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Saturn's largest moon Titan is one of several candidates for possible future colonization of the outer Solar System, though protection against extreme cold is a major consideration.

According to Cassini data from 2008, Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth. These hydrocarbons rain from the sky and collect in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.^[1] "Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material—it's a Mega factory of organic chemicals", said Ralph Lorenz, who leads the study of Titan based on radar data from Cassini. "This vast carbon inventory is an important look into the geology and climate history of Titan." Several hundred lakes and seas have been observed, with several dozen estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth's oil and gas reserves. The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than Earth's coal reserves.^[2]

Radar images obtained on July 21, 2006, appear to show lakes of liquid hydrocarbon (such as methane and ethane) in Titan's northern latitudes. This is the first discovery of currently existing lakes beyond Earth.^[3] The lakes range in size from about a kilometer in width to one hundred kilometers across.

On March 13, 2007, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that it found strong evidence of seas of methane and ethane in the northern hemisphere. At least one of these is larger than any of the Great Lakes in North America.^[4]^{[clarification needed]}

Suitability

The American aerospace engineer and author Robert Zubrin identified Saturn as the most important and valuable of the four gas giants in the Solar System, because of its relative proximity, low radiation, and excellent system of moons. He also named Titan as the most important moon on which to establish a base to develop the resources of the Saturn system.^[5]

How Habitable is Titan ?

Duncan Osakue There are few places in the Solar System which are as fascinating as Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s a world with a thicker atmosphere than Earth. Where it’s so cold that it rains ammonia, forming lakes, rivers and seas. Where water ice forms mountains.

Like Europa and Encleadus, Titan could have an interior ocean of liquid water too, a place where there might be life.

Titan’s got layers, and fortunately, there’s an awesome new mission in the works to explore it: the Titan Dragonfly mission, For the longest time, astronomers didn’t know how special Titan was. That’s because the Saturnian moon is cloaked in thick clouds that obscure a view to its surface. In fact, for the longest time, astronomers thought that Titan was the largest moon in the Solar System, since they couldn’t tell where the atmosphere ended and the ground started. Now we know that Ganymede is a little bigger.

The first spacecraft to visit Titan was Pioneer 11 in 1979. It couldn’t see through the thick clouds, and neither could the twin Voyager spacecraft, which followed in 1980 and 1981. They did gather some additional clues about Titan, though, detecting traces of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, like acetylene, ethane, and propane. Most of its atmosphere, however, is nitrogen, just like Earth. With an atmosphere filled with nitrogen, and containing hydrocarbons, this sounds like a potential spot to find life. Maybe even life that uses entirely an entirely different biology than Earth

Gravity

Titan has a surface gravity of 0.138 g, slightly less than the Moon. Managing long-term effects of low gravity on human health^{[citation needed]} would therefore be a significant issue for long-term occupation of Titan, more so than on Mars. These effects are still an active field of study. They can include symptoms such as loss of bone density, loss of muscle density, and a weakened immune system. Astronauts in Earth orbit have remained in microgravity for up to a year or more at a time. Effective countermeasures for the negative effects of low gravity are well-established, particularly an aggressive regimen of daily physical exercise or weighted clothing. The variation in the negative effects of low gravity as a function of different levels of low gravity are not known, since all research in this area is restricted to humans in zero gravity. The same goes for the potential effects of low gravity on fetal and pediatric development. It has been hypothesized that children born and raised in low gravity such as on Titan would not be well adapted for life under the higher gravity of Earth.^[6]

In situ energy resources

In situ energy resources on Titan for use by future humans include chemical, nuclear, wind, solar and hydropower. Electrical power could be produced using chemical power plants adding hydrogen to acetylene (i.e. hydrogenation; oxygen is not freely available), or turbines in large methane seas such as Kraken Mare where the tidal pull of Saturn causes up to a meter of tidal change each Titan day. Nuclear and solar power might also be feasible.^{[citation needed]}

Flight

The very high ratio of atmospheric density to surface gravity also greatly reduces the wingspan needed for an aircraft to maintain lift, so much so that a human would be able to strap on wings and easily fly through Titan's atmosphere while wearing a sort of spacesuit that could be manufactured with today's technology.^[7] Another theoretically possible means to become airborne on Titan would be to use a hot air balloon-like vehicle filled with an Earth-like atmosphere at Earth-like temperatures (because oxygen is only slightly denser than nitrogen, the atmosphere in a habitat on Titan would be about one third as dense as the surrounding atmosphere), although such a vehicle would need a skin able to keep the extreme cold out in spite of the light weight required. Due to Titan's extremely low temperatures, heating of any flight-bound vehicle becomes a key obstacle.^[8]

