Life & Temperatures on Titan

AlexanderHowl · 07-13-2020, 04:13 PM

No, that should be relatively unimportant, as volatiles are ubiquitous in the Outer Sol System and would, at best, only balance out the lack of metals on the surface. The existence of hydrogen cyanide in the atmosphere makes everything dangerous on Titan. The cryogenic nature of the environment would also make it impossible to grow large fields of crops, especially since there is not enough light for photosynthesis.

In my opinion, the primary utility of Titan is nitrogen exports, as the two Inner Sol System sources, Earth and Venus (which has 4x as much as Earth and 3x as much as Titan), are quite difficult to export from. The next closest source after Titan is Triton, as the surface ices include ammonia, but that is very, very far away. It is just cheaper to export the nitrogen from Titan and grow the crops in space habitats than to export crops from Titan, as they would need to be grown in heated habitats sealed against the hydrogen cyanide.

07-13-2020, 04:13 PM	#21
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Life & Temperatures on Titan No, that should be relatively unimportant, as volatiles are ubiquitous in the Outer Sol System and would, at best, only balance out the lack of metals on the surface. The existence of hydrogen cyanide in the atmosphere makes everything dangerous on Titan. The cryogenic nature of the environment would also make it impossible to grow large fields of crops, especially since there is not enough light for photosynthesis. In my opinion, the primary utility of Titan is nitrogen exports, as the two Inner Sol System sources, Earth and Venus (which has 4x as much as Earth and 3x as much as Titan), are quite difficult to export from. The next closest source after Titan is Triton, as the surface ices include ammonia, but that is very, very far away. It is just cheaper to export the nitrogen from Titan and grow the crops in space habitats than to export crops from Titan, as they would need to be grown in heated habitats sealed against the hydrogen cyanide.