(See chart.) "Increased stray gas abundance in a subset of drinking water wells near Marcellus shale gas extraction." Even a vacuum suit will eventually fail. Like so many controversial topics, it is hard to get good information on fracking. Pro-frackers pretend there is absolutely nothing to worry about, and anti-frackers pretend that tectonic plates will rip apart and the Earth will deflate. The gondola is a masterpiece of materials science, maritime engineering, and two planet’s worth of seafaring tradition. No prop could gain enough purchase to propel such a craft through the methane sea. A standard human cannot carry enough buoyancy to survive a plunge into liquid methane. On Earth, I once captained an old-fashioned sailing yacht with a hull formed of concrete and steel. She was fast and graceful; her keel, long and aggressive. An exposure suit may save you from drowning, just long enough for the cold and the deep to kill you. You cannot swim in liquid methane. There is no bluster. Titanic weeks. Source: Robert B. Jackson, Avner Vengosh, Thomas H. Darrah, Nathaniel R. Warner, Adrian Down, Robert J. Poreda, Stephen G. Osborn, Kaiguang Zhao, and Jonathan D. Karr. That’s not to say that death is inevitable on the seas of Titan. The scuppers bog down and begin to swamp. In honor of this new launch, my other novella, Prepared, an adventure in doomsday prepping, seasteading, and catastrophic sea level rise, is free to download all week long. On Titan, we simply call it the sea. If you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to. Fun Science FRIEDay – A fish without blood, Fun Science FRIEDay – Suspended Animation, Academia should be more Skyrim and less Mario Kart to address lack of long-term diversity, Defining Your Audience (Or How To Plan The Worst Birthday Ever), Hot air for windmills, oceans get layered, and North Korean ghost ships – What’s up with the Oceans this Week. Is a Changing Environment Bringing Baby Bull Sharks to North Carolina? I’ve seen a ship founder. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! And, as just mentioned, methane naturally contaminates groundwater all the time. Liquid methane pours over the gunwales. There’s a salvage job out there, waiting for me. A standard human cannot carry enough buoyancy to survive a plunge into liquid methane. In the chart, the worst sample had 70 mg of methane per liter of drinking water. It catches the breeze. There's Methane in Your Drinking Water. They marked every milestone of a textbook failure as they accepted their fate. I’m a long way from Trade Winds. The oceans of Earth are deep and dense. Half meter waves rolling at just the wrong angle are certain death on Titan. For the sake of argument, let's assume the worst: All 70 mg of methane (CH4) per liter of water escape into the air. On Naming Boats, or why we love Boaty McBoatface. I left Earth to sail alone across the stars. I was too far upwind to save them. The authors sampled well water and plotted the amount of methane in the water (y-axis) as a function of the distance in kilometers (x-axis) from a gas well. Even if the nitrogen-laden atmosphere had enough oxygen to supply a standard human, their lungs would freeze on first breath. Using a little chemistry and some simplifying assumptions, a fairly basic calculation can be performed. The moment of lift, when a stationary gondola climbs onto plain and begins its journey is the moment of most danger. Waves measured in centimeters that never break. All the times gender bias has reared its ugly head. I love the way the sail sings as it glides across an alien sea. Gasp! PNAS June 24, 2013. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1221635110, (H/T: Special thanks to Rhett Allain and Hank Campbell for double-checking my calculations. All worlds look placid from the Earth’s vantage. Risky, but lucrative. Her displacement is perfectly calibrated to cargo and crew. That's not very much at all, and it's far, far below levels that would be considered dangerous. The captain and crew knew, they knew as soon as the first wave rolled, but still they could do nothing. She was heavy. At the end of a day, about 148 liters of methane has escaped into the house. Her grudges are measured in epochs. Read an excerpt from my latest novella, below: No. Methane seas do not forgive. Should this worry us? The. The violence of our home world tempers our perception. Or how tantrums and unprofessional behavior are hindering conservation, Decoding the Superpowers of the Great White Shark. Ships of substance can glide across an angry swell, can punch through breakers that rise taller than the highest peaks of Titan. Even a vacuum suit will eventually fail. For sake of simplicity, let's assume standard temperature and pressure which allows us to easily calculate how much volume 106 g CH4 takes up. A standard human cannot survive at all on Titan. She glides across the methane waves, her micron-thin skin barely touching the surface. The methane in his tap water seeped there naturally by a process called methane migration. Trade Winds is as far from me as a coastal colony can be. But as I was only a chemistry minor, please don't blame them for my opinions or mistakes. This means that a human with a density just slightly less than water would sink … Titan’s winds are slow and stately. And, at very high concentrations, it can cause death by asphyxiation (since there isn't enough oxygen to get to your lungs). Methane is non-toxic, but it is explosive. Join the Salvager on a journey across Kraken Mare to land the score of a lifetime, if the rest of the universe doesn’t get in their way. But white-water rafting through these canyons might be a bit difficult…because the lakes are “methane” and not “water” (obviously). A hybrid of Inuit and Celtic origins, the skin-on-frame craft trades wooden stays for infinitely-adaptable carbon nanotubes and heavy hides for continuously-repaired polymetallic sheets. A journey across Titan's largest methane sea. Calliope surges forward. I clear the port and raise the impossibly thin main sail. It must be because of fracking.