Science

Is it true that on Saturn’s moon Titan, you could walk around without a pressure suit, just heavy parka and oxygen tanks?

Yes, it is true but for a very limited amount of time!

  1. Titan atmosphere has 94.2% nitrogen, 5.65% methane and 0.099% hydrogen. The atmospheric pressure is 1.45 atm, so in theory it is possible to go outside without a pressured suit without problems for a short amount of time.
  2. In other hand, temperature is around -179.2C or -290F on average. Human can survive at this temperature for just 1.1 minutes before it freeze you entirely. You can still enjoy a full 1 minute before get entirely frozen and you don’t need any kind of space suit.
  3. But if you really want to stay out in this environment for an entire day, you will need oxygen tank and a special suit made using Aerogel materials that is best known by humans to insulate cold. You can still use 70% of the nitrogen available around mixing it with oxygen, so you can walk carrying a small tank. The low gravity will give you impression that you are stronger like a Dragon Ball Z fighter.

Without a completely airtight, heated suit and heated air supply? No.

True, it would not have to be a bulky, cumbersome pressure suit, which is amazing. This is the only place in the solar system outside of the Earth where you could, in principle, walk around without one.

But the temperature! Minus 180 centigrade is no joke. Exposed tissue freezes instantly. No reasonable amount of insulation would protect you. You need heating. Your air supply needs to be heated, too, otherwise you’d be breathing gas so cold, it would freeze your lung tissue instantly.

But a pressure suit is not needed. And you could build a house (well insulated, very well heated, and perhaps with slight overpressure inside) as opposed to a pressurized space station.

You could listen to the sounds of that world. You could stand on the shores of its hydrocarbon seas and listen to the waves.

But you better hope that your suit’s heating system never fails. Otherwise you become an ice sculpture yourself in very short order.

You don’t need a pressure suit. But you do need a suit that with total isolation from the external elements and with heating.

The atmospheric pressure on Titan’s surface is about 1.5 times the pressure on Earth at sea level. That’s like the pressure when you dive 5 meter deep. The human body can adopt and survive at that pressure.

The real issue is the cold. The average temperature on Titan is -170c. Parka can work at -40c or even -50c. But you don’t want to expose any body part for the external air when it’s -170c.

I wrote a number of science fiction short stories that takes place on Titan. Some of the Titan settlers used parka with additional insulation and heating instead of EVA suits. (Hating using batteries or fuel cells.)

Here is the cover art of my short stories collection.

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