what kind of boat will nasa design for the methane sea on the moon Titan

[BlackSnow]

Should be easy enough to test designs on earth, using a tank of LNG. Probably a number of alloys that have the low temperature ductility and toughness that is needed. A sealed cylinder with a big skeg and some thrusters would be my first thought. Does prop design software handle liquid methane???

I visited the Idaho National Labs in June, where they are making the plutonium-stirling gizmo. Neat device. If your average citizen could be trusted with radioisotopes, you could easily mass produce a small, lightweight (including shielding) electrical generator that could power a car/boat/house for years and years without refueling. Sadly, it will have to be reserved for space use due to human nature.

My take on NASA: They were great in the glory days, when they had a proper perspective on risk. Now, they try to design for a six sigma probablility of a safe flight instead of three or four sigma, and it ends up costing 100 times more than it needs to. There are plenty of people willing to sign up to be astronauts, even at high risk levels. Of course, they will never go this direction because of the politically correct and risk averse nature of goobermint. Super-safe craft are appropriate for commercial space travel, not exploration. Having said all that, I would still much rather fund NASA with my tax dollars than reward some big businesses for being stupid and greedy, like is the current fad in DC.

Burt Rutan was mentioned here earlier. That guy is in my top five list of heroes of the decade. He exemplifies the spirit of freedom and innovation that gives me hope for the future. If you haven't already, try to catch the documentary on his space vehicle that was released a couple years ago. You won't regret it.

Cheers,

Greg

[ancient kayaker]

Maybe another thread could be created for the purpose of judging NASA's achievements so this one can be left for it's original purpose: its going to be a complicated enough journey without all the sidetrips.

[Boston]

what I read was talking about liquid methane oceans and rain
rain will induce convection currents that are bound to be more than 1 mph

methane exists as a gas above -164°C and melts at -182.5°C
has a liquid density of 1.013 at -164°C and I cant find the viscosity in liquid form but its not much or at least I wouldnt think it was,

so it is a slush somewhere between melting and freezing in these oceans ( TItans surface temp is something between -149°C and -179°C ) but mostly liquid of low density ( roughly that of air here on Earth. Im still a little fuzzy on how and why the methane precipitates out of the atmosphere or evaporates into it in the first place if the saturation point is constant. seems like 100% humidity would lead to 0 additional evaporation

the rest of the atmosphere is nitrogen 98.something %

I would think you could float a boat on that and maybe even get it to putter around a little if you could capture those convection loops somehow, although that submarine idea is starting to sound more attractive

July 27th, 2006
Liquid Methane Drizzles Down on Titan
Written by Fraser Cain ShareThis
New research from NASA, published in the journal Nature suggests that it's always raining on Titan. Not thunderstorms, but a low level liquid methane drizzle that never stops. When Huygens landed onto the surface of Titan, it came down with a splat, presumably into mud. Scientists estimate that the amount of rain amounts to about 5 cm (2 inches) a year of accumulation – the same amount that falls in Death Valley on Earth. But this rain falls steadily, keeping the ground relatively damp.

Liquid methane drizzles on the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, according to a paper by NASA and university scientists that appears in today's issue of the journal, Nature.
Data from the European Space Agency's Huygens probe indicates there is a lower, barely visible, liquid methane-nitrogen cloud that drops rain to the surface of Titan, reported a team of scientists from universities, an observatory and NASA. The probe collected the data on January 14, 2005, when it approached and landed on Titan.
"The rain on Titan is just a slight drizzle, but it rains all the time, day in, day out. It makes the ground wet and muddy with liquid methane. This is why the Huygens probe landed with a splat. It landed in methane mud," said Christopher McKay, a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley and second author of the study. The principal author is Tetsuya Tokano from the University of Cologne, Germany.
On Titan, the clouds and rain are formed of liquid methane. On Earth, methane is a flammable gas, but Titan has no oxygen in its atmosphere that could support combustion. Also, the temperatures on Titan are so cold — minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 149 degrees Celsius) — that the methane can form liquid. Titan's landscape includes fluvial, river-like features that may well be formed by methane rain, scientists noted.
A gap separates the liquid methane cloud — the source of the rain — from a higher, upper methane ice cloud, according to the scientific study. Scientists say the downward flow of methane due to the rain is balanced by upward transport of methane gas by large-scale atmospheric circulation.
According to scientists, the rain comes from thin clouds of methane. The upper clouds are methane ice, and the lower clouds are liquid and composed of a combination of methane and nitrogen. Computer models indicate these thin liquid methane clouds cover about half of Titan, even though methane abundance on the moon decreases with latitude, the team reported.
"We determined that the rain on Titan is equal to about two inches (about 5 centimeters) a year," McKay said. "This is about as much rain as Death Valley (receives). The difference is (that) on Titan, this rain is spread out evenly over the entire year."
The scientists reported that erosion potential from the very light methane drizzle may be quite limited, but at least would be sufficient to wet the surface material, and may explain its generally wet character.
In addition to McKay the other co-authors of the scientific paper include Fritz Neubauer, of the University of Cologne; Sushil Atreya, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Francesca Ferri, University of Padova, Italy; Marcello Fulchignoni, of both the Paris Observatory and the University of Denis Diderot, Paris; and Hasso Niemann, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
More information about the Huygens mission to Titan can be found at on the Internet at:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operation...ns-mission.cfm
More information about scientist Christopher McKay can be found at:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/res...006/mckay.html
More information about NASA can be found at:
http://www.nasa.gov

