Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has an atmosphere 50% thicker than Earth's, but its gravity is only 0.14 that of the Earth. What this means is that on Titan, you could fly by flapping a set of artificial wings, using just normal human strength. The constant rain of liquid methane would be a problem, of course. But what's a little discomfort compared to being ably to fly under your own power? In addition to flying by flapping wings, you could fly by pedaling a propeller-driven aircraft. Humans have flown such contraptions on Earth, but only a very fit and powerful athlete has the strength and endurance, and then for only very short flights. On Titan, anybody could fly such a craft, easier than riding a bicycle here.
I'd move to Titan in an instant but for the problem that most of its surface area has already been parcelled out and sold by the Florida Real Estate developers and time share conglomerates.
I wouldn't. Anywhere that methane is a liquid is too cold for me. Hell, anywhere that water is a solid is too cold for me.
By the sound of all your space posts in recent months Daniel, have you purchased your ticket to be one of the first and few? Welcome | Virgin Galactic
Nope. But I've been listening to the AstronomyCast podcast. Even if Virgin Galactic is legit, I'm not interested in going into space. Well, I'd be very interested, but I get extremely motion-sick extremely easily, and space sickness is said to be even worse than seasickness. But V.G. is the quintessential pig in a poke. A $20,000 deposit to fly on a space ship that does not exist yet. Weren't they saying four years ago that they'd start carrying passengers into space two years ago? How's that going for them? I'm a hiker, a walker, and marginally a jogger. I like to have my feet on the ground. I get on airplanes only reluctantly, when there's somewhere I really want to get to.
There are some real fire-breathers over in FHoPol I'd like to put on Titan, only because there's no way to put them even further away on Pluto, but if such a thing were possible ultimately ALL of us would find ourselves shipped there by someone, blinking in amazement back at a vacated earth ...
Besides cold and lacking oxygen, the atmosphere is also opaque. I expect midair collisions, with both wing-flappers falling into lakes of...intestinal gas. and yes, I was referring to Titan not FHoPol.
From the conclusion of Monty Python's Galaxy Song: "Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space because there's bugger-all down here on Earth." And when I talk to fans of the SETI project, I like to ask them how they expect to find intelligent life in space, when there isn't any here.
