Titan: A superior colony world compared to Mars.

[daniel l.]

TITAN

• Size: 0.404 Earths
• Surface Area: 0.163 Earths
• Surface Gravity: 0.14g
• Surface Temperature: 93.7K
• Atmospheric Pressure: 1.45 bar

Titan is largest moon of Saturn and the only one known to harbor an atmosphere of any substance. As you can see from the stats i put above, Titan has many things going for it. The high but not too high pressure would make space suits not required. Instead colonists would only need clothing designed to keep them warm and a breathing apparatus. This would make Titan a far easier world to live on than Mars or any other planet/moon. If need be you could probably go inside a cave system and heat it up to survivable temperatures thus making it possible to remove most of the protective garment safely without even having to close off the opening of the cave because of the perfect air pressure. On Mars a breach of a habitat would be fatal. But on Titan it would be far easier to manage as long as the pressure inside the habitat is kept equalized with the outside. And with the abundance of water, Air would not be a rare commodity (Meaning that a leak would not be a serious concern.), So if a habitat breaches on Titan all you need to do is close all the other doors and turn on the heaters as opposed to getting your blood boiled on Mars or Venus. The gravity is a bit low but it could be easily handled through genetic engineering and frequent exercise as well as some cybernetic implants perhaps.

All in all, It is in my opinion that Titan would be a far more valuable colony than Mars. It has plenty to offer, Which i will list below:

1. Perfect Atmospheric pressure (1.45 bar)
2. Abundance of water (The entire surface is composed of it.)
3. Massive hydrocarbon lakes (A good fuel source.)
4. Low Gravity (Makes interplanetary trade much easier. And human aging becomes more graceful.)
5. Hundreds of other moons nearby (Titan could be the center of a united Saturnian government.)
6. Beautiful scenic views (Can you imagine the view of Saturn? Or the methane lakes? Titan is a one of a kind experience, No other place like it in the Sol system.)

 

[Bill Phil]

No one place in the solar system is good for colonization. Sure, if we can build hotels and have a tourist industry on Titan (maybe some mining, too, it has very useful volatiles) then maybe some people would get to fly by flapping their arms (with attached wings, of course). But that's centuries away (most of all it's the long transfer time).

But, there's a few problems with Titan as a colony:

1.) You can't breathe the atmosphere, and it's very cold, meaning you'll need a heated environment suit, as well as a suit to protect you from the chemicals that aren't good for you. (this is normally called a space suit) Pressure doesn't matter so much if we use mechanical pressure suits (better mobility)

2.) Water is abundant in many places. Most outer moons are made of rock and ice. See: Europa and Enceladus.

3.) Hydrocarbons aren't a good fuel if you don't have oxidizer. You might as well just split the water, since you get the stoichiometric ratio of oxygen and hydrogen. Maybe you could get oxygen from somewhere else, but hydrocarbons are mainly useful as something other than fuel. I'm not quite sure, but I think plastics might be one use.

4.) We have no idea the effects of low gravity over a lifetime, least of all on child development.

5.) There are moons nearby, yes. But you still have to leave a gravity well, albeit a small one.

6.) The views would, sadly, be lackluster. You can't see Saturn from the surface. Yes, Titan is unique, but not superior to any other location, which are usually poor sites for colonies anyways.

And here's an extra problem: Distance. Sheer distance. It's a huge factor. This is why Mars is a nonstarter for colonization, even though it comes to mind first. It's very far away. That means it takes forever to get there. And that's just Mars. Think about Titan for a moment. Saturn is 10 AU from the Sun. We can't get much there, unless we bite the bullet and use Project Orion. Even then we're talking months, maybe a year or more for a less expensive trip.

I do want there to be space colonies in the future. But planetary chauvinism is a much too limited view. Why go to a terrible place, when you can stay here? You have to make it a great place to live. It just so happens that that's easier to do with orbiting colonies than on planets. This way you can be literally hours, maybe even minutes, from Earth. Even the Moon is days away. And it'd very difficult to make life pleasant for all surface based colonies. Even floating ones, like in Venus' atmo, would be very cramped. And even when not considering the advantages of greater comfort and quality of life as well as the advantage of proximity to Earth, there's the advantage of potential. Huge potential to grow. Now, it'd be very difficult and would likely take thousands of years to do, but mining the entirety of Ceres would provide hundreds of times Earth's land area with passive shielding being most of the mass. If we can somehow develop active shielding in that time, then we're talking even greater multiple's of Earth's area. There's just not much area on Mars, the Moon, and other targets for colonies. Not to mention that we still don't know the effects of low gravity on people and children.

