Hot Air Ballooning on Titan?

Petrochemicals from Titan may be vital to sustaining a large population on Mars. Research is important, but eventually we also need "boots on the ground" of Luna, Mars, Titan, the asteroid Belt, and many other sites in our solar system. There is enormous wealth out there if we're willing to go get it.

Plan to Send Hot Air Balloon to Saturn's Moon Titan - Yahoo! News:
"A hot air balloon drifts gently in the breeze, gliding over mountain ranges and vast lakes. Thick clouds extend over the entire horizon, threatening rain. The meager light that filters through illuminates one side of the balloon, making it look like a giant question mark in the sky.

This is a vision that floats in the minds of scientists who study Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The Cassini spacecraft currently traveling around the Saturn system has provided us with our best glimpse yet of Titan, but there is still much to be explored.

Athena Coustenis, an astrophysicist and planetologist with the Paris Observatory, is helping draft a plan to send a hot air balloon to Titan, as well as an orbiting spacecraft and a surface probe. Called TSSM – the Titan and Saturn System Mission – this three-tiered approach to exploration could shed more light on the still-mysterious moon.
. . .
The moon's resemblance to Earth was eerily brought to mind when the Huygens probe descended to the surface of Titan in 2005. The photos showed a mountain with river channels carving their way down to a lake shoreline; a geography reminiscent of Earth today, except that on Titan the mountains are made of ice, and the rivers are liquid methane.

The Huygens probe eventually landed in a sandy river bed dotted with pebbles. This soft terrain would prove hazardous for a wheeled rover – the Mars Rover Opportunity got stuck for weeks in a sand dune and was nearly stranded forever. "The ground on Titan may be gooey, and you don't want to get stuck somewhere," says Coustenis.

She says that to move around, the TSSM probe could be outfitted with a helicopter rotor that would allow it to fly from place to place. The probe design also may include floaters that would prevent it from sinking if it landed on one of Titan's hydrocarbon lakes.
. . .
Our knowledge of Titan's geography has improved thanks to Huygens and Cassini. Long before the probe landed, scientists thought Titan was completely covered by a hydrocarbon ocean. This ocean was thought to be the source of methane in Titan's atmosphere. The Huygens probe proved the theory of a global ocean was incorrect, and from what the Cassini spacecraft has seen so far, the lakes of liquid hydrocarbon on Titan are mostly confined to the moon's north polar region. Still, it's hard to speak of Titan's geography with much certainty. While Cassini's radar has allowed it to peer through Titan's thick atmospheric haze, in the end Cassini won't be able to map even half of the moon's surface. The third part of TSSM – an orbiting spacecraft – will give scientists a more complete view of the enigmatic moon.

"We need a Titan-dedicated orbiter because after four years of Cassini, we still haven't mapped more than 25 percent of Titan's surface," says Coustenis. "When you see the diversity the moon has, you realize it needs full-coverage mapping. And we can have a polar orbiter, whereas Cassini only passes by Titan on the ecliptic."

The orbiter also could be used to study Enceledus, a tiny moon that previously had not garnered much attention. Cassini discovered that Enceladus has geysers of liquid water at its south pole, and this spray generates one of the rings around Saturn. Scientists are puzzled how this icy snowball could generate enough heat to keep water liquid. Because liquid water is believed to be a prerequisite for life, some scientists now think Enceladus could be a potential location for alien organisms in our solar system."