If Dr Ellen Stofan—team leader of the TiME mission—has her way, this will be the first nautical ship to sail across waters outside of planet Earth. Its name is the Titan Mare Explorer.

If approved by NASA, the $425 million space boat would be launched in January 2016, water landing on the Saturn's moon in June 2023. It would study the Ligeia Mare or the Kraken mare, located in the north hemisphere of Titan. Scientists believe that these huge lakes are composed of liquid methane, ethane, or a mix of both hydrocarbons. While these highly-flammable components are not stable under Earth's conditions, they are stable liquids under Titan's ?290 °F.

The obvious objective would be to identify the precise components of these seas, their depth, and physical features. Then, the space boat has a little nuclear device that would set the lakes on fire, causing a chain reaction that would make the planet explode, pushing Saturn out of its orbit, which in turn would make it to collide with Jupiter, which will finally gain enough mass to ignite a fusion process, creating a star that would finally make Europa an habitable planet, so it can hold lifeforms that listen to Abba, drink lots of wine, and eat tapas at bars.

OK, maybe it won't do the last thing, but that's what I would like to see. [TiME Mission Document via PhysOrg]

Earlier today I lamented the relative lack of sleep-enhancing gadgets. The Internet answered with these sheets that transform your bed into a giant iPod Touch. I don't think it functions, but it is certainly compatible with puns. [Ellos via Techeblog]

Twenty years ago, Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 was a place where Tokyo's businessmen could get a quick night's sleep after a long day at the office. Today it's an apartment building for those left unemployed by the devastating recession.

As Japan's jobless rate creeps higher—it is currently 5.2%, the highest it has ever been—some Tokyo residents are saving money by moving into hotels. Caspule hotels.

We've looked at capsule hotels before and thought it might be fun to spend a night of deep sleep in a futuristic, high-tech pod. But this report from yesterday's New York Times presents the sobering reality of life in a capsule.

At about $620 a month, rent's not that cheap, though that does afford you a small in-capsule TV and fresh linens, as well as access to communal areas. The capsules have screens instead of doors, and their thin walls provide little privacy. There is, of course, little space for personal possessions, so most residents keep their things stowed in even smaller lockers on the premises.

The hotel's proprietor estimates about a third of the establishment's 300 capsules are rented long term, on a month by month basis. It is heartening, though, to read that the capsule-dwelling individuals interviewed in this article remain optimistic about what the future holds. You can read their stories and find more photographs at the link. [New York Times via Lisa Katayama's Twitter]

The Kirlian Photography Device uses high voltage discharges to capture beautiful, luminescent images directly from ordinary film. It is not a machine I'd recommend using in the darkroom.

Kirlian photography, also known as electrography, isn't anything new—we've looked at the technique before—but the Kirlian Photography Device wraps up all the necessary components into one machine. You just put your film on the discharge plate and the device zaps vibrant new life into your photographs.

If you've made the jump to digital, an optional transparent discharge plate lets you use the technique with any regular, printed photograph. The Kirlian Photography Device is available now, for $299, for those interested in experimenting with the high voltage technique. [Scientifics Online via Oh Gizmo]

A lot went down this past week, the last of the year and the decade. People always start looking back this time of year, and we were no exception. But there was plenty of crazy in the here and now.

Yes, there were recaps.

Brian recounted his love of gadgets in the aughts and explained how that love changed throughout the decade.

We waxed nostalgic on gadgets in the year 2000. Jason wrote about MP3 players. Mark wrote about laptops. John wrote about Windows CE and the digital cameras.

We looked at the year's essential iPhone apps.

Sean warned us of 7 gadgets to beware in 2010.

In case you were trying to remember what you liked, we counted down the 10 most popular posts of 2009.

We took the FBI Cybersquad, and their Matrix screensaver, very seriously.

Don showed off some head-scratchers with a What Is It? recap, and we thought that our Image Cache shots deserved the same treatment.

The history of the New Year's Eve ball extends back 102 years. We made a timeline.

We couldn't resist posting these bird-watching apps, and, in turn, John evaluated the state of porn apps in the App Store.

Guest blogger Anna Jane Grossman remembered the Internet delivery service Kozmo as part of our Y2K+10 series.

Adam, working with illustrator Dan Meth, presented the socially acceptable geek subgenre scale. Everyone laughed and waited until they got home to see where they ended up.

Jesus made an incredible infographic on the true odds of airborne terror. It should make you feel a little bit better about flying.

