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Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way
- BoryAlis 3y ago[flagged]
- beowulfey 3y agoNot a lot of information about this one. Does the Coast Guard have a submersible of their own that they could use to recover, even if they were able to find them?
- rob74 3y agoNot the Coast Guard, but maybe the Navy? Provided they can (a) find it and (b) dock with it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_rescue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_rescue)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nradov 3y agoThe US Navy SRDRS is incapable of reaching that depth. There was no point in designing it to go any deeper than the crush depth of manned military submarines. https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2169630/submarine-rescue-diving-and-recompression-system-srdrs/ https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/... The most they could do is send an ROV to search for the lost submarine on the bottom, and perhaps attach a lift bag or recovery cable.
- xwdv 3y agoI’m afraid not, but other companies could be contracted. Regardless, for a sub like this to just go missing, likely means something catastrophic happened. At those pressures, the individuals likely died instantly and felt no pain.
- daveslash 3y agoYeah, the article is light on details. We don't know if they sank or if they're adrift on the surface somewhere after some failure. If they experienced an emergency underwater and were not able to surface, I'd fear for the absolute worst. People can survive in sunken submarines long enough to be rescued, but those are typically large submarines with multiple rooms that they can seal themselves off in. I doubt a tourist submarine, or really any submarine going to this depth, has multiple compartments. Many military submarines have a test depth of around ~1,500ft or less & a crush depth of around ~2,500ft or less. Titanic sits at 12,500ft. It takes specialized subs to get to this depth, and they're typically very small, one cramped compartment, vessels. Even if they sank but did not suffer a leak, it's unlikely there would an air supply long enough to support a rescue. If they sank, a rescue seems very unlikely. Nonetheless, I hope for the best.
- lode 3y ago> I doubt a tourist submarine, or really any submarine going to this depth, has multiple compartments Indeed, from their website: https://web.archive.org/web/20230613051805/https://oceangateexpeditions.com/tour/titanic-expedition/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230613051805/https://oceangate... "Is there a bathroom on the sub? There is a small toilet located in Titan’s front dome – it doubles as the best seat in the house. When the toilet is in use, we install a privacy curtain between the dome and the main compartment and turn the music up loud."
- lb1lf 3y agoIf the sub was designed like a few other deep-sea craft I've looked at, they'd have positive buoyancy and weights to overcome this; the idea being that having to blow ballast tanks at 400 bar pressure differential is rather inconvenient and failure prone. Instead, the weights (attached with electromagnets) are simply jettisoned when it is time to recover to the surface and off you go. The upside to such a simple system, of course, is that it is exceedingly reliable and fail safe. Provided you do not suffer a hull implosion, of course.
- rsaxvc 3y agoYes, that sounds a lot better. From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/19/heres-what-we-know-about-oceangates-sub-that-tours-titanic-using-1-button/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/19/he... "Pogue also shows the vessel uses construction pipes as ballast." I'm having trouble finding the interview video, but dropping ballast involves the crew and passengers rocking the vessel to drop the pipes off the side.
- cheekibreeki2 3y agoUnfortunately from everything I know about submarine disasters there is very little hope of anyone surviving. Failures are often catastrophic and even without that the time to deploy recovery vessels measures in days. Rip.
- mikeyouse 3y agoA CBS article identified this company’s sub as the one involved; https://twitter.com/OceanGateExped https://twitter.com/OceanGateExped
- OJFord 3y agoSo does the submitted article.
- mtmail 3y agoThe sentence with company name was added later, I still have the browser tab open when it was submitted to HN. It used to say "Multi day trips to the wreck cost tens of thousands of dollars and one dive to Titanic." Now it mentions the company and more accurate pricing.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoMakes me wish for an extension that would temporarily - for a few days or weeks - cache everything you see under a given URL[0], and 1) tell you if the content changed since your last visit, 2) allow you to browse history of versions, and, importantly, 3) diff entries in that history. Plenty of times I had a vague hunch the page said something slightly or perhaps entirely different just minutes or hours earlier, but have no easy way of checking it. Even if I have it opened in another tab, most likely the browser already decided to unload the content and reloads the page when I try to view it. Bonus points if it could sync across devices - e.g. between phone and desktop using Firefox sync. Even recently, I had a situation where I was convinced someone edited their HN comment to say something 180° opposite to what it said earlier, in the 30 minutes between me reading it on a phone, and then reading it on a desktop later. Of course, the phone tab unloaded itself long ago, so I have no way of checking if it indeed happened, or was it just my brain misreading it the first time... -- [0] - +/- ignoring or employing some workarounds for SPAs that don't update URLs when the page content changes, or don't even use URLs to locate content in the first place.