I also found this on the winds of Titan

Wind on Titan: First Measurements from the Huygens Descent

Preliminary estimates of the wind height variations on Titan have been recovered from measurements of the Huygens radio signal frequency recorded during its descent on 14 January 2005. These "Doppler" measurements, which reflect the relative speed between the transmitter on Huygens and the receiver on the Earth in a manner similar to the commonly observed effect in sound waves (for example, the change in a siren's pitch from a passing ambulance), were obtained by a global network of radio telescopes.

Leading the list of large radio antennas involved in the program were the NRAO Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia and the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia. Special instrumentation designed for detection of weak signals was used to measure the "carrier" frequency of the Huygens radio signal during this unique opportunity. It may be recalled that the initial detection, which was made with the "Radio Science Receivers" on loan from the NASA Deep Space Network, provided proof, several hours before arrival of science data, that Huygens had survived the entry phase and had begun its radio relay transmission to Cassini.

The unexpectedly very successful signal detection on Earth provided a surprising, almost miraculous, turnabout for the Cassini/Huygens Doppler Wind Experiment (DWE), which had lost its data on the Cassini spacecraft due to a commanding error needed to properly configure the receiver.

'I've never felt such exhilerating highs and dispiriting lows than those experienced when we first detected the signal from GBT, indicating "all's well", and then discovering that we had no signal at ESOC, indicating "all's lost". The truth, as we have now determined, lies somewhat closer to the former than the latter' says Dr. Michael Bird of the University of Bonn, Germany, the Principle Investigator of the Doppler Wind Experiment.

DWE has thus taken a significant first step to recovering the data needed to fulfill its original scientific goal, an accurate profile of Titan's winds along the Huygens descent trajectory. The ground-based Doppler measurements were carried out and processed jointly by scientists from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, USA), and the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE, The Netherlands) working within the DWE team.

The wind on Titan is found to be flowing in the direction of Titan's rotation (from west to east) at nearly all altitudes. The maximum speed of roughly 120 m/s (430 km/hour) was attained about ten minutes after the start of descent at an altitude near 120 km. The winds are weak near the surface and increase slowly with altitude above a thin layer up to about 60 km. This pattern does not continue in the height range above 60 km, where large variations in the Doppler measurements, presently thought to arise from significant vertical wind shear, are observed. That Huygens had a rough ride in this region was already known from the science and engineering data recorded on board the Probe. Mission events, such as the parachute exchange about 15 minutes into the atmospheric flight and impact on Titan at 11:38 GMT (or 12:45 GMT when the signal was received at Earth), produce clear Doppler data signatures. At present, there exits an approximately 20-minute interval with no data between the measurements at GBT and Parkes. This gap in Doppler data will eventually be closed by data from other radio telescopes. In addition, the entire global set of radio telescopes performed Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations on the probe signal to determine its precise position during the descent. Combination of the Doppler and VLBI data will eventually provide a three-dimensional record of motion for the Huygens Probe during its mission at Titan.

The radio astronomy support of the Huygens mission is coordinated by JIVE and JPL and involves the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (ASTRON, The Netherlands), the University of Bonn (Germany), Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland), the MERLIN National Facility (Jodrell Bank, UK), the Onsala Space Observatory (Sweden), the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, USA), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO, Green Bank, USA, and Socorro, USA), the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF, Sydney, Australia), the University of Tasmania (Hobart, Australia), the National Astronomical Observatories of China, the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (Shanghai and Urumqi, China) and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technologies (Kashima Space Research Center, Japan).

The Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe is hosted by ASTRON and funded by the national research councils, national facilities and institutes of The Netherlands (NOW), the United Kingdom (PPARC), Italy (CNR), Sweden (Onsala Space Observatory, National Facility), Spain (IGN) and Germany (MPIfR). The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is operated by Associated Universities, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The Australia Telescope is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. More about Cassini-Huygens. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperation between NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, is managing the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington DC. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter while ESA operated the Huygens atmospheric probe.