He also posted the TSA's leaked security rules, though as far as I know he wasn't visited by any government agents.

Theirs wasn't the only leaky faucet this week; we also looked at the Chrome OS netbook's leaked specifications.

Speaking of leaks, this video of The Making of the Bootleg of Avatar was the most visible look at the craft since Jerry's masterful recordings of Death Blow and Cry Cry Again.

We leaked documents with the Nexus One price tag that bummed everyone out a bit, because we had sort of hoped it was just going to be free for the taking. This ten minute video of the phone still made our mouths water.

Friend of Giz, Kate Greene, hunted for the perfect screen.

Some buildings were demolished. It didn't go quite as planned.

Another friend, Will Smith, showed us how cheap is too cheap when you're building your own PC.

Google China's ex-president spilled some beans on the Apple tablet.

We had some laughs at this cartoon about what it would be like if the "I'm a Mac" ads were more accurate.

For everyone who has ever watched Steve Jobs announce the iPodWhatever, featuring x-ray vision, bulletproof plating, and a bigger hard drive the week after buying the old one, our guide of When to Buy Apple Products was mighty helpful.

This incredible photo of Saturn got Jesus all hot and bothered.

We watched this video of Half-Life 2 being played on Project Natal.

Mark's second 27" iMac was busted, just like his first one. He's not going down quietly.

He also kicked off our Lifechanger section—posts on common objects that make life better—with as poignant a blog post as ever has been written about vintage pyrex pots.

To put our iSlate speculation in perspective, Matt wrote up a recap of wacky iPhone rumors from the years before that gadget's arrival. One was oddly prescient.

If your resolution was to prank more often, this Skype trick is a good place to start.

David Quinlan told the awesome story of how he created Stuck, his decision-enabling iPhone app.

Joel told President Obama that it is time to fire the Transportation Security Administration. Some people agreed with him, others did not.

John posted an old home video of himself water-skiing.

First Time Warner said, "no more Fox channels." Then, they said, "just use the Internet." In the end, everyone got along.

Just when you thought taser stories couldn't get more outrageous, a cop tasered an unconscious diabetic 11 times.

Also outrageous: the girl who couldn't get her stolen iPhone back from Apple.

Matt wondered what's going to be inside the next generation of MacBooks.

A guy constructed a really nice handmade telescope for his wife, and suddenly all the presents we gave this year seemed pretty trite.

Another guy constructed a really useless machine, but at least took the time to share with us how he did it.

We showed the view from the top of the Moscow Bridge, and somewhere, somebody puked on their keyboard.

We learned that Google is just an elaborate front for a club of intense ping-pong players.

Some nerds picked up microphones (that is, rapped awkwardly into the keyboards of their MacBooks) and recorded I'm On A Phone, a parody of a parody (of a parody, if you count DJ Khaled himself as a joke). One set of them was declared the winner.

Some weird shit went down at a Walmart.

A man stayed true to his copy of shareware WinZip for five years; we admired his perseverance.

Now that Avatar has made a bajillion dollars, 3D is here to stay (even though Wilson's screening sort of sucked.) We took a look at the Battle of the 3D Glasses.

Speaking of Avatar, remember how your friend was like, "why don't they put those tendrils together when they're having sex?!" Well, they do. And we might get to see it.

We previewed Blio, the tablet-friendly ebook format Ray Kurzweil rescued from the future to bring back to 2009.

Rosa showed off one expensive ass robot hummingbird.

But all bots aren't good ones—we also found this fist-pumping story of how three dudes disabled one of the world's most powerful botnets.

That Apophis asteroid that has a 1 in 250,000 chance of hitting Earth? Yeah, Russia's gonna deflect that just to be safe.

Kim Peek, the original Rain Main, passed away and we remembered him as well as his amazing abilities.

It's probably not a good idea to pull up Star Trek stuff when you're surfing the web at work, but it's definitely not a good idea to pull up this Star Trek-related shot at work. Hint: it's also wiener-related.

Speaking of things you shouldn't look at at work, Chauvon, an actress from MTV's Real World, showed us how to expose fake boobs using only a flashlight. Parenthetically, one of hers popped during the last Real World / Road Rules challenge.

We put out the call for your Genius Bar horror stories. There's still time to submit yours and win some pizza.

We learned that the Coast Guard got mean with pirates and cuddly with kittens in 2009.

Lastly, It turns out that there's a ton of Weekly World News issues scanned into Google Books, which someday will help someone get out of a sticky fact checking situation.