What is Digg?89 Comments
- exspasticcomics, on 01/08/2009, -2/+38YEE-HAW! Texas tea! Get me a drill bit & shoot me into space! Black gold, baby!
- Arasaka, on 01/08/2009, -2/+30Actually, that could be a clever way to make sure NASA has all the financing it deserves... I like it.
- garryw, on 01/08/2009, -0/+25If it had any O2 imagine what a cool fireball you could make.
- inactive, on 01/08/2009, -0/+23Best of all, it's only 30 times farther away than Mars.
- Fleagleman, on 01/08/2009, -0/+22This must be where Whole Foods gets its organics.
That would explain the high prices. - jwcorder, on 01/08/2009, -7/+21I thought it read "A Giant Orgasm Factory" - I was like I am so signing up for that trip.
- Zoshchenko, on 01/08/2009, -2/+15Send Dick Cheney for a visit.
- pacozorro, on 01/08/2009, -3/+15Drill baby, drill!
- inactive, on 01/08/2009, -1/+13I fear we are going to have to "intervene" Titan must be "liberated" from the totalitarian regime of... mission disaccomplishment
- lump1, on 01/08/2009, -0/+12We have to assume that they do.
- MrFurious2k, on 01/08/2009, -0/+12Titan: "A communications disruption can mean only one thing..."
- Depthfunction, on 01/08/2009, -1/+12I guess it's time to "spread democracy" to Titan.
- halton, on 01/08/2009, -0/+9Sounds like Titan carries quite a carbon footprint!
- jason210, on 01/08/2009, -0/+9cept for that whole moving around the sun at different rates nevermind the fact that this orbits something else.
- Mookie5, on 01/08/2009, -0/+8Science is indeed stranger than fiction
- redux2redux, on 01/08/2009, -1/+9Interplanetary super tankers, here we come.
- inactive, on 01/08/2009, -0/+8There will be No Smoking on this flight then?
- savethejets, on 01/08/2009, -0/+8That's no moon... it's a giant organics factory!
- noahhoward, on 01/08/2009, -0/+7The last one is now on board, we can all go home now.
- feignNU, on 01/08/2009, -2/+9Or maybe, just maybe, hydrocarbon compounds can form in many different ways in many different environments. Holy *****, I know, it's a crazy idea, but just bear with me for a minute.
Oh and btw, there's no oil on titan. There are lakes of methane and ethane.
You really are quite absurd. - Arasaka, on 01/08/2009, -2/+9Cost/Benefit said no to oil sands until oil hit $60 a barrel or so. Give it time.
- Rodalli, on 01/08/2009, -0/+7When you think about it, this is really ***** amazing. In the 60's we struggled just to coordinate a moon landing, and now we're landing craft on a moon of Saturn. It's incredible what the human race can accomplish. Imagine what we could do if we put away our guns and bombs and decided to put our heads together instead? I look forward to the day when I can join a terraforming/settlement expedition on Titan. :D
- reallybigname, on 01/08/2009, -3/+10I bet there are Arabs there trying to sell it too...
- jwcorder, on 01/08/2009, -1/+8"hydrocarbons rain from the sky" - Cheney just got a raging boner.
- sanosuke001, on 01/08/2009, -0/+7like two years ago.....
- Echosphere, on 01/08/2009, -1/+7So did I. So did YOU. So stop digging him down.
- inactive, on 01/08/2009, -0/+6You're talking something like millons of dollars per gram.
- Decneps, on 01/08/2009, -3/+8Opps, misread the title. I'll leave.
- Groovydoo, on 01/08/2009, -2/+7Imagine if we were able to stand on the surface of Titan without a well heated space suit. Our skin would be so hot that out body temperature would ignite the atmosphere around us and we would look like that 'Flame-Guy' or the character from the 'Fantastic 4' but our flames would burn bright blue. If a local form of life on Titan saw us sit down on a rock on; (stones are as hard as granite there but are made of H2O), the rocks would obviously melt and we could drink its 'lava.' Liquid water there is the equivalent or a super heated fluid, snowflakes that erupt out of a volcano would be considered ash. We humans are extremely "warm blooded" for this universe and we are extremely strong due to our high gravity planet. We would indeed be super heroes if we could exist on Titan.
- eastwood24, on 01/08/2009, -0/+5I think a pipeline would be more practical.
