Life On Titan!

Hints of life found on Saturn moon – space – 04 June 2010 – New Scientist.

CASSINI News Bite

Something is eating acetylene and hydrogen on Titan! Ok, so it might be chemistry, bare and unadorned by the complexity that is Life, but the two missing gases are exactly what would be used by an exotic metabolism suited to the -180 oC temperatures. We won’t know until we go!

But just how will we get there? A new paper by Ralph McNutt describing one possible architecture is discussed by Brian Wang at Next Big Future. A flaw in his analysis, aside from its conservatism, is the curious concern over mission criticality of a magnetic shield failure against cosmic rays. However the main drive – a high-powered VASIMR – and the main power – a low mass nuclear reactor (probably MHD) – both will require years-long, continuous performance from high-powered magnetic systems. Why aren’t their failure as likely or unlikely as a magnetic shield? Cryogenic propellant tanks will need to be protected against micrometeorites, presumably by low-mass Whipple shields, so why can’t a cryogenic magnetic field coil system?

I just don’t get the logic.