- aborochoff 3y agoFascinating theyre relying on starlink for operations. I heard starlink was fairly unreliable from folks who have it in remote areas.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mongol 3y agoI had no idea that "tourists" visited Titanic. Is this the new thing after Everest became crowded?
- driscoll42 3y agoCosts about $250k per person - https://oceangateexpeditions.com/tour/titanic-expedition/ https://oceangateexpeditions.com/tour/titanic-expedition/ (Site looks to be down at the moment, probably overloaded due to people searching after this news). I don't think it's particularly crowded, but certainly could become one day in theory. Cached Link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bwPF964o1GkJ:https://oceangateexpeditions.com/tour/titanic-expedition/&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bwPF96...
- ChuckNorris89 3y agoThe article mentions $250k/person
- _trampeltier 3y agoTwo way ticket ..
- ChuckNorris89 3y agoIs there the option of a one way ticket? Do they drop you off in the wreck of the Titanic and leave you there?
- dec0dedab0de 3y ago[flagged]
- pc86 3y agoNot sure it's exactly a comforting thought but at this depth they wouldn't have drowned.
- mcpackieh 3y agoTBH at this stage we just don't know. They might not have imploded but instead been left stranded on the bottom with an intact pressure hull but some other sort of equipment failure. Still a hopeless situation unfortunately.
- GolfPopper 3y agoBest case outcome at this point seems like it would be that they're on the surface, off target, with a complete communications failure. I hope that or something similar is the case, but the odds seem low.
- physicist1337 3y agoAt least James Cameron can potentially make a sequel.
- wnkrshm 3y agoEven then it's horrible, since the thing is sealed from the outside (as basically all crewed DSVs are)
- RezDez 3y ago[flagged]
- WheatMillington 3y agoYou can guarantee this?
- prova_modena 3y agoCan you elaborate on what the signs were? Is there sufficient interior volume remaining in the wreck for a sub to actually maneuver inside?
- YChacker100 3y ago[dead]
- scarnz 3y agoThis appears to be the vessel in question: https://oceangate.com/our-subs/titan-submersible.html https://oceangate.com/our-subs/titan-submersible.html Pressure hull made from titanium and carbon fiber, capable of diving to 4000m (13,000 ft). I recall that one reason SpaceX switched from carbon fiber to stainless steel pressure vessels (fuel tanks) was the difficulty of detecting structural flaws. Can any engineers comment on whether that task is easier for a vessel exposed to compression (under sea) as opposed to vacuum (space)? How likely is a catastropic failure due to undetected flaws in carbon or composite (carbon + Ti) structures like these?
- bubblehead8780 3y agoThe failure of the carbon fiber is a repeated theory of what could have happened to OceanGate Titan. Is there any information on the difference expansion and contraction of titanium versus carbon fiber. The seal between the end-caps and the carbon fiber hull would have to be very flexible and would be susceptible to failure. Any thoughts on the seals being the failure? I'm a US submarine veteran.
- engineer_22 3y agoThe structural problems for space vessels vs submersibles I might believe to be quite different. In space the main issue is containing internal pressure - so the skin is all in tension. While a submersible the pressure is from without - so the skin is all in compression.
- the__alchemist 3y agoAlso of note, the pressure differences are much higher in submersibles.
- vrosas 3y agoProfessor: Good Lord! That's over 150 atmospheres of pressure! Fry: How many atmospheres can the ship withstand? Professor: Well, it’s a spaceship, so I’d say anywhere between zero and one…
- omginternets 3y ago“The Boston Coast Guard […]” As in the American city of Boston? If so, why are they the first responders here?
