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Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering
- aksss 3y agoThere’s a lot more of this coming with lunar and Martian exploration/exploitation. People that willingly do risky stuff with odds against them.
- deadballcretin 3y agoOn one hand, 'if it ain't broke' etc. On the other, 'wait, what?'. The entire operation manages to somehow feel both incredibly sophisticated (it's not easy to get a sub to that depth) and simultaneously incredibly stupid.
- Our_Benefactors 3y agoThe part most surprising to me was that there is no way to see out of the craft besides the camera system. Why not watch the video on land after the fact? It seems so senseless to endanger yourself as a participant.
- ak_111 3y agoSerious? what about the "window" in the front?
- mustacheemperor 3y agoThere's a porthole in the front of the sub, where the toilet is. Funny enough, I've also seen "it doesn't even have a toilet" repeated around HN in the last couple days. IIRC an earlier design or planned design used cameras only. Edit: Wow, they were actually sued by a whistleblower over the pressure rating for the window on an earlier design! https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-faced-lawsuit-depths-safely-travel-oceangate https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-face...
- Vecr 3y agoYeah, I think I made a mistake when researching if it had a window. It clearly had one when the reporter went down last year.
- Solvency 3y agoThere has to be a name for this kind of phenomenon. I am smart enough to know that I'm too dumb and ill-equipped to make a safe tourism business out of a homebrewed submarine. These people are smarter than me, but too stupid to know that they aren't smart enough to make a safe tourism business out of a homebrewed submarine.
- prova_modena 3y agoDunning-Kruger effect.
- realjhol 3y agoDid you know the Dunning-Kruger effect isn't real? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/202012/dunning-kruger-isnt-real https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/2020...
- empthought 3y agoI’m not really convinced. If everyone is a little overconfident (in the sense that they think they’re above average) then the least competent are indeed the most mistaken about their relative competency. Which is (I think) what most people—at least ones not trying to use it as a debate tactic—understand Dunning-Kruger to be.
- cool_dude85 3y agoCorrection: these people were smarter than you, and they may have at some point recently come to understand that they couldn't make a safe tourism business out of this sub.
- limaoscarjuliet 3y agoConditional Risk https://xkcd.com/795/ https://xkcd.com/795/
- golergka 3y agoElon Musk effect.
- rewmie 3y agoWhat's wrong with using COTS components?
- deadballcretin 3y agoNothing, the issue is who is buying and implementing it.
- rewmie 3y agoExactly what's the issues, then?
- kiicia 3y agobuying wrong COTS components, ones that are not fit for intended purpose
- rewmie 3y ago> buying wrong COTS components, ones that are not fit for intended purpose What could possibly lead you to presume that? Do you feel in a better position to make that call than all the engineers who actually work on that task at a professional level?
- oh_sigh 3y agoAnother domain, but I feel that way when I watch some universally panned TV show/movie. One where a random person can think of simple changes to the script or plot that would make it far more interesting. I find myself wondering...how did these people recruit hundreds of people, and spend millions of dollars to make this, but no one took a second glance at the script to fix some glaring issue.
- srmarm 3y agoThe US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military-xbox-360-controller https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...
- rewmie 3y ago> Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. Also, COTS gear that's designed with a standard interface is by design trivial to replace even through hot swapping, which automatically means resilience against errors.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tredre3 3y agoI personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). You don't get that with a cheap third party. So I can understand to a degree why people are questioning the decision to not pay the extra 20 bucks and get microsoft gear.
- aezart 3y agoThe fact that it's wireless is the scariest part to me. What if it runs out of battery? What if it desyncs?
- tvb12 3y agoStick drift would be really bad.
- someweirdperson 3y agoIt's not a Nintendo controller.
- bloqs 3y agoJoycons arent anything compared to pre 2010 3rd party console controllers in terms of stick drift. I had ones that had button drift too
- mongol 3y agoI agree. Imagine if they die because they forgot to change batteries.
