Show people what they are missing

Marcel-Jan Krijgsman

December 18, 2012

People have been impressed with the animations of Mars Curiosity landing. It was a great preview for a great mission. As we all know, the budget is too limited for other exciting planetary missions. I would like to see, for example, a Titan Mare Explorer. So I was thinking: what if there was a video of that, like the one for Mars Curiosity. Not of just 13 seconds, like I saw on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/40949194), but a vivid video of launch, cruise stage, entry in the atmosphere, landing, looking around and science? Just like the Mars Curiosity video. Followed at the end with a caption: "There are methane lakes and rivers on Saturn-moon Titan. We can only imagine what we would find. Unfortunately, NASA does not get the necessary funds for planetary missions like these. Go to planetary.org to find out how we get a boat on Titan." Same applies of course for missions to Europa, Enceladus, comets and such. I really, really wish I had skills to make a realistic animation like that. But I think there are people in the community that might pull it of. What do you think?