Most celestial bodies don't make good colony sites. I'm afraid we'll have to do what we've always done: Build a better home.

[kerbiloid]

Titan is a lesser evil than Mars.

Also don't forget, it's in 10 AU from Sun.
This means that telescopes orbiting Saturn and serviced by a Titan colony woul be 100x more protected against the Sun light, and give a 10 AU triangulation base.
They would be closer to the Saturn gravitational focus (I guess).
So, a fleet of 20-m orbital telescopes near Satun and near the Earth would give to humanity so perfect pictures of dull lifeless useless rocky icy gas balls charming worlds around other stars, that starships get useless.
 

46 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Hydrocarbons aren't a good fuel if you don't have oxidizer.

They are nice for polymerization and nuclear-powered thermal nozzles. And propellers.

P.S.
If something in the Solar System should be colonized at all, that's Titan and its orbit.

P.P.S.
Time is not a problem. Space monks servicing Space Eyes.

Edited February 5, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Nibb31]

Did you consider radiation levels ? That huge fusion power plant in the sky isn't very healthy.

[Mikki]

4 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Did you consider radiation levels ? That huge fusion power plant in the sky isn't very healthy.

Titan leaves once per orbit saturns magnetic field and pops out into the suns solarwind.... Small amounts of the upper atmosphere get lost while that time...

[kerbiloid]

1. This is included in the "should be colonized ... Titan and its orbit" remark.
I don't think that a low-gravity cryogenic world composed of hydrocarbons is a nice place to build a village.
At least because the hydrocarbons would become geysers in slosh under a warm building.
But they can use Titan like here

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

(Oops, wrong slide).

That's it:

I.e. swarming around and eating.
Not necessary to live there themselves, they can keep a safe orbit, but use Titan as industrial substrate. Not much people live on oil rigs or coal mines.

2. Tital surface is full of hydrocarbons. This mean polymers in situ, quantum satis.
They can keep grabbing hydrocarbons, polymerizing them and vomitting sticky slime, plastic foam and plastic bubbles, covering the planetoid surface with thick multilayer heaps of blobs.

Spoiler

Also, the foam can isolate the inner, habitable, place, as from upper radiation, so from underneath cryogenic frost.
And it cannot be pierced or blown by a wind.
Then they can live in the foam heap on the Titan surface itself, if they want.

[daniel l.]

45 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

1. This is included in the "should be colonized ... Titan and its orbit" remark.
I don't think that a low-gravity cryogenic world composed of hydrocarbons is a nice place to build a village.
At least because the hydrocarbons would become geysers in slosh under a warm building.
But they can use Titan like here

  Reveal hidden contents

  Hide contents

 

(Oops, wrong slide).

That's it:

I.e. swarming around and eating.
Not necessary to live there themselves, they can keep a safe orbit, but use Titan as industrial substrate. Not much people live on oil rigs or coal mines.

2. Tital surface is full of hydrocarbons. This mean polymers in situ, quantum satis.
They can keep grabbing hydrocarbons, polymerizing them and vomitting sticky slime, plastic foam and plastic bubbles, covering the planetoid surface with thick multilayer heaps of blobs.

  Reveal hidden contents

Also, the foam can isolate the inner, habitable, place, as from upper radiation, so from underneath cryogenic frost.
And it cannot be pierced or blown by a wind.
Then they can live in the foam heap on the Titan surface itself, if they want.

Uhmmm.... Is this a violation of rule 2.2? I know that the picture in the spoilers is rather... Explicit. Anyway. This post confuses me. Is it satire? Is it an agreement? I dunno. But I feel bamboozled.

[kerbiloid]

This post is not a satire, I've written how I see the Titan usage.

[IncongruousGoat]

Perhaps in the long run, along with Europa. But it's simply too far away. Primarily, this causes issues with travel times, which would be in terms of years. But there's another problem. Titan is pretty far from the Sun, drastically decreasing the effectiveness of solar panels. Its thick atmosphere compounds the problem. You would need to generate all your power using a nuclear reactor of some kind-and I don't know how prevalent fissile material is on Titan, if it exists in any substantial quantity at all.

And, on the subject of scenic views... I think Earth wins the scenic view contest, hand-down. Well, maybe Valles Marineris on Mars, but still. Active geology and hydrology go a long way.

[daniel l.]

4 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

And, on the subject of scenic views... I think Earth wins the scenic view contest, hand-down. Well, maybe Valles Marineris on Mars, but still. Active geology and hydrology go a long way.

