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer, Space.com
posted: 14 March 2006
01:07 pm ET


"'Titan is just waiting for us…Titan wants us,' [Jonathan] Lunine suggested. 'There is no body in the outer solar system that is better designed for exploration than Titan.'"

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I just got a reply from Ralph Lorenz to several questions. Unfortunately, he had nothing useful to say on the questions about Titan's puzzling apparent surface composition, so I've put out feelers to Hasso Niemann and Sylvain Doute on that (with no replies yet). However, he DID have some comments on possible techniques for exploring Titan within a New Frontiers cost cap.

He takes a dim view of the idea of dispatching a stationary lander, by itself, to try to touch down on a possible site of ammonia-water volcanism as located by Cassini, to look for water-modified organics: "I don't think that is as appealing as [your] balloon [idea] below. Titan is obviously very diverse; there would be a lot of scientific risk in aiming at only one spot, and technical risk in doing so armed only with Cassini observations at 500 meters/pixel."

But I also suggested a nonlanding balloon (by itself) at low altitude -- equipped with cameras, meteorological instruments, and maybe other instruments such as a subsurface radar sounder or a near-IR spectrometer (possibly with multicolored lasers to illuminate the surface in the spectral bands of various interesting substances that aren't illuminated by the spectral bands of the sunlight punching through Titan's atmosphere), "to provide the kind of very detailed aerial survey of Titan's surface processes which it now seems absolutely clear we badly need in order to understand just what is happening on this complex world?"

He responds: "That sort of mission is one I have a lot of enthusiasm for. The challenge would be achieving a worthwhile data return with direct-to-Earth communications." He's right about that. Assuming it landed some time around 2020-25, once it wandered outside the north polar region it would be out of contact. (This is also a problem for the proposed windblown Titan Organics Explorer multiple-landing aerobot -- although it could probably provide an adequate science haul just by making multiple landings in the north polar region).

He adds, "An orbiter to generate global maps with topography would be another attractive mission, by itself (under the NF cap?) or as an adjunct to a balloon mission (for which it could act as a relay)." The first, of course, is the idea Emily mentioned in her blog on the LPSC conference -- but when you add a balloon or lander to it, it would almost certainly jump beyond the NF cost cap. So, the next question: is there any conceivable way to add a small com relay craft -- orbiting either Titan or Saturn itself -- to a nonlanding balloon mission while staying inside the NF cost cap? Could the Europeans provide one, with either an RTG or solar power source (as they have proposed providing one to orbit Jupiter to help Europa Orbiter)?

At any rate, just as in looking for actual biological or prebiotic evidence on Mars or Europa, we must remember Gollum's sage advice: "Cautiouss, my Preciouss! More haste, less speed!" We are simply going to have to patiently accustom ourselves to a necessarily long, drawn-out search process -- VERY drawn-out in the case of Europa and Titan.