Owner and operator, Perry Pezzolanella, would like to welcome everyone to his new beachside resort, the Peach Beach, on Titan. This is a beautiful, two-story resort, fully sealed, heated with geothermal energy from the methane geysers, and with stunning views of Huygens Sea, a massive methane sea that was discovered by the Huygens probe in 2005. You will be treated to eight days and no nights at my resort. Since Titan orbits Saturn in 15.9 days and always keeps the same face pointed towards Saturn, daylight lasts nearly eight Earth days! You will land at the Cassini Airport at sunrise and be taken by rover to your resort in the tiny coastal village, Huygens-by-the-Sea. Once you arrive there, you will have many excursion options. You may:
Surf Titan! Catch a methane wave! I have instructors. Do not worry that the sea is a frigid -280º F. I will provide the proper gear and equipment.
Scuba Titan! Imagine what lies beneath the inky black sea? Who knows, but you will find out. I also have instructors. I will supply the gear and lights.
Sail Titan! On days when it is not too foggy along the coast you can sail the rolling Huygens Sea and cruise the bays and inlets. You will see towering cliffs of frozen water ice. You might even see an iceberg!
Soar Titan! Relive the dramatic Huygens landing. Except that you are Huygens! You will be taken five miles up, high above the coastline, and then released where you will hang-glide to the surface.
Ski Titan! Want the thrill of skiing on organic snow? You will be taken to the Xanadu Mountains on the far side of Huygens Sea. In the -292º F cold, conditions are always lightning fast.
I also have land excursion packages to the vast ice fields and geyser beds. Explore the awesome canyons carved by the methane rivers. Do not forget to visit Methane Falls, a natural wonder as mighty as Niagara Falls! You will be supplied with a rental rover, which handles like a jeep, but beware of organic goo. I will supply a map detailing the hazardous areas.
You will also be taken to the Huygens Landing Site. Here you will see the famous Huygens probe, long dead, in its final resting place. This site is considered a historic landmark and nobody may cross the field where it took the historic picture.
I also have fine steak and seafood, imported from Earth of course. No fish in this sea! No dinner would be complete without Titan Ale, a special brew made by me, right here on Titan, which is supercharged with methane bubbles!
Whatever your specialty: geologist, biologist, meteorologist, or marine scientist, I will put together a package for you. You will depart at sunset for orbit for your journey home. Please note that there is never any sunshine, just an eerie, twilight scenery bathed in a peach-colored haze above, beyond, and all around. There has never been a thunderstorm, and methane showers and organic snow are infrequent. Seasonal methane downpours can occur during the warmer season in the Xanadu Mountains. Temperatures do not vary much. I recorded a high of -277º F and a low of -303º F. Sorry, Saturn is never visible from this side of Titan, but it is too hazy to see anyhow.
Here is a link to the view of the resort area. It is too high up to see the building, but you can see the landing strip on the far left.
The price for this package is $3.3 billion. MVAS members will get a 15% discount. Price includes round trip rocket fare from Earth. (For those not familiar with the $3.3 billion price tag, that is the cost of the Cassini-Huygens mission.) People might think this is far fetched, but who knows what an MVAS member might do for an exotic resort vacation in the year 5005?
Author's note: Alas, Huygens did not discover a massive methane sea, not even a pond. Titan turned out to be as dry as Arizona, but there is indeed enormous evidence of flowing methane in the form of branching river channels, deltas, sand bars, inlets, and bay-like features. The vast dark areas are massive flood plains where liquid methane may periodically collect to this very day. Huygens landed in just such a large, dark feature on Titan along a vast coastline laced with rivers, deltas, sandbars, and bays. Based on the telemetry and photographs, it landed about one mile offshore in what appears to be mud with a consistency of wet beach sand. This, along with erosion patterns of the rounded rocks of water ice and sediment flow patterns near them give proof that liquid methane recently ponded and/or flowed here. One can only imagine a huge methane downpour flooding the land all around Huygens and carrying it to a new resting place!