NASA Seaplane Concept Is Designed to Study Alien Lakes

The seaplane is the pinnacle of transportation. Imagine being able to take to the skies from land or water, without having to worry about requiring a landing strip when you reach some far flung, deserted island you’d like to check out. It’s the dream. Now, it appears that NASA holds the same belief, as it just funded a flying boat concept that could study alien lakes.

In the last round of funding in NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, the American space agency backed a new kind of exploratory drone that could one day reveal the secrets to alien planets. But, instead of creating yet another cutesy car or a new quadcopter to explore new worlds, NASA’s next exploratory drone could look like a retro seaplane, according to Autoevolution.

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The TitanAir project was devised by aerospace technology firm Planet Enterprises. The startup, which was founded in 2002, previously devised a concept for remote deep drilling on other planets, so that NASA doesn’t need to go to the effort of training oil riggers to become astronauts one day.

Now, the company has devised a drone that looks a lot like a vintage seaplane, which is to say that it’s freaking awesome.

Titan (R) is Saturn’s largest moon.

Devised by Planet Enterprises researcher Quinn Morley, TitanAir is a pilotless drone that could one day fly through the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Then, it could land on the lakes found on the alien world and collect liquid samples for scientists to study.

But, because this is a far off moon, the liquid it collects won’t be water. Instead, the moon of Saturn is covered in lakes of liquid methane and clouds of methane gas.