XPost: sci.space.policy, sci.astro   
   From: christopher.m.jones@gmail.com   
      
   Henry Spencer wrote:   
   [snip]   
   > It would have greatly increased the cost and complexity, unfortunately,   
   > because it would almost certainly have required an RTG.  Moreover, several   
   > days is not enough -- it'll be a month or two (I forget exactly) before   
   > Cassini goes past Titan again.  You can't really do a long-lived Titan   
   > surface mission without better communications support, that is, either a   
   > Titan orbiter or a lander that's big enough and heavy enough to carry its   
   > own high-power transmitter and steerable high-gain antenna (plus the power   
   > source needed to run them).   
      
   To be fair, an RTG powered lander might very well have had   
   enough power to send data directly back to Earth.  At low   
   bit rate certainly, but probably fast enough to be workable.   
   Galileo was able to operate at pitiful data rates, with   
   spectacular results, for example.   
      
   However, the surface science capabilities of the probe didn't   
   justify massive expenditures to increase the return for that   
   portion of the mission.  A new probe with different   
   instruments and a different design, perhaps, but not Huygens.   
   Also, I believe that it would have been enormously difficult   
   to design Huygens and provide a large enough RTG to keep it   
   operating in the event of a landing in liquid hydrocarbons,   
   which was, and still is, a substantial possibility for a   
   Titan lander.   
      
   Considering how long ago Huygens was built, and that it was   
   the first foray into a virtually unknown world, I think it   
   did spectacularly well.  We can do better next time, but   
   partly that's because of the extraordinarily valuable data   
   Huygens has provided.   
      
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