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NASA Releases Details of Titan Submarine Concept
Zothecula writes: Now that NASA has got the hang of planetary rovers, the space agency is looking at sending submarines into space around the year 2040. At the recent 2015 NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts Symposium, NASA scientists and engineers presented a study of the Titan Submarine Phase I Conceptual Design (PDF), which outlines a possible mission to Saturn's largest moon, Titan, where the unmanned submersible would explore the seas of liquid hydrocarbons at the Titanian poles.
"At its heart, the submarine would use a 1 kW radiothermal Stirling generator. This would not only provide power to propel the craft, but it would also keep the electronics from freezing. Unfortunately, Titan is so cold that it's almost a cryogenic environment, so the waste heat from the generator would cause the liquids around it to boil and this would need be taken into account when designing the sub to minimize interference. However, NASA estimates that the boat could do about one meter per second (3.6 km/h, 2.2 mph)."
"At its heart, the submarine would use a 1 kW radiothermal Stirling generator. This would not only provide power to propel the craft, but it would also keep the electronics from freezing. Unfortunately, Titan is so cold that it's almost a cryogenic environment, so the waste heat from the generator would cause the liquids around it to boil and this would need be taken into account when designing the sub to minimize interference. However, NASA estimates that the boat could do about one meter per second (3.6 km/h, 2.2 mph)."
Use cryotrons for the electronics.
At least they will all be fusion powered by then.
If we are designing a submarine for use somewhere exotic and oil-rich wouldn't it make sense to save time by adding the weapons systems now? You know we'll end up needing them, and designing them in after the fact will be much more annoying and probably take longer.
Probably need to adapt it to melt/drill through the icy layer.
Liquid methane (-161C) and ethane(-89C) is pretty close to liquid nitrogen (-196C), and LN2 is considered a cryogen, so I think this is splitting hairs a bit. Even the font of all knowledge wikipedia says cryogenics starts at -150C, and methane meets that criteria.
(unless the original author was assuming that Titanic seas are methane/ethane azeotropes of some sort, but somehow, I don't think that's the case)
It's unclear that waste heat from the sub would cause boiling, any more than waste heat from a conventional water sub causes the seawater to boil. A lot depends on what the temperature of the sea is. The freezing point of methane is -182C so there's not a big spread between freezing and melting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Terror_from_the_Deep
or maybe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kraken_Wakes
Does that mean it's going to be Titanic?
No thanks!
Nasa:: we have an awesome plan for a submarine that would explore the seas of liquid hydrocarbons at the Titanian poles.
Senator:: We already defeated communism we dont need anymore submarines.
Nasa:: but you dont understand, this is space exploration! we've never been to titan and it's been established that there are three large polar seas on Titan consisting of methane and ethane in a composition similar to that of liquified natural gas.
Congressman: so you want to do...fracking for gas? we already do that in my state.
Tea Party Senator: this sounds satanic. Kraken Mare is probably some goat demon trying to sneak gay marriage into the fema concentration camps.
NASA: no this is...this is interplanetary exploration....
Senator: you already went to mars what else do you want? didnt Steven Segal start the reactor or something? and so thats how we have intenet?
NASA: ok you know what? this just changed. its not a probe anymore its going to be a manned submarine.
Good people go to bed earlier.
How on earth can you get any data back from this thing? Can you transmit RF though a sea of super-cooled liquid Hydrocarbons?
TIL: I will likely be dead before the planets of our solar system are widely investigated. The time necessary to plan and execute an interplanetary mission is daunting.
NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts is a way of giving relatively small amounts of money ($100,000) to outside researchers to begin to flesh out advanced ideas. One hundred K is not going to buy you a fully designed Titan submarine. So, this is a idea, but not much more, and may have little or even no resemblance to NASA thinking, NASA plans or anything that is actually done later.
We'll need an environmental impact study to analyze the potential negatives effect of this man-made exploration device on native species.
Wrong FLA surely, sounds more like a job for the NUMA
At its heart, the submarine would use a 1 kW radiothermal Stirling generator.
In other words, an impobability drive. Beware of the whales.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
And why, or especially how, would that happen?
Seems like you ought to be able to do better in terms of propulsion when you can easily vaporize the liquid you're immersed in.
Simple. Declare war on Titan and justify it that Titan's hydrocarbon revenue will cover the cost of it!