- lode 3y agothe wreckage of the Titanic is in their area of responsibility: https://sarcontacts.info/contacts/rcc-boston-1st-district-5766/ https://sarcontacts.info/contacts/rcc-boston-1st-district-57...
- comrh 3y agoI was curious too. > Contacted by CBS News, the Canadian Coast Guard said the rescue operation was being managed by the Boston Regional Coordination Center, and a map showing jurisdictions for the various coastal search and rescue agencies off the North American coast shows the location of the Titanic wreck within the Boston center's area of responsibility. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submarine-missing-rescue-mission-underway-newfoundland-canada/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submarine-missing-rescu... https://sarcontacts.info/contacts/rcc-boston-1st-district-5766/ https://sarcontacts.info/contacts/rcc-boston-1st-district-57...
- breck 3y agoI always assumed the Titanic went down further north. Didn't know there were icebergs that far south. Edit: they float there https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.2238 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.2...
- ocdtrekkie 3y agoThe Titanic didn't know there were icebergs that far south either.
- kibwen 3y agoThe search and rescue jurisdiction map is fascinating, although some of those areas are so huge that I wonder how much it really means in practice. If you're lost off the coast of Ecuador, are you really supposed to call the San Francisco Coast Guard?
- rodface 3y agoIt's worth contrasting the design of this vehicle with what is ostensibly the world standard for deep-sea research submersibles, Alvin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. https://www.whoi.edu/what-we-do/explore/underwater-vehicles/hov-alvin/ https://www.whoi.edu/what-we-do/explore/underwater-vehicles/...
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoThere’s a strange sense of scale on that thing. You wouldn’t immediately look at it and say that two people can fit inside for 30 days. EDIT: 30 days between maintenance. I’m a dirty skimmer.
- riversflow 3y agoWhat? > Alvin enables in-situ data collection and observation by two scientists to depths reaching 6,500 meters, during dives lasting up to ten hours. Maybe you misskimmed: > Alvin is a proven and reliable platform capable of diving for up to 30 days in a row before requiring a single scheduled maintenance day
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoI did skim! :) Don’t do that.
- meepmorp 3y agoI think it's 30 days of diving, not 30 continuous days submerged. You can use it a whole month before you need to take a maintenance day. There's a 3d panorama view of the interior of the sphere linked from the article - I doubt anyone's spending more than a day in there at a go, let alone with someone else. Edit: apparently, it's 3 people - the pilot and 2 scientists.
- rgovostes 3y agoAs a US Navy-owned submersible, Alvin also undergoes extensive safety evaluation under the Naval Sea Systems Command SUBSAFE program: https://ndsf.whoi.edu/its-official/ https://ndsf.whoi.edu/its-official/ Other manned submersibles undergo classification from groups such as DNV: https://www.dnv.com/services/manned-submersibles-1102 https://www.dnv.com/services/manned-submersibles-1102 Yet OceanGate seems to have avoided this kind of safety classification: https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-titan-is-not-classed.html https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-tita...
- ralphhughes 3y agoSkimming the website, I assume this submersible is using electromagnetically attached drop-weights so that if anything goes wrong and power is lost, the weights drop off and the submersible floats up to the surface again? And 96 hours of life support sounds good, but unless there is another submersible nearby that can dive down, find them AND attach a line, the number of hours of life support will be irrelevant. Of course if the pressure hull has failed catastrophically it will have been over mercifully quickly. Anyone know if deep-diving submersibles are required to carry black-boxes like aircraft?
- gexla 3y agoSome articles I found suggest that a trip was 8 hours to get there and back. Another mentioned being in the sub for 12 hours. I'm guessing it's a 4 hour trip each way and then they spend a number of hours checking the wreckage. The wreckage site is around 370 miles from Newfoundland, Canada. Seems like the rescue effort could be unfolding over days.
