This is the first part of the Planetary Exploration Project (PEP) we have begun to work on. This section of the project involves choosing a planet or celestial body that we could hypothetically live on, and identifying opportunities or challenges we might face there.
My group decided to choose Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, for this project. Titan is quite unique, as it is the only known moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere. It is also the only celestial body besides Earth that is known to have liquids on its surface, having clouds, seas, rivers, and lakes, made of hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.
Living on Titan could provide some excellent research opportunities, as it would not only provide an excellent outpost to research Saturn, but the methane in Titan’s primarily nitrogen atmosphere is somewhat mysterious to scientists. Sunlight continually breaks down the methane, but it has not deplenished itself over time, like you might have expected.
Instead, the methane in Titan’s atmosphere seems to be replenishing itself to counteract the sunlight breaking it down, and the exact cause is currently unknown, although a few theories are being discussed. If we were living on Titan, we would be able to research this strange replenishing methane in the atmosphere.
Some of the main challenges we would face on Titan include the lack of oxygen in the air, and the lack of easily accessible liquid water on the surface, since the only surface liquids on Titan are hydrocarbons, which I mentioned earlier. While Titan does have a liquid water ocean underground, it is approximately 55-80 km below the icy surface, meaning that short trips to refill water supplies might not be possible without digging out a tunnel and having machines or devices pumping water up to the surface.
However, we did realize that there is a way to get breathable oxygen, through electrolysis of the ice covering Titan’s surface. If we manage to electrolyze the ice around where we would live to get oxygen, this would provide us with a way to have breathable oxygen. Thinking ahead about this, we could build some sort of sealed area on the surface that we live inside and fill with oxygen.
Electrolysis could also provide us with a source of fuel, which could be used for traversing Titan, or anything else that we want to do while living there. Being able to have a source of fuel would allow us to have heat in our buildings, and provide electricity for any devices or power systems we may have.
If we are going to live on Titan, we need to consider how we would traverse its surface, and what issues or implications there might be for building vehicles. The first thing that comes to my mind is how there is no oxygen currently in Titan’s atmosphere, which I mentioned earlier, so any vehicles would either need oxygen tanks for passengers, or a sealed seating area that can be filled with collected oxygen.
Another implication I thought we might come across is that since Titan’s surface is solid ice up until about 55-80 km down, we would have to consider how to create a vehicle that would be able to function on this ice. Meaning that if we had a vehicle with wheels, we would need to make it able to traverse on an icy surface without slipping. This would be most likely accomplished through making the wheels larger or covering them in spikes, similar to winter tires you might see cars using during winters.
Most of the information gathered about Titan comes from probes and spacecrafts sent close to Saturn’s orbit, such as the Voyager expeditions, but some data has also been gathered by the Hubble Telescope. According to NASA’s page on exploration of Titan, the following were sent on missions to Titan in order to observe it: Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and the Cassini spacecraft with Huygens probe.
I did not use AI in any part of this project, but the sources I did use are below in APA format.
- Barnett, A. (2025, April 28). Titan. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/
- Barnett, A. (2025, April 25). Titan Facts. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/facts/
- Barnett, A. (2025, April 25). Titan Exploration. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/exploration/
- Q&A: How to Make Fuel From Ice. (2021, May 24). Sky Lights. Retrieved November 16, 2025, from https://sky-lights.org/2021/05/24/qa-how-to-make-fuel-from-ice/
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