Earth? With it's ONE moon? And Mars has only two. Get in a blimp and climb above the clouds of Titan and immerse yourself in a sea of stars.

[Bill Phil]

58 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

Earth? With it's ONE moon? And Mars has only two. Get in a blimp and climb above the clouds of Titan and immerse yourself in a sea of stars.

Many astronauts have commented on the beauty of Earth from Orbit. 

Again, distance. People have to want to live there. All planets and moons are hostile to life in their current state.

[daniel l.]

Just now, Bill Phil said:

Many astronauts have commented on the beauty of Earth from Orbit. 

Again, distance. People have to want to live there. All planets and moons are hostile to life in their current state.

Of course. But so is Mars. Titan has so much going for it. Suitably thick air. Limitless water. And proximity to many other moons. Titan may be a pretty far from Earth. But it's not too far. Using EM-drive a ship could probably get there in a few months.

[Bill Phil]

Just now, daniel l. said:

Of course. But so is Mars. Titan has so much going for it. Suitably thick air. Limitless water. And proximity to many other moons. Titan may be a pretty far from Earth. But it's not too far. Using EM-drive a ship could probably get there in a few months.

It would literally take more than 5 years to get there with current tech, Orion drives (useable in space, won't harm Earth) can get that down to months. EM drives aren't an actual thing... But that's a debate for another time and place.

The air is thick. But it's very, very cold. A jacket won't help, you'd need active heating. Which basically means you need a spacesuit.

Water is limitless on Europa. In fact, water is everywhere. Even on Ceres, the Moon, and Mercury. Not to mention that we can already recycle water for life support at a decent efficiency.

Both Titan and Mars are essentially non-starters. All locations are, in fact...

I'm not defending Mars. I'm saying  all places are bad for colonies given current and near future tech. The best option for the near future is space settlements in freefall. Which is still expensive. But sending something to Mars or Titan will always be more expensive than sending things to low orbit. Which means we can build a decently sized colony for the same cost.

 

[daniel l.]

24 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

The air is thick. But it's very, very cold. A jacket won't help, you'd need active heating. Which basically means you need a spacesuit.

Except. That you would not need a pressure suit. Meaning that it would not in any way need to be so bloated and inflexible as modern space suits. It could be a tight insulator garment with heating elements running through it. Also. Because of the atmospheric pressure being within tolerable levels. In an emergency you could take shelter in a cave and simply deploy a heating unit to heat the interior enough to remove the suit.

Edited February 6, 2017 by daniel l.

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, daniel l. said:

Except. That you would not need a pressure suit. Meaning that it would not in any way need to be so bloated and inflexible as modern space suits. It could be a tight insulator garment with heating elements running through it. Also. Because of the atmospheric pressure being within tolerable levels. In an emergency you could take shelter in a cave and simply deploy a heating unit to heat the interior enough to remove the suit.

But you'd need air. Meaning a breathing apparatus. And you'd need heat. Sure, you wouldn't need a pressurized suit, but the same could be said of Mars. It's called a mechanical pressure suit. Essentially you put on a skintight suit that tightens around your skin, preventing it from expanding due to the vacuum on the other side. Then you need a helmet for your head, and likely something for the groin area, to handle waste. But mechanical pressure suits have applications everywhere, essentially. Here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit

This is likely the suit any Mars mission will use, as it's much less limiting for moving around.

Caves are a bad idea. You'd have to prevent flow of cooler atmosphere into the cave, and then you'd heat it up to the point where it essentially melts. Not to mention that heating up a small area is easier than heating up a large area. Just keep an emergency shelter (like a tent...?) on hand at all times. Then you can keep the tent warm with relative ease, especially with proper insulation. Now, this alone would be a difficult engineering challenge.

[daniel l.]

9 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Caves are a bad idea. You'd have to prevent flow of cooler atmosphere into the cave, and then you'd heat it up to the point where it essentially melts. Not to mention that heating up a small area is easier than heating up a large area. Just keep an emergency shelter (like a tent...?) on hand at all times. Then you can keep the tent warm with relative ease, especially with proper insulation. Now, this alone would be a difficult engineering challenge.

Well. If you use standard arctic survival tricks and build a barrier between inside and out. Then set the heating unit to warm the cave up to maybe 10 degrees Fahrenheit so that it's tolerably warm but not enough to melt the ice. Then just lay out your padded sleeping bag.

