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back to article Boffins plan Titanic balloon trip

Scientists are drafting a plan to further explore Saturnian moon Titan, involving an orbiting spacecraft, surface probe and hot-air balloon designed to float gracefully through the body's hazy hydrocarbon atmosphere, Space.com reports. Titan has to date revealed some of its secrets to the Cassini spacecraft and Huygens probe, …

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  1. Graham Newton

    Economical with the truth?

    "and there were no instruments designed to do surface science after landing"

    This is untrue. There was a surface science package (SSP) on the Huygens probe that was designed to measure surface properties. Hence the name. Whilst there was no experiment to determine the properties of a solid surface by a direct sample there were several experiments to measure liquid properties for a potential liquid landing. Also the penetrometer and accelerometer data were used to determine the surface composition.

    I know this because I designed and wrote the SSP s/w!

    Having said that I think it is a great idea anyway.

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  2. Graham Marsden
    Coat

    Methinks...

    ... Someone's been reading Arthur C Clarke's "A Meeting With Medusa" ;-)

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  3. Nano nano

    SSP Boffin post !!

    we are not worthy ...

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  4. Chris G

    What is over the next hill?

    That, is one of the questions that has driven man on throughout history, If we don't continue to explore the world around us we are denying part of our basic nature. Can't wait for the results.

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  5. Graham Newton
    Happy

    Thank you Nano nano

    For making me smile on this grey November day. You surely must be worthy.

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  6. Trevor
    Boffin

    SSP Boffin Post!!

    Worthy or not, Mr Newton: Thank You. Reading about missions like Cassini/Huygens, the (unbelievably unkillable) Rovers, Phoenix, etc. etc. are among the only events in the news that give me any sort of hope for the future.

    The world might be ending, the world might not be ending. Financial Crisis, Peak Oil, Murder Spree, Tainted Meat, Superbug, Superdrug, War, Famine, Pestilence Death and Apathy.

    Somewhere however, SOMEWHERE...thousands of people all did thier part to painstakingly assemble, test, program, break, re-assemble, re-test, re-program and launch robots to OTHER PLANETS. (Or celestial bodies that are not *quite* considered planets, etc.)

    I understand the science, I understand how building this little critters is possible, how easy, and how hard all of it is. To me, the message is not in that we learned this, or that, or that we accomplished someone that had not been accomplished before. The message, the important one, is that despite all the strife and angst, despite any and all past successes or failures, we found the will, the money, and people to get out there and give science another try.

    So to every person involved in these endeavors, from the project planners to the programmers…

    …we’re not worthy.

    :D

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