Sounds like Dr Stofan has the right kind of experience for the job. Too bad Titan Mare Explorer never got funded. Wherever we have gone, we have discovered new and amazing things. Who knows what we would have found in the oceans of Titan?

I don't quite get this human obsession to travel to Mars. Why? What for? "Why not?" is no answer. I'm an engineer by training and get Science and stuff but this is something I never understood. We're not satisfied with low earth orbit? We're not satisfied with the moon? What exactly does humanity hope to find out by exploring Mars?

The desire to explore is a basic human drive, if we listened to Confused above the Europeans would not have left home in 1492.

People said the same thing about going into near earth space, look what happened, the world has so many things derived from space.

I was talking not from the perspective of someone who lives in Silicon Valley and enjoys the bounty that technological progress has so far provided, but the average human being on planet Earth. What do you, Rodger, know about what space has done for the average human? Or the plant or the animal kingdom? What did the Europeans achieve by leaving home in 1492 other than genocide of the Native American peoples and building up the capitalistic empire that has enslaved the planet and its inhabitants? You and I benefit from this but let's not lose the big picture. Think outside of yourself and how you have gained from it personally. There's no point in a public discussion if that's all that matters.