Amanda Hendrix

"Let's Live on Titan!"

ABSTRACT -- Titan may not seem like the most obvious place in the solar system for humans to settle, but it has some advantages over Mars and the Moon. For starters, it has radiation shielding, thanks to the combined effects of its own atmosphere (denser than Earth's) and Saturn's magnetic field. Thanks to the atmosphere, you could walk around on the surface of Titan without wearing a pressure suit. You would, however, need warm clothing to deal with the -180 C temperature.

Although Titan's atmosphere is not breathable, oxygen could be extracted from water ice lying just below the surface. The hydrocarbons that occur as liquids (and as solids) on the surface of Titan could be burned for fuel by using that same oxygen.

Titan's combination of low gravity and thick atmosphere would allow sports that are not possible on Earth. For example, humans could fly by muscle power, using wings strapped on their backs.

SPEAKER -- Dr. Amanda Hendrix is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. She is based in Boulder, CO. She previously was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Comets, Asteroids, and Satellites Group. She is co-lead of the NASA Roadmap to Oceans Worlds Group and is a Principal Investigator on Hubble Space Telescope observing programs. Missions that she has participated in include Cassini-Huygens (including as Deputy Project Scientist), Galileo, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. She is co-chair of the National Academies Committee on Planetary Protection and served as chair of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.

She holds a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and a Ph.D in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder.

She is co-author, with Charles Wohlforth, of Beyond Earth, Our Path to a New Home in the Planets. She is the namesake of Asteroid 6813 Amandahendrix.

Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov