The Plan to Send a Submarine to Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon

[PufPuf23]

Planetary scientists intend to send a submersible vessel to cruise the liquid hydrocarbon seas of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The mission study is in its infancy, but its ambition and audacity harkens to the best of science fiction and the heady heights of the Space Race. As Ralph Lorenz of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) explains, "The virtue of this study is that you just need to say those words—Titan submarine—and everyone kind of gets that it's out there, it's interesting, and there's a lot of exciting potential."

At the 47th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held last month in The Woodlands, Texas, Lorenz—the Titan submarine's project scientist—led an open forum on the mission to solicit reactions from fellow space scientists to the mission's targets and objectives. The goal was to help the Titan sub researchers determine the best payload of scientific instruments for the craft.

Among the questions the scientists must eventually answer: How long should such a mission last? How far should the submarine go? How fast should it go? How much data might it try to return?

None of these questions are as simple as they might seem. Cruising speed and data transmission, for example, must be carefully balanced. Too much of one takes away from what little available power exists for the other. Shorter travel distances mean more data about fewer things; vice-versa for longer distances. If the vessel is going to be sticking around one area for a while, what instruments might be needed to really collect every scintilla of data possible? Then it's back to the drawing board with respect to balancing the use of available electricity. No problem in space exploration is trivial, and no decision can be made lightly. Add to all this the problems inherent to submersible vehicles—and that Titan's seas are cryogenic, or extremely cold—and you get some idea of how ambitious and exciting this mission really is.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/78049/plan-send-submarine-titan-saturns-largest-moon

More plus video and images at link.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Heck -- send them to Jupiter and Saturn too.

You don't have to go very far down in Jupiter's atmosphere before the density surpasses the density of Earth's oceans. Any pressure hull that could float in Earth's seas should float in Jupiter's atmosphere (and Saturn's too, just deeper in).



It's been suggested that we send "dirigibles" to these planets, but something more like a bathysphere than a balloon may be in order.

[PufPuf23]

2. Probably because Tritan is more similar to Earth.

From wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)

Titan (or Saturn VI) is the largest moon of Saturn. It is the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere,[9] and the only object other than Earth where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.[10]

Titan is the sixth ellipsoidal moon from Saturn. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan's diameter is 50% larger than Earth's natural satellite, the Moon, and it is 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System, after Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and is larger than the smallest planet, Mercury, although only 40% as massive. Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens,[11][12] Titan was the first known moon of Saturn, and the sixth known planetary satellite.[13]

Titan is primarily composed of water ice and rocky material. Much as with Venus before the Space Age, the dense opaque atmosphere prevented understanding of Titan's surface until new information accumulated when the Cassini–Huygens mission arrived in 2004, including the discovery of liquid hydrocarbon lakes in Titan's polar regions. The geologically young surface is generally smooth, with few impact craters, although mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes have been found.[14][15]

The atmosphere of Titan is largely nitrogen; minor components lead to the formation of methane–ethane clouds and nitrogen-rich organic smog. The climate—including wind and rain—creates surface features similar to those of Earth, such as dunes, rivers, lakes, seas (probably of liquid methane–ethane), and deltas, and is dominated by seasonal weather patterns as on Earth. With its liquids (both surface and subsurface) and robust nitrogen atmosphere, Titan's methane cycle is analogous to Earth's water cycle, although at a much lower temperature.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. too to͞o/ adverb 2. in addition; also. "is he coming too?"

2.
in addition; also.
"is he coming too?"
synonyms: also, as well, in addition, additionally, into the bargain, besides, furthermore, moreover, on top of that, to boot, likewise
"he was unhappy, too, you know"

[PufPuf23]

5. Pardon me. Support submarines for all moons!! eom