Plus it finally gets us away from falling victim to one of the classic blunders, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Well, I'm sure the Democrats are supporting it too, not only so that their friends in the oil and gas companies can exploit it, but for the much more near term goal of supporting their friends in the defense industry and massive pork barrel spending around numerous sites that will be making the vastly overpriced components for this thing. But maybe they'll mandate sticking some solar cell to it too; that should work wonders on Titan!
Materials freeze only because you chose the wrong ones. What they really mean is that they're too lazy to build the sub in a cold-room using Titan-temperature lubricants and electronics. They prefer to build a sub at room temperature using everyday tech and heat it on Titan.
All these worlds
are yours except
Europa
attempt no
landing there
Yes but physically, how would that happen? You'd need such an immense set of resources, in materials and energy, to get back so much less. I know that geeks think space is just like on TV, but it isn't.
If energy and resources were cheap enough to do it, *why* would you do it? If energy and resources are too expensive to do it, *why* would you do it?
Sorry, but this kind of space fetishism needs to stop. Or at least put a smiley so I know you're joking, because I can never tell with you guys.
Doesn't Titan have a solid crust of ice like 1 or a few kilometers thick? A submersible rover is a super cool idea, but first you have to get it to the ocean. I'm confident they can figure out how to get something to Titan, but getting it through the ice to the ocean is something else entirely. A drill seems expensive from a weight and fuel standpoint, and an explosive would have to be nuclear in size to crack it and cause all sorts of problems.
Or am I confused; are the oceans exposed?
On Titan the view of Saturn is edge-on to the rings as Titan is in the ring plane. So the rings of Saturn would not be visible in the sky.
Seeing the artists get this wrong in the 2009 Star Trek movie is a bit forgiving, as they need to impress their audience. But on Gizmag?!? I would have expected better.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
because I want to see the little fishies.
mfwright@batnet.com
I'm sure the name tickles those who obsessively play Kerbal Space Program... not that I do... or know people who do... (hides his drawings of SSTO designs).
Cool concept. Let's hope it comes to fruition.
Give me a ping, Vasili...
"The exact blend of hydrocarbons in the lakes is unknown. " - Real question is can you set it on fire?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Get Al Gore to fund exploration. Then he can pay the "hydrocarbon tax" for the whole place.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
But there wouldn't be anyone to waterboard.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
We could use that technology to explore the Earth's oceans and exploit, if needed, methane hydrates.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Two words: Space elevator.
Three words: Space elevator straw.
Build a space elevator around Titan where the core is a hollow. Suck the methane out. I drink your milkshake! Use it to power space missions around the solar system. We'd also need a source of water, but presumably that's more abundant and can be sourced from asteroids--the very ones we'd be mining with our fleet of methane-powered autonomous asteroid mining robots.
I'll leave it up to the brainiacs to figure out all the problems with capillary pressure, weight of the fluid, vaporization, etc, etc. I'm just the idea man.
"Sky Of Orange".
And sea of polyethyline.
"Sea of polyethyline".
In our Titan
"In our Titan".
Submarine
"Submarine"
How should a 1kW thermal exhaust get the water boiling around a submarine in an 'infinite' big water reservoir is beyond me.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Of course not! On Titan you would liquid-methane-board the native terrorists!
Is that on the list somewhere? Because I think dealing with people and the base hostile environment of space needs to be solved before we think about putting people in a sub pointed at another ocean.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
If by any chance there are 'living creatures' of some type,
they will be remembering this as the "Great Death" (or something equivalent.)
A 1000w heater (the sub) in a big ocean of methane better have a Lot of surface area, if they want to avoid boiling it. :)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
The pdf says: "Measurement of the trace organic components of the sea, which perhaps may exhibit prebiotic chemical evolution, will be an important objective, and a benthic sampler would acquire and analyze sediment from the seabed." Why would the seas on Titan only exhibit prebiotic chemical evolution? Titan is about the same age as Earth, surely? Would love to know more about the possibilities of evolution of life in such an alien environment.
Super conductors need cold.
"...the waste heat from the generator would cause the liquids around it to boil..."
Because there is nothing like studying marine life by boiling it... My only question is will they equip the submersible with a garlic butter sauce or not, because without it, I don't see it being a worthwhile endeavor.