- imglorp 3y agoA location pinger would be a no brainer but like you say, it only helps if there's another sub with a grapple in range, in time. I understand why oceanographers /might/ want to do this, but not in person when ROV tech is so good now, for biology and tourism. There are so many things that can happen to fragile humans in that complex machine: drowning, freezing, asphyxiating, crushing, oxygen narcosis, nitrogen narcosis, co2 poisoning, and the plain old bends. So why do people risk all that, and pay 125k to do it? Why the titanic obsession? It's only the fourth worst maritime disaster (Doña Paz in 1987 had 4k deaths) and so what if someone made a movie about one.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoPeople do all sorts of risky things. We're human.
- swader999 3y agoTrust in experts.
- bell-cot 3y agoNot an expert...but my impression is that the implosion, at depth, of even the very small submarine in question here would generate an extremely loud "noise". Probably obvious to any hydrophone on the support vessel, and near-certainly recorded in detail by military monitoring systems.
- rodgerd 3y agoI would rather die in an implosion that running out of air at 3,000 metres over the course of several days.
- sokoloff 3y agoYou will never “run out of air” at 3000 meters. That’s under 10K feet. Even pilots only have to wear oxygen for sustained flight about 12.5K feet (and that’s for cognition, not survival).
- jugg1es 3y agoThey just had a story on this on CBS Sunday Morning. A reporter actually went down in the sub but it got called off mid-dive. He had to go back later. It didn't seem safe.
- elliekelly 3y agoI believe he also mentioned they were “lost” for a few hours when they lost communication so perhaps all hope is not lost for the people currently on board.
- kingTug 3y agoTalk about a live demo going poorly, sheesh.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rajnathani 3y agoFor those mentioning about detailed location tracking / communication: Non-low-bandwidth communication underwater is really difficult due to the physics of EM waves traveling through a medium such as water: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_acoustic_communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_acoustic_communic...
- system2 3y agoWhy not sonar then?
- waste_monk 3y agoIf you mean "why aren't they using sonar to locate the missing vessel", I'm sure they're trying. One of the articles about this event I saw mentioned a P-8 Poseidon being deployed to assist the search. I would be extremely surprised if at least a few sonobouys hadn't been deployed. If you're asking why they don't have a acoustic phone for underwater communications, I couldn't tell you. As I understand the Janus digital underwater communications standard (which as I understand is an open standard and is also standardised as NATO STANAG 4748, so search vessels should be able to understand it) range is about 28km [1], not sure about purely analogue implementations, but some solution should be easily achievable for any entity capable of building the submarine in the first place. Maybe they simply elected not to install one? or maybe the sub is drifting and the search area is too large to reliably establish communications. They seem to have a "move fast and break things" approach and declined to get their vessel "classed" [2] as they claim to be too innovative to follow industry standards for such things... does not bode well for the missing vessel. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_acoustic_communication#JANUS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_acoustic_communicat... [2] https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-titan-is-not-classed.html https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-tita...
- system2 3y agoMakes more sense. I believe they were skimping on the necessary safety measurements.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 3y agoHydrophones will pick up a crush event. When the Scorpion went missing, they eventually found spikes in the recordings and were able to triangulate.
- Svetlitski 3y agoI cannot help but think of the novel “A Fall of Moondust” by Arthur C. Clarke.
- ciguy 3y agoThis section from their website is interesting: "Real-Time Health Monitoring The most significant innovation is the proprietary real-time hull health monitoring (RTM) system. Titan is the only manned submersible to employ an integrated real-time health monitoring system. Utilizing co-located acoustic sensors and strain gauges throughout the pressure boundary, the RTM system makes it possible to analyze the effects of changing pressure on the vessel as the submersible dives deeper, and accurately assess the integrity of the structure. This onboard health analysis monitoring system provides early warning detection for the pilot with enough time to arrest the descent and safely return to surface." I am surprised that real time monitoring of the hull is even a consideration, I would have expected it to be designed an built with massive safety margins and then inspected very thoroughly after each trip. The above paragraph seems to indicate that they would monitor hull health during the trip and stop descent if it showed signs of stress. But I am skeptical that they would see signs of stress before it simply imploded at depth.
- beowulfey 3y ago> "No other submersible currently utilizes real-time monitoring to monitor hull health during a dive. We want to know why. Classed subs are only required to undergo depth validation every three years, whereas our RTM system validates the integrity of the hull on each and every dive." [1] I suspect your intuition may be why RTM is not really used. Failures happen too quickly for them to give useful preventative data, perhaps? [1] https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-titan-is-not-classed.html https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-tita...
- aaron74 3y agoAviation cross-country flight training maxim: 'If you don't know where you are, you're lost." Manned Underwater Submersible maxim: "If you must constantly check your hull integrity, your hull isn't safe."
- spadros 3y agoMy thoughts exactly. They should be doing a deep inspection of the hull before and after every dive. RTM sounds good until you have a failure at 10000 ft down and die instantly. “We detected a failu -“ and then you go boom.
- MiguelX413 3y agoWhy do they keep emphasizing the fact that the submarine has gone missing and not the people within it?
- MallocVoidstar 3y agoAs far as I can tell I think the company involved hasn't released a passenger list. edit: An earlier version of the BBC's article said it wasn't known if people were on it at all; clearly there were, but I'd bet this is why the headline is so unclear.
- MiguelX413 3y agoI see. Regardless it sounds like it was unmanned because of the deëmphasis on the missing passengers. It's like saying “missing car” when people that were in a car go missing.
- Yeroc 3y agoSky News <https://news.sky.com/story/uk-billionaire-hamish-harding-on-board-missing-titanic-submersible-family-confirms-12905616 https://news.sky.com/story/uk-billionaire-hamish-harding-on-...> identifies several of the passengers including: - Hamish Harding - Paul-Henry Nargeolet - Stockton Rush (the President and CEO of OceanGate itself)
- joemi 3y agoIsn't it described the same way when a airplane goes missing?
- johnnyApplePRNG 3y agoWas it only crew on the submersible or were there paying guests as well?
- seabass-labrax 3y agoThere is at least one paying guest, and at least two OceanGate staff members according to https://news.sky.com/story/what-we-know-about-the-passengers-on-board-missing-titanic-submersible-12905596 https://news.sky.com/story/what-we-know-about-the-passengers.... (I've used the present tense out of optimism for a successful rescue)
- lsllc 3y agoAccording to the BBC, a British Billionaire/Adventurer named Hamish Harding was a paying guest on board: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65955554 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65955554
- carbine 3y agoI'm hesitant to speculate but just sharing -- an earlier version of this submersible was scrapped: "OceanGate will take advantage of lessons learned during the construction of its carbon-hulled Titan submersible, which was originally built for Titanic journeys. Rush said tests that were conducted at the Deep Ocean Test Facility in Annapolis, Md., revealed that the Titan’s hull “showed signs of cyclic fatigue.” As a result, the hull’s depth rating was reduced to 3,000 meters. “Not enough to get to the Titanic,” Rush said." Source: https://www.geekwire.com/2020/oceangate-raises-18m-build-bigger-submersible-fleet-get-set-titanic-trips/ https://www.geekwire.com/2020/oceangate-raises-18m-build-big...
- 6d6b73 3y agoThe Seastate podcast has a great episode with the founder of Ocean Gate. Worth every minute. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4GivNvcl1L7n9BFnNfVEju https://open.spotify.com/episode/4GivNvcl1L7n9BFnNfVEju
- dangle1 3y agoFew more details from The Seattle Times: >David Concannon, an adviser to the company, said Oceangate lost contact with the sub Sunday morning. It had a 96-hour oxygen supply, he said in an email to The Associated Press on Monday afternoon. “Now 32 hours since sub left surface,” said Concannon, who said he was supposed to be on the dive but could not go due to another client matter. He said officials are working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 6,000 meters (about 20,000 feet) to the site as soon as possible. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/a-search-is-underway-for-missing-submersible-that-takes-people-to-see-titanic/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/a-search-is...
- jacooper 3y agoHe got lucky
- spoonfeeder006 3y agoJust like this persian who was given a lot of money to go on the Titanic's maiden voyage, but gave the money to charity instead. He came to the USA in 1912 and spoke out against the racism here https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abdul-baha_b_1419099 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abdul-baha_b_1419099 > Throughout his U.S. visit he swept aside the social protocol of segregation by insisting that everywhere he spoke be open to people of all races. Not the biggest crowd pleaser at the time. At the Great Northern Hotel on 57th Street (now the Parker Meridien), the manager vehemently refused to allow any blacks on the property. > "If the people see that one colored person has entered my hotel, no respectable person will ever set foot in it," he said. So Abdu'l-Baha instead organized a multi-racial feast at the home of one of his followers, with many whites serving blacks -- a subversive, even dangerous notion at the time.
- profsummergig 3y agoThe Baha'i religion is pure free thought. Truly admirable. Pity it didn't catch on (and probably never will).
- dahwolf 3y ago"Rear Adm Mauger said the rescue teams were "taking this personally" and were doing everything they could to bring those on board "home safe". What does that even mean? Is this opposed to your normal non-personal/strictly professional mode where you would not do everything you could?
- helaoban 3y agoThere's no need to analyse things so deeply. It's just human expression.
- dahwolf 3y agoThere not being a need doesn't stop me, this too is human expression.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoYou think corporations known for professional behavior do everything they can to save people from harm’s way?
- avidphantasm 3y ago[flagged]
- meghan_rain 3y agoIt's intriguing to see what kind of personality a billionaire has that pushes him to do these stunts and also publicly brag about them. I hope it's not a necessary ingredient to success as I do not intend to live like that. That being said, > He added that because the passengers were sealed inside the vessel by bolts applied from the outside, "There's no way to escape, even if you rise to the surface by yourself. You cannot get out of the sub without a crew on the outside letting you out." ouch
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- totallywrong 3y agoI get the flex this affords, but I can't think of anything less appealing than spending 8 days underwater in a tiny capsule. I hope they're found and nothing happened.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- moneywoes 3y agoI thought the trip was 8 hours
- brenainn 3y agoI was confused by the article as well. I believe it's eight days in total including the trip on the ship to get there and back. And then the actual dive is around 8 hours.
- spadros 3y agoSo much skimming here eh. The whole trip can take 8 days, from launching on a ship to take you out to sea. The actual dive itself is supposed to be 12 hrs from “bolts on” pre dive to “bolts off” getting out of the sub. 8 hrs underwater, not 8 days.
- Avlin67 3y agolet me be naive : carbon fiber composite is about tensile stength, not compression strength ? what happens in the ocean ? compression...
- johnwalkr 3y agoIndividual fibres, yes. But the composite material is fibres and resin. Plus the vessel is surely pressurized.
- rsaxvc 3y agoProbably not pressurized much in the scale of things. Humans are incompatible with nearly every gas at 13000feet/400 atm and beyond. Nobody has done it. Cabin pressurization might get you to ~50atm, but that's around the extreme limit, so regardless of cabin pressurization the hull has to handle most of it. Here's hoping it has and they can be found quickly.
- jacquesm 3y agoWith a pressure differential of 399 atmospheres I don't think that the vessel being pressurized is going to be much of a factor. It might as well be vacuum.
- durundal 3y agoThe fibers are strong in both tension and compression (not equally so, see figure 1: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~mohite/axial_compressive.pdf http://home.iitk.ac.in/~mohite/axial_compressive.pdf), but in compression their aspect ratio is very very very large so they buckle instantly… unless you glue them together so each strand is supporting the ones near it and the effective aspect ratio is much less. Aside from fiber wound pressure bottles just about any real world composite structure will experience bending forces which will put the top in compression and the bottom in tension. The designer might need to reinforce the compressive side more, depending on the application (e.g. if designing for stiffness the strength might end up with considerable margin for both tension and compression).
- Mizoguchi 3y agoHow come there's no way to communicate once under water? Wouldn't be possible to launch a tiny probe attached to the exterior of the sub, either manually or automatically when in trouble, sort of a black box, that bounces back to the surface to broadcast crew messages, sub data and location? Seems like an obvious safety device to have. Are there any technical reasons why this is not available on a vehicle with suck poor performance?