- zeshenone, on 01/08/2009, -1/+6There isn't any 'oil' on Titan. Dinosaurs and organic matter on Earth degrade over time into crude oil, an organic substance that is a inconsistent mixture of various liquid hydrocarbons that must be refined before put into use. It's not the crude oil we use, but the hydrocarbon molecules.distilled from the oil like kerosene and gasoline. Because Earth has carbon-based life, a good source of hydrocarbons come from decomposed matter because that's where hydrogen and carbon are highly present. But Titan doesn't need to go through this crude oil phase to generate hydrocarbons, the conditions and composition of the planet apparently makes hydrocarbons spew from the sky.
- JROXZ, on 01/08/2009, -0/+5*pats your back*
- feignNU, on 01/08/2009, -1/+6FTA:
"Cassini's next radar flyby of Titan is on Feb. 22, when the radar instrument will observe the Huygens probe landing site."
We're going to land on Titan!?!!?! I didn't know the Cassini mission included LANDING ON TITAN! That's gotta be the coolest thing I've heard all week. Can't ***** *wait* for pictures. - biogears, on 01/09/2009, -1/+5and not a SINGLE dead dino.
- warriorscot, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4Not neccesarly true. With a traditional model yes. But if you use the model of a self replicating robotics plant it would be more feasible. So you would have an initially high cost for R&D and construction launch but effectively no costs thereafter other than remote operation.
So you would launch an initial transport and construction facility towards the asteroid belt first. It would stop there and mine mineral resources neccesary for construction and perhaps construct dedicated mining vessels. It would then head to titan and collect hydrocarbons for use as energy for further production before collecting hydrocarbons and launching it back to earth to be captured near the earth.
But the whole thing is a little bit of a moot point as energy wise by the time you can do something like that solar energy would have replaced most of the earths needs. Hydrocarbons would only be needed for plastic production and other non fuel related chemical production. So Titan would be a material resource like the asteroid belt not an energy resource. - barius, on 01/09/2009, -0/+4The sad twist of irony is that a lot of our advancements are born in the fiery crucible of war.
- swrostmore, on 01/08/2009, -1/+5http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.h ...
How does it feel to be a total wanker? - TheSkunkMonkey, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4Cue oil industry orgasm in 3.. 2.. 1...
- Kidddrunkadelic, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4U.S.S. Exxon-mobil: Set a course for Titan, maximum warp.
- RandomGorilla, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4Permanently.
- Deschain420, on 01/08/2009, -1/+5NASA no longer has to worry about cutbacks.
Cool to see some terragen renders in the story too. :) - LoadedDervish, on 01/08/2009, -2/+6Bush has 12 days left to declare war and plunder.
- whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+4Do you expect the fundamental constants of the universe to change anytime soon? Or do you expect Titan to move a lot closer (say, Alaska)? The driving factors are how much energy can be squeezed from a unit of hydrocarbons versus the energy needed to travel to, extract and return said hydrocarbons. In the oil sands, the energy needed to travel to and return was minimal, it was just the amount needed to extract that was the biggie. With Titan those first two are orders of magnitude higher.
If the cost of oil ever goes up to even a small fraction of the cost needed to make that profitable, it'll be much cheaper to develop an alternate energy source (cover the moon with solar panels and beam the energy back, for example). - Kevinok, on 01/08/2009, -0/+3Sweet now we have a good excuse to speed up our space program.
- awfl, on 01/08/2009, -0/+3Hydrocarbons... mmmm
But no air to burn it in. But I can see fleets of manufacturers processing in space, sending flat, mile-long ships back to earth filled with yellow bath duckies... - Remelox, on 01/08/2009, -1/+4For the sake of contrariness:
Cost/benefit is good. One trip to Titan with a self-replicating robotic hydrocarbon shooter than runs on hydrocarbon. Shoot oil at Earth and forget about it raining on Titan, it will be raining on Earth. Everyone will have a rainbarrel. Hydrocarbon man comes to your house, collects your rainbarrels, replaces them with empty ones, and leaves a gallon of gas on your doorstep. Great for the economy. Environmentalists might have a complaint or two. - pwdrskier, on 01/09/2009, -0/+3darn you and your taking of my joke
;) - feignNU, on 01/08/2009, -1/+4It does.
That's why there's none of it on Titan. - whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+3Yes, but again you're missing the most important part. When it's cheap enough to go there and back, we won't need hydrocarbons anymore.
- Zarimus, on 01/08/2009, -0/+3http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/titan/huygens ...
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