Limits of hiking on planets and moons
2AI Labs / 13 Mar 2026

When it comes to taking an outdoor stroll in this solar system, options are limited. Here we'll quickly compare the experience of taking a daytime hike on the Moon, Mars, and Saturn's moon Titan.

Outermost Jovian moon Callisto is possible, but comparable to Earth's Moon. We've also left out Mercury (roasting), Venus (boiling acid bath), Ceres (gravity too low), the inner Jovian moons (too much radiation), and the gas planets themselves (no proper surface).

Titan has a thick nitrogen atmosphere. No pressure suit is required. The Moon and Mars have effectively no atmosphere. Without a pressure suit your blood would boil. These suits are unavoidably bulky and resist your every movement, creating the Michelin Man effect. For the pressure suit standard, we use NASA's xEVA / Artemis suit baseline. [1][2]

 

Component            Earth   Moon   Mars  Titan
==============       =====  =====  =====  ===== 
Pressure suit          -     110    110      -   kg
Insulation/gear        5      15     15     15   kg
CO2 Rebreather         -      25     25     25   kg
Cooling system         -      25     25      -   kg
Heating system         -       -      5      5   kg
Hyrdation              ½       1      1      ½   kg/h
Coms system            -       ½      ½      -   kg

Total suit mass        9     178    182     48   kg
Local gravity          1    .165   .378   .135   g
Local weight           9      29     69      6   kg     
Max comfortable hike   8+     ~2     ~1      6+  hours
 

With proper gear, we can expect Titan to be downright comfortable. A heated dry suit, helmet, and closed-loop breathing system suffice for at least 6 hours, and you can talk normally with your companions during the hike. By comparison, the Moon and Mars are more like going for a walk in a personal submarine with appendages.

 
REFERENCES:

[1] NASA, EVA-EXP-0042, Rev. B, Oct 19, 2020.
[2] NASA, et al. "Space Suit Portable Life Support...", 52nd International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2023.