[Bill Phil]

1 minute ago, daniel l. said:

Well. If you use standard arctic survival tricks and build a barrier between inside and out. Then set the heating unit to warm the cave up to maybe 10 degrees Fahrenheit so that it's tolerably warm but not enough to melt the ice. Then just lay out your padded sleeping bag.

Even that would likely take a long time. You'd need a portable heater, one with enough power to heat it up quickly enough. Which would likely be too heavy.

[daniel l.]

12 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Even that would likely take a long time. You'd need a portable heater, one with enough power to heat it up quickly enough. Which would likely be too heavy.

That's current tech. Note the exponential advancement we are experiencing right now.

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

The air is thick. But it's very, very cold. A jacket won't help, you'd need active heating.

Layers of thermoinsulation polymer foam and bubbles solve this problem. Warm inside, cool outside.

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Water is limitless on Europa.

Titan rocks are water.
Also Europa is right in the heart of the radiation belt.

P.S.
All places for a colony are bad, but most of them are also useless.
Titan is maybe the only one which makes ISRU possible (not just get some water, but do some complicated chemistry, including edible one).
And it's probably a very good place to let humans upgrade their insterstellar vision (telescopes), study gas giant physics and rings+icy moons.
So, it can be a huge very-long-lasting scientific colony.

Edited February 6, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Bill Phil]

11 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

That's current tech. Note the exponential advancement we are experiencing right now.

Not quite. The laws of physics limits it. The best specific energy we can get at the moment is fission. In the near future, maybe we could get fusion. But fusion and fission are both very, very hard to miniaturize. This is why there aren't nuclear reactors in cars (beyond the radiation issue, of course). And the only thing better is antimatter (good luck with that). But the point isn't so much portability (portable generators are actually alright), but whether or not the thing would even be on hand in an emergency.

10 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Layers of thermoinsulation polymer foam and bubbles solve this problem. Warm inside, cool outside.

Titan rocks are water.
Also Europa is right in the heart of the radiation belt.

P.S.
All places for a colony are bad, but most of them are also useless.
Titan is maybe the only one which makes ISRU possible (not just get some water, but do some complicated chemistry, including edible one).
And it's probably a very good place to let humans upgrade their insterstellar vision (telescopes), study gas giant physics and rings+icy moons.
So, it can be a huge very-long-lasting scientific colony.

How many layers? If it's too much, you're limiting movement by a large degree. Not to mention that no insulator is perfect.

Titan rocks aren't just water, they're other stuff. You need to separate it.

Europa is in the heart of the radiation belt, yes. But Callisto is not. And it has water too. Europa has advantages in that you might be able to get liquid water without having to melt ice first, but that's a huge longshot, and Callisto or Ganymede could have that as well.

All places for colonies are bad, yes. But they are useful for collecting resources. Volatiles and water are likely very important for future colonies.

Just about any place far from the sun would do. The rea thing getting in the way is the atmosphere of Earth. (this is why Hubble has really good pictures... that and long exposure times)

[kerbiloid]

20 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

How many layers?

Tens meters, hundreds meters. There is a lot of freeware carbon there. And a foam consists mostly of nothing. Lot of nothing in  bubbles - what they call foam.
Enough to protect the underlaying cryo against melting.
Enough to protect the inner volume against space radiation.

They have enough carbon to produce carbon nanotubes for struts and trusses and to build huge arcs filling them with foam.

25 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Titan rocks aren't just water, they're other stuff.

We need water - they are enough watered. Also there are many useless icy minmuses near Saturn, just waiting to be cannibalized.

27 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

But Callisto is not. And it has water too.

Callisto has water and... But water is good.
It's the only good on Callisto.

29 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Europa has advantages in that you might be able to get liquid water without having to melt ice first,

If I can remember, Europa's liquid water is under 100 km of ice.
But boiling a piece of Saturnian ice is not a problem since humans got the fire.

30 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

But they are useful for collecting resources.

Water. And rocks.

But Titan and maybe Triton and Pluto also have something else.

So, my vision is:
"Demographic" colonization of Titan is as useless, as of any another celestial body in Solar System.
Settlements where humans can live long and grow children will stay orbital (until a real artificial gravity will be invented, not centrifugal.)
Most of planets are useless even for orbital settlements placing.

Titan is a great industrial base for settlements in Saturn system.
They can live in orbital colonies using the partially colonized Titan as an industrial base. Shifts of engineers can live there for months, as also anyone who likes to live in a labyrinth of bubbles.
Children grow up on orbit.
Titanian fluids get consumed and converted into huge amounts of polymers and carbon tubes. They are used to build more bubbles and Death Star _{they already have one} orbital colonies.

