Expert: Tom Whiting - 4/21/2005

Question
Just from your own prospective and a scientific point of view, do you think that Titan (Saturn's moon) might be a possible place for human to survive on.

Answer
Hi Arron,
Sorry for the delay, but I thought I answered this question
already....evidently the allexperts site was having trouble,
and my answer didn't transmit, so since I get a carbon copy
of my answer, I'll cut and paste to you what I wrote back
on April 21st......
  (cut and pasted)

Hi Arron,
With, or without spacesuit protection?
Actually, I guess that is a dumb question on my part, as there is no place else in the Solar System that we know of, where
humans  (except Earth) can exist without artificial
environments.

And the reverse is true...there are very few places...sun,
Venus, gas giant planets,.....where we can't exist with, or as
long as, we have built artificial environments.

From what I know of Titan, -290 degrees F or thereabouts,
as long as you have a good furnace, and you are completely surrounded by an oxygen atmosphere, and atmospheric pressure, and the "motel" supplies food and water (or you bring your own food and drink), I don't see many places that humans can't exist, until the temperature or pressure, like Venus, become far too extreme for our technology (or too
expensive)  to solve those engineering problems.

There are already plans on the drawing board for Lunar
bases, Mars bases, Io and Europa bases, so why not
Titan bases too?  Only problem with the moons of both
Jupiter and Saturn is the extreme distance, relative to
the Moon and Mars....and even Mars isn't a cake-walk.....
as that's probably a one year (one way) mission...it's much
much farther out to Jupiter, and Saturn is about double
Jupiter's distance.
So it will be a while, but once we have the technology,
and faster propulsion systems (faster rockets) I don't see
anything that would stop us from having bases, eventually,
on Titan too.  Several hundred years from now.....
Hope all this helps...
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA