I worked for NASA at JPL for over 35 years. the most exciting projects were those that require a high degree of autonomy. Mars rovers were a special challenge because of the long round trip light time between Earth and Mars. If you had to rely on ground based control alone the vehicle would never be able to travel more than a few kilometers because every step would require a Q&A exchange between the vehicle and the controllers. A Titan submarine is this problem in spades. Not only is the round trip communications time an order of magnitude greater the sub is likely to be out of communications for extended periods of time because much of its mission will be submerged. This requires a very high level of on-board intelligence. A remarkable challenge but the folks designing these things are definitely up to the task.

Hydrocarbon as fuel would only work if it can be oxidized. I doubt there is any oxygen present, but perhaps oxygen should be the simple "fuel" to take as cargo.

The thing is, there are probably a lot of us that have now retired, that would be willing to take a one way journey to explore our solar system, or make it as far as our age and the amount of supplies they could pack around us would last. I know I would.

A great idea from the pure science point of view, but I don't want government funding any more space activities unless they are defense related, as the moon shots really were.

I wish I had billions of dollars that are cunningly looted from millions of innocent victims to spend on what extravagant "greater good" whim I could come up with.
Actually I don't, never have and never will.

What a wonder that will be. Can life exist in a methane atmosphere? It's stuff like this that makes me want to live forever. By the way, what's that white thing on the ship's tower? It looks like a duck.

Nice article. Thanks!

Solar won't work that far out either. The obvious solution is a nuke plant.

What a fantastic idea!

The image is so cool. It instantly reminds me of Ben Bova's Jupiter. The protagonist is a young man, new to space, who goes in a submarine-like vehicle into Jupiter's atmosphere down past where it takes on the properties of a dense high-pressure liquid. He's not only an outsider among the crew working near Jupiter, but he's a Christian, and in this time some people lump all religious people, even total moderates, in with extremists.