NEWS FROM "THE LORD OF THE RINGS: SATURN, TITAN & BEYOND"

This Journal section contains "Spaceship Gaia Explorer Newsletter" reports on the current exploration of Saturn, "Lord of the Rings," and its system of moons, such as fascinating Titan, now a "the phantom of Saturn unmasked." It may be appropriate, when reading this section, to play Gustav Mahler's "Titan" Symphony #1.

THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF TITAN'S EXPLORATION: DR. ALLISON IN SPACELAND & TOM CORBETT'S SPIRIT

By Harold Egeln

MARCH-APRIL 2005 TOP FEATURE STORY: The historic landing on Titan on January 14 was a triumph of space science and technology. The fabulous feat was the first human step, albeit by probe proxy, on the fascinating giant moon of Saturn.

Taking space activists, enthusiasts and scientists with him to that far distant icy world, a whole new "space-land" of adventures now and for years to come, was a key NASA scientist, Dr. Michael Allison of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, near Columbia University, where he is also an Adjunct Professor of Astronomer.

Speaking at a meeting of The New York Space Society (NSS's vibrant NYC chapter), Dr. Allison, a member of the Cassini-Huygens Radar Team, whose prime role in the Huygens mission was mapping the windy atmosphere of Titan through Doppler instrumentation.

Drawing from his childhood fascination with space, he also imagined a time when humans will walk on this virtual planet.

To convey his vision, Dr. Allison used the images of space art, specifically that of Chesley Bonestell, and a classic pre-Sputnik TV space show of half-a-century ago, "Tom Corbett - Space Cadet." Indeed, the audience was taken on a riveting adventure into that very cool and most awesome spaceland, the stuff of dreams come true and captivatng surprizes revealed.

A TITAN TOUR TREAT & DR. ALLISON'S "DOPPLE(R)GANGER" NASA space scientist Dr. Allison is the co-investigator, along with prime investigator Mike Bird and others, of the Huygens Titan Doppler Wind Experiment, and he is an author of various papers on planetary meteorology and dynamics, which can be accessed from the Goddard Institute website. In his scintillating and inspiring presentation to the rapt NSS audience, he told of the findings of the experiment and gave his firsthand account of frustrations of retrieving data with the loss of one of two data-senders during Huygens' adventurous two-and-a-half hour descent through Titan's hydrocarbon atmosphere, buffeted at times by gale force winds. He referred people to a detailed article on The Planetary Society's website about the valiant and successful "heroic effort around the world to track Huygens" by a string of observatories that retrieved all the necessary data (see full article on link list below). As announced, the atmosphere revolves from west to east some ten times faster than Titan itself does, a phenomena called "super-rotation." The atmosphere of Venus does it also. The entire findings about the Huygen's voyage, including its remarkable and unexpected transmission of data from the mushy surface for three hours, are being put together by the science teams now and will be published in the "NATURE" Science Journal this Summer, he announced, so be sure to reserve a copy. Much has already been published on the Net about the Titan discoveries so far. The April issues of "Astronomy" and "Sky & Telescope" magazines has comprehensive feature cover stories on Titan, as does the March 10 issue of "Nature." Aside from his fact-filled, adventurous Titan data talk, "tour guide" Dr. Allison talked about two topics, our focus here in this article: the power of space art and classic early science fiction television as inspirational vehicles for propelling the human imagination into space and as a curiosity guide to make it all happen at the deepest human levels. He referred to a recent article in The New York Times about the power of wonder with the Titan mission. THE TOM CORBETT FACTOR "I'm a guy who likes to read 'Tom Corbett' and one day an entirely different level of exploration will be possible with humans on Titan," Dr. Allison noted, as he held up an original "Tom Corbett - Space Cadet" hardcover book (one of eight published by Grosset & Dunlap between 1952 and 1956). "I read from these books to my children." "Tom Corbett - Space Cadet" was the first major quality TV space show, following "Captain Video and His Video Rangers." It was broadcast on TV from October 2, 1952 through June 25, 1955), ending its run just a month before President Eisenhower announced the Project Vanguard Earth satellite program for the IGY (International Geophysical Year, July 1957-Dec. 1958). It was inspired by Robert Heinlein's 1948 "Space Cadet" novel for young people. The TV series also spawned the aforementioned hardcover books, comic books, a daily cartoon newspaper series and a 1952 radio show; also an assortment of Space Academy metal space sets [this writer had such a set as a little boy] and other items, such as a Tom Corbett space helmet and suit (seen in a scene in the 1953 Ray Bradbury sci-fi movie "It Came From Outer Space"). In fact, this writer has an intact original mint-condition "Tom Corbett Space Cadet Push-Out" book, published by Florian, with cardboard rocket ships, badges, rings, arm bands and stand-ups of cadets, pirates and the Space Academy, with figures of Captain Strong, Commander Arkwright, Astro, Tom Corbett, Dr. Joan Dale, the "Polaris" spaceship. And, most relevant here, of a "Titan Landscape" with Saturn in the blue sky (it's actually orange), the Polaris spaceship and four astronauts on the low-gravity surface. "Is someone looking at a future when humans may actually go to Titan?" asked President Candace Pankanin of the NSS NYC chapter. Dr. Allison referred to NASA's "Space Vision of the Moon, Mars and Beyond," emphasizing Titan as being part of "the Beyond." With a slide of a Space Cadet on Titan, Dr. Allison painted a mind portrait of robot and human probes on Titan with its methane snowfalls and thick methane rivers flowing into methane lakes and seas. He said, "There's a big push to fly a dirigible over Titan... This is part of the human dimension of space exploration," he said.

