Survival On The Moon

By admin, February 7, 2010 1:43 pm

survival on the moon

Living on Titan

Could Humans live on Saturn’s largest Moon, Titan? Of course we could not survive without protection, but this applies to some places on the Earth where people live.

Breathing

A single breath of Titan’s atmosphere would kill you. There is no Oxygen, but there are some undesirable gases from the Human point of view including Ammonia and Hydrogen Cyanide. However, these would not kill you. The cold would. With a temperature averaging below the lowest temperature ever recorded on the Earth, Titan is too cold for us. It is actually worse than outer space because the atmosphere would conduct heat away from our bodies, so we could not even survive in a normal space suit. A Titan survival suit could be designed, but we should be looking at artificial habitats.

Artificial Habitats

An artificial Human habitat on Titan might be constructed underground. There seems to be some rock as we know it, but quite possibly we would use ice and line a cavern under the ice with some sort of plastic material made from the abundant hydrocarbons of this moon. Everything we need could be made from readily available sources on Titan.

Gravity

The Gravity of Titan is less than that of the Earth so people born there might have trouble adapting to the Earth’s gravity although they would be able to visit the Human colonies on Mars, Mercury and the other settled moons of the Solar System.

Air Pressure

The atmospheric pressure of Titan is higher than that of the Earth, so probably we would set the air pressure of our habitat at about one and a half times that of the Earth. There might be a little adjustment in the proportions of the different gasses needed, but the higher air pressure would help to guard against the poisonous air of Titan getting in.

Flying

With gravity only about a tenth of that of the Earth and a higher air pressure, a person could strap on wings and fly just using the strength of their arms. Of course to do this you would have to have a large open space in your habitat.

Steve has his astronomy and space travel articles on stevechallis.net. This includes a story where the Earth is menaced by an alien invasion armada at http://stevechallis.net/Tiffany-Rat.php. Tiffany Rat’s friends unknowingly save us from an unusual species. Steve Challis has many fish fact sheets and other articles on http://www.bettatrading.com.au.

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