Feh...another flat wasteland with a bunch of rocks

[slappymcb]

Whoever drew NASA's official "artist's conception" of Titan should be fired! <br /><br />http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/52022main_MM_image_feature_88_4.jpg<br />

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

<img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> But hey, they really didn't know what to expect. That rocky pic sure reminds me of mars. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[wvbraun]

Ice blocks, not rocks! And judging from the first picture that was released Titan's landscape is as interesting as any on Earth. Lakes of methane!

 

[astrophoto]

The aerial photos sure are tantalizing, thought he ground based photo released looks alot like Venus - flat with an occassional rock. Are there mountains way out in the distance?

 

[mattblack]

What did you expect, Pine trees? Don't forget, the probe's only going to image a fraction of a percentage of the massive surface area. The first Mars probes didn't take the variety of pictures we enjoy today.<br /><br />NOTE: Seek out and read Stephen Baxter's amazing 1997 novel "TITAN." It is a very prescient book: He got the many current situations in the world eerily correct. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[omegamogo]

Flat, smooth, and reminds me of a combination of Mars and a dry seabed. thats what Titan seems to me. But I'm not disappointed really, i'm sure there are tons of little details thats going to lead to some amazing discoveries, I bet it was like this when the Viking rover landed on mars. But I guess we all hoped for majestic hydrocarbon oceans more then we did for this...<br /><br />We should get a rover on it, but that'd take more then a decade to design, approve, launch and wait for it to land.

 

[slappymcb]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>What did you expect, Pine trees?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />No, but at least something like the artists' conception of mountains, lakes, and some kind of methane sea-monkey people or whatever NASA showed to congress to get funding for this. <br /><br />And why Titan of all places? Why didn't we send probes to Io or Europa?

 

[drwayne]

"And why Titan of all places? Why didn't we send probes to Io or Europa?"<br /><br />Titan has an atmosphere, an interesting one.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

"We should get a rover on it, but that'd take more then a decade to design, approve, launch and wait for it to land."<br /><br />Too right, maybe just use existing hardware like a MER. That should shorten the development. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>Too right, maybe just use existing hardware like a MER. That should shorten the development.</i><p>Except, of course, that it would have to be nuclear powered, not solar. And the cameras would have to work in different wavelengths. The suspension would have to be changed to work in different gravity, on a totally different surface. Oh, and it's -180C instead of -50C. The science package would have to be different, since we'd be doing hydrocarbon rather than iron chemistry. And the communications system would have to be totally reworked to take into account the longer one-way light time.<p>Other than that, sure. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /></p></p>

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

He-he, lucky we've got your brains to think things thru <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[bobvanx]

Good points!<br /><br />The <i>lessons</i> learned from designing MER (and the nuclear-powered followon they are starting right now) will certainly have value should we decide to build a rover for Titan.<br /><br />Hardware is cheap (really!), and there isn't much use to trying to force something designed for one environment to work in another. But the decision trees that got followed, the design and build methodology, those are invaluable. The knowledge and thinking in the engineers heads, that's powerful stuff.

 

[yurkin]

1. Congress didn’t fund this Huygens is European Space Agency mission<br /><br />2. The Probe wasn’t sent to Io and Europa because Cassini wasn’t going there. It would make no sense to send another Probe to Jupiter so soon after Galileo.<br /><br />3. I’m not sure the surface of Io or Europa would be any more interesting then this, or any less.<br /><br />4. The reason it doesn’t look like any of the artists isn’t because of sort of deception. Nobody had any idea what the surface would look like.<br />

 

[claywoman]

The pictures should say it all. My God, how many moons have an 'atmosphere' as interesting as Titan? If it is as they suspect, then at some point it may develope further? I don't know, sort of a supposition on my part here.<br /><br />But to find probably liquid whether or not its poisoned is totally unreal!!! that in itself should make the billions spent on this project worth it!!! I for one, am totally impressed because if this can be in our little corner of the universe, think of what the rest of the universe holds? It actually makes it probable (at least to me) there is other planets and possible moons that can sustain life, whether or not the life looks like us!!!<br /><br />This is a rich playing field for someone who writes...hehe

 

[centsworth_II]

<i>"Does this provide a "ground truth" to let us make better use of the radar?" -- newsartist</i> <br /><br />It sure will when they get around to taking radar images of the landing site!<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

<i>"The suspension would have to be changed..." -- najaB</i><br /><br />And it might have to float! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[grooble]

The images were rubbish. Why is the quality so bad, why not have colour, or more clarity like on spy satellites. Hell, why not even record video and send that back.<br /><br />You'd think it wouldn't be a problem for all the technology available.<br /><br />

 

[najab]

I'm assuming that you are joking?

 

[wvbraun]

I don't think he is joking. He's probably never heard of bandwidth limitations...

 

[nacnud]

<font color="yellow">He's probably never heard of bandwidth limitations...</font><br /><br />Isn't that where the tuber player is too fat to fit down the aisle?

 

[najab]

><i>You'd think it wouldn't be a problem for all the technology available.</i><p>All the technology in the world can't trump the Laws of Physics. *Sigh* I guess it's time to do a little education.<p>><i>Why is the quality so bad, why not have colour, or more clarity like on spy satellites.</i>First thing, Saturn is <b>very</b> far away - anything from 1.1 to 1.6 <u>billion</u> miles away. Spy satellites orbit the Earth at altitudes anywhere from 300 to 10,000 km. Why is this important? Because signal strength falls off as the <b>square</b> of the distance. That means that a signal sent from Saturn would be 1/12,000,000,000th the strength of the same signal sent from Earth orbit.<p>So, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Not much, but it does affect the ability to send data from Saturn to Earth.<p>The effect is most famously stated as Shannon's Law (C = W log2(1 + S /N )) the important terms here are S (signal) and N (noise). If the signal is reduced by a factor of 1.2e11, then the channel capacity is accordingly reduced as well. (In actual practice, the DSN receivers are much more sensitive (increasing S somewhat) and the receiving dishes are much bigger (reducing N a bit) - but the theory is still sound.)<p>I'll finish this a little later (I just realised I have 10 minutes to shower, dress and be out the house), or anyone else is free to chime in. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /></p></p></p></p></p>

 

[xojackso]

<i>And it might have to float!</i><br /><br />Very good point. If it doesn't float, it'd better be able to fly in the atmosphere.<br /><br />A flying craft that releases two rovers: one for the land surface, the other a robot submarine for the lakes.

 

[kaisern]

Grooble might have been joking but I'm not--those images suck. I'm disappointed. Seven years for blurry black and white images?! Hello? Am I alone here?

 

[telfrow]

Yes, I think you are. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[kaisern]

OK, good science there (seemingly). However, Pioneer and Voyager both travelled to the outer planets, and the images THEY sent back are far better than Huygens.