SPACE ARTWORK AS INSPIRATION

The "human dimension" also comes from space art, another vital level to inspire space exploration, noted Dr. Allison."There's Saturn as an inspiration for art -- high art."

He showed a slide of famous space artist Chesley Bonestell's painting of Saturn as seen from Titan, framed by towering rocky cliffs, It appeared, he noted, in a 1944 article in "Life Magazine" shortly before the D-Day invasion. a vision of life in a time of war, and a preview of the hopeful future that inspired space travel dreams.

Dr. Allison spoke of other quality space artists, such as Ron Miller and his painting of an aircraft over Titan and the artwork of William Harrison. Harrison and Miller, we note, are current space artists. In 1990 they published, with Vitaly Myagkov and Andrei Sokolov, a stunning coffee table artbook: "In the Stream of Stars - The Soviet/American Space Art Book." It has a wonderful introduction by Ray Bradbury, "We Are the Carpenters of an Invisible Cathedral."

Together they also published the equally stunning "Grand Tour" and "Out of the Cradel" (the latter with Pamela Lee). Hartman wrote other books, and Miller wrote "Space Art" and "Worlds Beyond: The Art of Chesley Bonestell" (with Fred Durant).

This writer recently came across a Titan painting by artist Adolf Schaller with the caption: "The surface of Titan will probably be explored by humans sometime in the 21st Century. Here, two intrepid astronauts cautiously approach a geyser spewing liquid and vaporous methane from an underground pool." (from "Titan and Europa" page 21 in "Extraterrestials: A Field Guide for Earthings" by Terry Dckinson and Adolf Schaller, 1994, Camden House.}

Exploring the deep inner landscapes of the human psyche, last year The New York Space Society had two programs with a speaker, Steven Wolff, who explored the "inner spaces" of humans interested in space settlement, as an internal terrain that inspires them to work and be active in their outer space visions.

Here we have NASA space scientist Dr. Michael Allison, who is doing "real worlds" space science, powered in part by an inner space vision of art and classic sci-fi television, sharing data and dreams. Truly, Dr. Allison's "dopple(r)-ganger" is a Tom Corbett on Titan with a Bonestell Titan landscape.

Perhaps, that first Titan dirigible may bear the name of Corbett's spaceship, the "Polaris."

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[Article Photo Credit: European Space Agency image taken by Huygens as it coasted over Titan, heading for its landing spot on January 14, 2005.]

"THE PHANTOM OF SATURN" UNMASKED: THE HISTORIC MISSION TO TITAN

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005 TOP NEWS STORY --- Mighty Titan, for so long shrouded in mystery, has been unmasked. The Phantom of Saturn, hiding its icy face from human eyes, is revealing its secret self.

The top space science exploration story is obviously the highly successful mission to Titan, Saturn's giant satellite, almost the size of Mars and larger than Earth's Moon. The Earth-like photo mosaic shown here, snapped as the ESA Huygens robotic space explorer sailed through Titan's raging, buffeting winds for a safe landing on a moist, sandlike surface, is hauntingly like any shoreline familiar to Earthlings.

But the extreme cold facts are that the thick nitrogen-methane-ethane atmosphere has a temperature of minus 290 degrees F below zero and any future human explorers would need a major protective "isolation booth."

As we know, much has been already been learned from from the ESA-built Huygen's two-and-a-half hour epic voyage, three weeks after it was launched like a flying saucer from NASA's Cassini mother ship on Christmas Eve. Scientists have a motherlode of data that will take years to anaylze, a true and exciting scientific challenge garnered from the portion of Titan Huygens saw in its 150 minute flight and then for 70 minutes more, through ground fog, from the spongy surface.

What we have is that the sky is orange and liquid methane rain comes down to the hilly surface, filling river channels, brooks and streams which lead into drainage terrain, with water ice blocks dotting shoreline beaches, that may be methane lakes, ponds and perhaps oceans. The methane seems to be produced by the interaction of rocks and water under the surface of Titan.

"The physical processes shaping Titan are much the same as those shaping Earth," Dr. Martin Tomasko of the University said at a press conference on Jan. 21 in Paris ("Scientists See Signs of Methane Forming as Rain on Saturn Moon" by Warren E. Leary, the New York Times, 1/22/05, page A7).

Scientists are already looking forward to placing Mars-like rovers to explore Titan's fascinating surface, and hopefully that will be sooner than later. In "Under the Moon," a New York Times op-ed piece a day before the groundbreaking landing (the warm Huygens probe caused liquid methane to boil in gas bubbles), planetary scientist David Grinspoon (author of "Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life") wondered about "Titan's global smog bank" being "a smorgasbord of organic molecules -- the stuff of life."

He said: "The manna makes Titan a prime exploration for astrobiology." He goes on to call this feat "a precious opportunity," given the many exoplanets (141 and counting!) found in our celestial neighborhood over the past decade. Of these exoplanets and those beyond, Grinspoon writes: "Each of these, in our current ignorance, is a potential home for some kind of life."

For we who promote a large human presence in outer space and bolder innovative ways to expand piloted space travel, as we honor and protect our home world, this is a feast of cosmic oatmeal.