References

^ Findings from the study led by Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA, are reported in the 29 January 2008 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.
^ "Titan's surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth". European Space Agency. February 13, 2008. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
^ "PIA08630: Lakes on Titan". Photojournal. NASA/JPL. July 24, 2006. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
^ "Cassini Spacecraft Images Seas on Saturn's Moon Titan". Cassini Solstice Mission. NASA/JPL. March 13, 2007. Archived from the original on October 28, 2014. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
^ Robert Zubrin, Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization, section: The Persian Gulf of the solar system, pp. 161-163, Tarcher/Putnam, 1999, ISBN 978-1-58542-036-0
^ Robert Zubrin, "Colonizing the Outer Solar System", in Islands in the Sky: Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space, pp. 85-94, Stanley Schmidt and Robert Zubrin, eds., Wiley, 1996, ISBN 978-0-471-13561-6
^ Cite error: The named reference zoob2ttn was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Randall Munroe (2013). "Interplanetary Cessna". Retrieved January 29, 2013.

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 The American aerospace engineer and author [[Robert Zubrin]] identified Saturn as the most important and valuable of the four [[gas giant]]s in the [[Solar System]], because of its relative proximity, low radiation, and excellent system of moons. He also named Titan as the most important moon on which to establish a base to develop the resources of the Saturn system.<ref name="zoob2pgs">Robert Zubrin, ''Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization'', section: The Persian Gulf of the solar system, pp. 161-163, Tarcher/Putnam, 1999, {{ISBN|978-1-58542-036-0}}</ref>
+==How Habitable is Titan ?==
-==Habitability==
+[[Duncan Osakue]] There are few places in the Solar System which are as fascinating as Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s a world with a thicker atmosphere than Earth. Where it’s so cold that it rains ammonia, forming lakes, rivers and seas. Where water ice forms mountains.
-[[Robert Zubrin]] has pointed out that Titan possesses an abundance of all the [[Titan (moon)#Bulk characteristics|elements]] necessary to [[Planetary habitability|support life]], saying "In certain ways, Titan is the most hospitable extraterrestrial world within our solar system for human colonization."<ref name="zoob2ttn">Robert Zubrin, ''Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization'', section: Titan, pp. 163-166, Tarcher/Putnam, 1999, {{ISBN|978-1-58542-036-0}}</ref> The atmosphere contains plentiful [[nitrogen]] and [[methane]]. Additionally, strong evidence indicates that liquid methane exists on the surface.  Evidence also indicates the presence of liquid [[water]] and [[ammonia]] under the surface, which are delivered to the surface by [[cryovolcanism|volcanic activity]]. While this water can be used to generate breathable [[oxygen]], more is blown into Titan's atmosphere from the geysers on the icy moon of [[Enceladus]] (also a moon of Saturn), as they start as [[water molecules]] and evolve into oxygen and [[hydrogen]]. Nitrogen is ideal to add [[buffer gas]] partial pressure to breathable air (it forms about 78% of [[Earth's atmosphere]]).<ref name="zoob1xm">Robert Zubrin, ''[[The Case for Mars|The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must]]'', p. 146, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1996, {{ISBN|978-0-684-83550-1}}</ref> Nitrogen, methane and ammonia can all be used to produce [[fertilizer]] for growing food.
+Like Europa and Encleadus, Titan could have an interior ocean of liquid water too, a place where there might be life.
+Titan’s got layers, and fortunately, there’s an awesome new mission in the works to explore it: the Titan Dragonfly mission, For the longest time, astronomers didn’t know how special Titan was. That’s because the Saturnian moon is cloaked in thick clouds that obscure a view to its surface. In fact, for the longest time, astronomers thought that Titan was the largest moon in the Solar System, since they couldn’t tell where the atmosphere ended and the ground started. Now we know that Ganymede is a little bigger.
+The first spacecraft to visit Titan was Pioneer 11 in 1979. It couldn’t see through the thick clouds, and neither could the twin Voyager spacecraft, which followed in 1980 and 1981. They did gather some additional clues about Titan, though, detecting traces of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, like acetylene, ethane, and propane. Most of its atmosphere, however, is nitrogen, just like Earth. With an atmosphere filled with nitrogen, and containing hydrocarbons, this sounds like a potential spot to find life. Maybe even life that uses entirely an entirely different biology than Earth
 ==Gravity==

v t e Space colonization
Core concepts	Interplanetary spaceflight Interstellar travel Intergalactic travel Planetary habitability Space and survival Space habitat Terraforming
Space habitats	Bishop Ring McKendree cylinder O'Neill cylinder Stanford torus
Colonization targets	Lagrange points Solar System Mercury Venus Mars Asteroids mining Moon Titan Trans-Neptunian objects Free space
Terraforming targets	Mars Venus Europa
Organizations	Mars Society NASA National Space Society SpaceX The Planetary Society