- system2 3y agoI started to think this company pulled some shady stuff similar to Malesia Airlines causing MH370 flight accident.
- spadros 3y agoProbably the communication devices were blown off by the shockwave in the case of an implosion. It’s absolutely possible to have communications with the surface at this level; Trieste from the bottom of Mariana Trench was able to communicate back up to surface. That was 3x deeper and the early 60s.
- iambateman 3y agoI don’t want to make light of the situation in the least. But the company responsible is literally named OceanGate. Some headlines write themselves.
- BoryAlis 3y ago[flagged]
- WalterBright 3y agoI'm surprised the craft doesn't have a pinger, like airplane black boxes do (and those can survive on the ocean floor, too). 96 hours of oxygen won't help if it takes 200 hours just to find where they are.
- johnwalkr 3y agoThey can survive on the ocean floor but definitely not ping from there.
- spadros 3y agoThe Trieste dive to the bottom of Mariana Trench were able to use voice communications from the sea floor. Should be possible from Titanics depths then, seeing as Mariana’s is 3x deeper. Assuming the sub hasn’t already imploded, that is.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pbj1968 3y ago[flagged]
- redroyal 3y agoMaybe it’s time we stopped treating that grave site like a tourist attraction. There is some sour irony here but I hope they are recovered safely
- Animats 3y agoTwitter video of vessel.[1] Not encouraging. [1] https://twitter.com/FnpMarieOH/status/1670931677013524487 https://twitter.com/FnpMarieOH/status/1670931677013524487
- AdamN 3y agoAgile submersible development wcgw :-(
- tim333 3y agoYeah they seem quite casual on safety here https://youtu.be/jyt7H2tF76w?t=206 https://youtu.be/jyt7H2tF76w?t=206 (Pogue on tv)
- iancmceachern 3y agoExactly. Judging from that video their approach to designing and building that thing seeks very amateurish, nonchalant, and lacking an eye for redundancy and safety.
- wnc3141 3y agoAfter hearing about the experimental nature of the firm (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29co_Hksk6o&t=203s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29co_Hksk6o&t=203s), does anyone have any perspective on the firm's ethics or responsibilities for unknown dangers? How does this compare to say astronauts or experimental aircraft pilots?
- spadros 3y agoSeems like they’re going to get sued if the passengers and crew aren’t saved. Possibly even if they are saved. Maybe the contract they get people to sign is tight enough, but everything I’ve read so far seems like they were a bit reckless. They don’t have to inspect their hull for issues every dive; they have real time monitoring of the health at all times! We just pop them back up when we discover an issue… But what if that issue is detected at a depth at which nothing can be done? At a depth where death is imminent no matter what? The thing is held together with RV lights and a crappy Logitech controller from Amazon. What else have they elected to skimp on? The “why Titan isn’t classed” page is hilarious too. They mention of the 25 pre checks they have, the majority are for surface operations, not underwater operations. Does not give one confidence and reads like a joke after this debacle.
- jacquesm 3y agoBy the time their monitor tells them they 'have an issue' the only use that will have is forensics, I doubt anybody will be saved.
- saturn5k 3y agoI don't understand after all these years why there's still this obsession with the Titanic. What keeps fueling its enduring fascination? People spending 1/4 million just to barely see a sunken ship? Bragging rights for the rich?
- Borrible 3y agoBooking a seat on a floating wreck between Tunisia and Greek would have been much more adventurous. And cheaper.
- stan_kirdey 3y agoi hope they are fine just a bit lost, at the same time the irony if the next ship will be giving offering two wreckages for one tours
- shultays 3y agoI feel bad for thinking of this but now there are two wrecks to visit. Even more reasons for tourism!
- jacquesm 3y agoI can see some potential for exponential effects.
- rurban 3y agoSince no parts arrived at the surface yet, they'd need to bring over Jason. Jason already recovered two lost ROV's at 2200m in 2021. https://www.hydro-international.com/content/news/rov-jason-helps-recover-two-other-underwater-vehicles https://www.hydro-international.com/content/news/rov-jason-h...
- dirtyid 3y agoFor 250k, I hope they were provided a cyanide pill.