Space travel doesn't usually conjure up images of a submarine, but that just might be NASA's newest idea for further exploration of Saturn's largest moon, according to The Space Reporter.
NASA unveiled a design for a submarine at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts Symposium in Cocoa Beach, Fla. The submarine will be used to explore Titan's oceans, particularly Kraken Mare, a 154,000-square-mile ocean with tides like Earthly oceans.
There are a few issues to be dealt with first: one, the distance (Titan is about 1.2 billion kilometers from Earth); two, the weight (the submarine weighs 2,200 pounds).
Once safely upon Titan, the submarine would brave -290 degrees Fahrenheit ocean waters powered by a 1kW radiothermal Stirling generator. The sub will travel at about 2.2. mph, according to The Space Reporter.
Transmission between NASA and Titan would take two hours, so the submarine would need to function autonomously. Sixteen hours of the day, the submarine would be on the surface transmitting data to NASA and collecting data with a mast camera.
The mission is expected to last 90 days.