 

[kerbiloid]

^{(I'm now at my place, so I'll finish)}

So, not a "Titan colony", but a "Titan-based Saturn colony".

Also, the Saturn magnetosphere and radiation belts probably can be used as an environment-friendly power source.
For example, hang the satellites in its radiation belts heart to gather electricity and transmit power by microwave emitters (like in KSPI-E).
(Maybe antimatter, too)
Also such emitter can be used to directly heat one of saturnian minmuses and gather the water steam as mentioned above.

As we can see, Saturn-Titan tandem provides not ISRU, but a local industry.

Of course, there is no sense in using this industry for the Earth purposes.
You need less energy to make methane right from the water and air, than can gain delivering it from Titan.
But this is a strong industrial base for self-sufficiency.

Rather than other places, Titan has a lot of carbon and nitrogen required to grow plants.
So, unlike that Mars, it has everything what is required to make food from nothing.
A closed-loop is even not required here. You can just gorge Titan fluids to make fertilizer and pour the sewers pulp just out of window. Organics more, organics less, anyway it gets frozen.
This means that a Titan-based (not necessary -placed, but -based) colony is provided by local farming from the very beginning without any terraforming, deperchlorating, etc. 
It doesn't need a soil, it's a ready-to-use pure hydroponics.

Rather than Mars, Titan colony has clear and significant purposes, mostly listed above.
- 10 AU base large orbital astronomy working in couple with Earth telescopes. Much deeper research of exoplanets.
- 10 AU base all-Solar-System navigation and communication.
- 10 AU base all-Solar-System stereoscopic astronomy, with 3d-modelling of every flying rock inside and oortside.
- 10 AU base experiments for relativistic and quantum physics
- Permanent exploration of a nice gas giant. This probably will last for centuries or millenia, as the knowledge about gas giants is very important for interstellar astronomy.
- And its rings and minmuses.
- Support base for Neptune/Triton colonization.

So, as the main purpose colony is servicing astronomy/navigation/communication/support oversized base, its population probably would not be too large. Maybe tens thousands.
They must service telescopes, antennas, transmitters, micriwave plants powering all this stuff.
A colony of hereditary lighthouse keepers, electricians, and supporting staff.

Earth-Saturn flight duration is not a problem because:
- The only difference between an orbital settlement flying to Saturn and an orbital settlement orbiting the Saturn is the presence of Saturn. Nobody cares.
- While to Mars you should deliver almost all except H2O and CO2, Titan just waits for a chemical plant arrival.

***

The mentioned Neptune/Triton base is also significant thing to wish.

Of course, Triton doesn't have as much goods as Titan.
But it's a big and stable body orbiing another giant, and it has enough C and N to be excavated and locally used, also for food cooking.

The main purpose of Triton-based Neptune colony is to provide 20..40 AU triangulation base for astronomy.
Additional - permanent exploration of an ice giant.
Its population probably could be less from practical pov, but probably should be the same from genetical health pov.

If we have three bunches of 20-meter orbital telescopes near the Earth, Saturn and Neptune, we get a 10..40 AU-base triangle which should resolve not just exoplanets, but islands and metropolitan areas on that exoplanets.
Sometimes in 3d.

***

The main gain of all this is to make starships useless.
All we want to know about exoplanets but were afraid to ask, will be known just by telescopes.

If we find some anomalous planets (intense organic lines in spectre or thorium radiation), then we should send a telescope (or a couple) to 550 AU distance into opposite direction and read what the ET watch by their TV.
Then if we want, we should plan a starspedition to this exact aim.

Also, having a Neptune colony we can use Nereis to build antimatter-powered starship far from the Earth.

Edited February 6, 2017 by kerbiloid

[daniel l.]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The main gain of all this is to make starships useless.
All we want to know about exoplanets but were afraid to ask, will be known just by telescopes.

But would you put off a trip to Ireland because you have google maps?

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, daniel l. said:

But would you put off a trip to Ireland because you have google maps?

I have better - Google Earth. I have visited many places with its help.
^{Just to see that most of them, even well-known, are mostly same podunks like I can watch and without.}

[DerekL1963]

4 hours ago, daniel l. said:

That's current tech. Note the exponential advancement we are experiencing right now.

In some things, yes.  In most things, not so much.  In compact batteries or power supplies than can last at Titan temperatures and still provide enough energy to heat a volume as Bill suggests?  Practically none at all.  (There being essentially no demand for such things.  Even NASA prefers to find ways to keep things at much more reasonable temperatures.)