Contact information

Dr. Leonid Gurvits, Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe
P.O. Box 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo: lgurvits@jive.nl
The Netherlands phone: +31-(0)521-59651
Dr. Huib van Langevelde, Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe
Dwingeloo, The Netherlands langevelde@jive.nl
phone: +31-(0)621-201419 (mobile)
phone: +31-(0)521-596500

[hoytedow]

Originally Posted by PAR

If you only knew of all the magnificent contributions made by and for NASA, you'd have a different opinion folks. Speak what you know before you prematurely judge.

NASA has contributed greatly to our science, culture and technology. Sadly, lately much tripe has come out of NASA but that is mostly since it came under new management. I just wish it went back to its original mission of ; 1. Aeronautics and 2. Space. It should have stayed out of the Global Warming Debacle which have no real effect on 1 and 2 above, except at the launch pad.

But, as Michael Crichten said (did you read the essay I posted in the "hoax" thread?), science has evolved into "science by consensus". It's not just NASA scientists that arguably cannot be called scientists anymore. Skilled individuals, some, to be sure, but I don't think science, per se, scientific method, is taught in schools anymore. At the least, scientific method is viewed as something to be used when one can but "if enuf of us believe", a consensus can substitute for real science.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by mark775

But, as Michael Crichten said (did you read the essay I posted in the "hoax" thread?), science has evolved into "science by consensus". It's not just NASA scientists that arguably cannot be called scientists anymore. Skilled individuals, some, to be sure, but I don't think science, per se, scientific method, is taught in schools anymore. At the least, scientific method is viewed as something to be used when one can but "if enuf of us believe", a consensus can substitute for real science.

Give it a rest, gents. There are other threads where you can carry on about the global warming hoax, socialism, the disintegration of our educational systems and the perfidy of modern scientists.

I think this thread is about a boat design for the methane seas of Titan.

[hoytedow]

Why study the methane seas of Titan when our earthling cows et al make perfectly good methane right here at home? Some believe the Devil's Triangle is partially due to a large methane deposit off the coast which periodically belches, relieving ships of their buoyancy if they happen to sail into the belch.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by hoytedow

Why study the methane seas of Titan when our earthling cows et al make perfectly good methane right here at home? Some believe the Devil's Triangle is partially due to a large methane deposit off the coast which periodically belches, relieving ships of their buoyancy if they happen to sail into the belch.

Because we need to find the cows that are producing all that methane on Triton?

Hmm...maybe NASA should hit up McDonald's for some funding.

[SamSam]

Originally Posted by hoytedow

NASA has contributed greatly to our science, culture and technology. Sadly, lately much tripe has come out of NASA but that is mostly since it came under new management. I just wish it went back to its original mission of ; 1. Aeronautics and 2. Space. It should have stayed out of the Global Warming Debacle which have no real effect on 1 and 2 above, except at the launch pad.

I thought you said NASA's mission is the defense of freedom.? Doesn't flying to Titan and researching accomplish both 1 & 2 above?

[hoytedow]

Research is great but flying to Titan is a big waste of fuel. It is not as though there is anything of value there worth bringing home, as we already have enough methane. Let's get back to the moon, if even that. The Martians should keep their water for their own use.
No one is going to get off this rock and survive, so let's just make it as good as we can while we are here.

[dskira]

Originally Posted by SamSam

I thought you said NASA's mission is the defense of freedom.? Doesn't flying to Titan and researching accomplish both 1 & 2 above?

Mostly will open a new landfill for some billion of dollars in vaine research.
I will say something which is like talking apple and orange, but I will say it anyway:
Cure the cancer, aids, malaria, nutrition, and poverty in earth before playing the great discovery in space, which nobody see the day by day difference anyway.
This is not only for us but for the Russian and the Chineses.
The internatiuonal space station is a dump in aluminum and titanium, for .........what?
Sorry for that, I know I will get flack. But it is my thought.
Cheers
Daniel

[Boston]

actually we need disease and pestilence, starvation and anything else that helps reduce the population
its random
its necessary
and if we keep breading like rats we are destined for destruction
until we can expand off the planet
then we can go ahead and cure all diseases without risking a near immediate and radical overpopulation problem
imagine if no one died anymore starting right now
we would double the population not in what 50 years
but instead in about 5


I think the big deal about going to titan is that there are earth like habitats
thing is I agree we should be on the moon but I heard someone from NASA say something a while ago very OFF THE RECORD about that. Im sure Ill take my share of abuse for mentioning it but it went something like this.
"Maybe we're just not very welcome on the moon"

[yipster]

guess "we" are looking fwd