Flight is easy on Titan, but how do you fuel a plane off-world?
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00:00NASA is planning a lot of trips out into the solar system in our search for life, and one
00:08of the top contenders is Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
00:11Titan has an atmosphere, in fact it's even denser than Earth's, and it has liquid water
00:15right on its surface, despite its extremely cold temperatures.
00:19So if we do ever travel to Titan, how will astronauts get around the moon?
00:22Well possibly in one of these.
00:24This is the new concept art for the Titan aircraft, a space plane that will ferry people
00:28around looking for life.
00:29But it's more than just a plane that can fly on another world, it's being built from
00:32the ground up to use Titan's atmosphere as fuel.
00:35Quinn Morley, part of Aerospace Think Tank Planet Enterprises, who came up with the concept
00:40had this to say about it.
00:41This Titan flyer concept aims to drink in methane condensation and organic material
00:45through a permeable section of leading edge wing skin.
00:48He says they're developing capillary features on the wing itself that collect and ingest
00:52the methane from the air then using it as fuel.
00:55And since Titan is less than half the size of Earth, with a thick atmosphere, flight
00:58is a breeze apparently, and it has plenty of lakes to land on.
01:01The idea has now been awarded $175,000 as part of a NASA grant to be further developed.