So apparently a tourist submarine which was used to ferry rich people to see the wreck of the Titanic had a major oops, and got lost somewhere in the deep seas.
Time has already run out for the unfortunate occupants despite a major search and rescue effort.
According to the media here, the owner of the submersible said âsafety is a waste of spaceâ (or words to that effect).
I donât know about the rest of you, but if Iâm going 12,500 feet under the ocean, Iâd be wanting some serious safety gear and system redundancy.
I got shot down when comparing this to Apollo 13.
On Apollo 13 they had redundancy as well as a well-trained crew up in the capsule and down on the ground, and they were constantly in contact with each other.
Space is just as unforgiving as the deep blue.
The possibility that it may be an insurance scam is present.
Thereâs some stories that a few of their expeditions were âsuccessfulâ and I keep comparing it to the people that climb Mt. Everest: Itâs a ton of time and money that may or may not go anywhere as conditions are not right.
That said, the submersible sounds pretty risky. Itâs been described as âminivan sizedâ but thatâs generous as apparently only one of the 5 people on board can stretch their legs out at a time. (Realistically, if theyâre alive they may be laying on top of each other at this point.) The control mechanisms are game controllers, which is fine (apparently a lot of military stuff uses X-Box controllers now⊠But not crewed vehicles as far as Iâve heard) but they use a wireless controller (so batteries) and apparently a 2nd tier one (because on the trip thatâs a quarter million dollars they went for the $30 2nd tier controller as opposed to the $150 X-Box Premium controller). Itâs in the sea, which means itâs basically being eaten by salt a little every day.
And then the craft is set up so people are bolted in. If they surfaced off-course, they canât get out and could literally asphyxiate in sight of the surface.
Apparently it has several fail-safes, mainly to make surfacing easier, and is pressurize so rate of surfacing isnât an issue. These supposedly include weights on hooks that dissolve after a set time ins after which has presumably passed.
I would not recommend this experience.
Speculation at this point is rife, as the oxygen levels in the sub have been depleted long ago, and life is not possible anymore.
Still, the search and rescue mission is continuing.
The guy who will have to open that sub should they find it, and the team who have to work out what happened⊠those people will not be paid enough for this traumatic experience.
It has been confirmed that the sub had an explosive implosion.
At that depth, any sort of issue with hull integrity would result in an instantaneous implosion. The only consolation for the families is that the 5 people inside wouldnât have even known there was a problem.
Apparently there were several safety warnings from various other people that the captain ignored. James Cameron compared it to the Titanic, and thatâs probably apt.
The timingâs a little wonky on when it happened. The report on NPR said the implosion likely happened on the way down, which was Sunday. So what was the banging noise searchers heard repeating every 30 minutes in the past couple of days?
OceanGate is going to be facing a lot of questions, more than before with the canceled trips, mechanical issues, and the like. Three areas the questions are likely going to intensify in is previous concerns by former employees that the hull wasnât thick enough, whether the design that works well in aircraft with the frame in tension would work well under compression conditions in the ocean, and CEO Stockton Rushâs statements about choosing rules to break when it makes sense and adds value. Rush was onboard the sub when it imploded.
There are a couple of items people noted which are of concern :
I do hope they will do a proper investigation as to the reason for this failure, so that future possible mistakes of this type may be prevented.
Interestingly to note, this has led me down a rabbitâs hole⊠that the US Navy forbids the use of silver braising on piping as this was a major point of failure of the USS Thresher.
It is little things like this that may make or doom a venture.
One of the worldâs largest diesel pistons for about a quarter of a second.
Will they do a forensic investigation?
With all that money on board? You bet your bippy they will.
The only person i feel bad for on this is the Kid that didnât want to go.
Other than that im more concerned about the bout with the 500-750 missing people. I want to know why there hasnt been a huge search effort on this, and if there is why isnt it widely broadcast like the stupid rich fucks. 
Because it happens all the time. Literally thousands of people a year die overloading boats. And most of them are rescued, some arenât. Ferries, old container ships, row boats, shoe fishing boats, canoes, whatever. Millions, if not billions, of dollars and thousands of man hours are spent fishing these people out of the water. And large chunks of them are sent back to wherever they came from. The rest are put into the system and exploited for labor, votes, or trafficking.
The best way to keep them from dying is improving the situation in the country they came from, but if the UN or the US actually started trying to fix actual human rights issues weâd have to look at some awfully powerful countries and ask them WTF. So instead we put countries like Yemen in charge of the UN human rights commission, with China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Congo, helping out.
OceanGate has a tiny message at the top of their website that says they have âsuspended all exploration and commercial operations.â The Shop section of their website is empty, but everything else is still there. However, their Everett, WA office closed indefinitely on June 22, the day the debris was found.
An unfortunate side effect of leaving the website mostly intact is the 2023 expedition to the Titanic is still listed as âCurrently underwayâ.
Technically not wrong? I am sure they didnât recover all of it.
Ultra-deep sea diving done properly.
To be fair⊠It did make 90 dives and made it to the Titanic 12 or 13 times. I would say this was an issue of maintenance more than design. Flaky design may have called for more maintenance but I bet it was too boring to follow through on.
According to this vlog
there are a couple of agencies involved in the investigation :
Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigations from the USA (this is the highest level)
NTSB (USA)
Transportation Safety Board of Canada
Marine Accident Investigations Branch (UK)
and in France the French Marine Casualties Board.
Quite a merry gathering, and one which will be interesting.
Since OceanGate completely shut down, including finally replacing their entire website with just a âweâre closedâ page, co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein has some extra time on his hands. Heâs decided his next business venture is âHumans2Venusâ, which is sending 1000 people by 2050 to colonize Venus. Maybe he doesnât want Elon Musk to get all the glory with colonizing Mars.
This just screams âI have no idea whatâs involved but I want to do it anyway.â Cue the questions of âWhat makes you think this will work when your Titanic tourism didnât?â
So what is involved in this venture? Conditions on Venus are as follows:
Whether itâs colonizing Venus or colonizing Mars, you either have to transport all of the habitat structures with you or you bring machinery with you so you can being mining natural resources to build your habitats and infrastructure. And in this case, you have to transport a lot of water unless youâve got something really good at moisture farming (to use the Star Wars term) the 0.002% water vapor in the atmosphere. Cue the jokes about consulting with Kevin Costner about his experience in conserving water in the movie Waterworld or the crew of the Red Dwarf having to drink Urine Recyc Wine when they run out of Leopard Lager.
But letâs say they get those kinds of logistics worked out. None of our past spaceships have been massive cargo carriers. Theyâre going to need multiple spaceships to do it, maybe a fleet of a dozen or more. It takes an average of 4 months each way to make the trip.
What happens the first time thereâs a catastrophic failure of a spacecraft? People are going to point right back at the implosion of OceanGateâs Titan and demand the whole thing gets shut down. Anyone that is already on Venus will have to be retrieved.
Itâs a nice idea, but not a practical one, especially given that itâs been less than two months since the Titan imploded.