- thesausageking 3y agoThey have multiple of them on board and can swap in a new one if there's an issue. The focus on the controller is misplaced to me. Game controllers are well made and better suited for the job than custom hardware. It's just the association with videogames that makes it seem odd. If they used $30 logitech keyboard as well, would anyone question that?
- bitshiftfaced 3y agoPros of having a wireless controller: freedom of movement (in this case in a very cramped environment) and not having as much of a tangled cord situation. Cons: desynchronization issues, transmitter goes bad, receiver goes bad, interference, batteries run up, someone forgets to pack batteries, someone forgets to check if the backup batteries are still good. WHAT were they thinking??
- silisili 3y agoStupid question, perhaps: was/it possible for this sub to have any kind of beaconing or communication system that works at depth? It seems like one of this first things I'd investigate before deciding to build a sub.
- mikestew 3y agoSummary: water attenuates radio signals, and a 4Km cable is going to be way heavy and subject to currents.
- tguvot 3y agowhat about fiber ? <4kg per km. throw at end powered buoy. maybe inflatable to hold more of it. currents still will be mess, but with lower than copper weight you could have a few km slack
- teraflop 3y agoI think your assumptions are unrealistic. A fiber optic cable weighing 4kg per km with no other reinforcement or protection would be extremely fragile. According to my back-of-the-envelope math, using the density and tensile strength of typical glass, it would have a breaking load capacity of around 10 newtons (roughly 2 pounds of force). Even a steel cable with the same weight would only be about 20 times stronger.
- tguvot 3y ago4kg/km it's not for clean glass fiber. it's fiber drop cable, in whatever plastic sleeving + a couple of steel strands for some added rigidity/structure. there are also versions with kevlar braiding to protect core and improve resilience.
- ZanyProgrammer 3y agoWell they paid the price for that bit of efficient thinking, didn’t they?
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- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoI've had two of those exact gamepads die
- bombcar 3y agoThe listing I saw said "Platforms: WINDOWS ME, WINDOWS 98, WINDOWS 2000" but it didn't say "Platform: Underwater Vehicle".
- J_cst 3y agoMy 11yo son asked me why they did not connect a buoy to the submarine with a string. Lol
- jcrash 3y agoGood question!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- parshimers 3y agodon't they do this with crab pots? i'm not sure how far those go down though.
- BrentOzar 3y ago> don't they do this with crab pots? i'm not sure how far those go down though. Looks like at most, about half a mile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_king_crab_fishing#Equipment_and_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_king_crab_fishing#Equi...
- orangepurple 3y agoDo the math exercise with him for how much volume 2 miles of string takes up
- Flammy 3y agoDo the math for the weight of a string 2 miles long. Then take a look at how much weight a string can hold up. Then you're ready to be taking on space elevators
- someweirdperson 3y ago> Do the math for the weight of a string 2 miles long. There are materials that are a bit more dense and others a bit less dense than water. It should be possible to craft a string with a "weight" of zero, when submerged.
- JDW1023 3y ago> According to the BBC, the entire sub is bolted shut from the outside, so even if the vessel surfaces, the occupants cannot escape without outside assistance and could suffocate within the capsule. Why is the submarine bolted shut from the outside?
- Strom 3y agoI guess for the immense pressure you get at that depth. However an emergency release would still make sense.
- andrewmunsell 3y agoBut, as with airplane doors (but in the opposite direction), if the door was designed to open outwards then you couldn't open it under pressure no matter how hard you pushed
- Strom 3y agoAt those pressures I don't think you would want to open the door even if you could. I was more thinking about being at the surface and having nobody else to unbolt it from the outside.
- andrewmunsell 3y agoOh yes, I am (though I am absolutely not a real engineer nor do I have any experience with subs) just questioning why they would need to bolt it from the outside anyways. If it was to keep occupants in, I would imagine that a door that opens outwards would solve that issue if submerged, and would still be openable on the surface
- isawczuk 3y agoThis is not unusual design. There a lot of military tech that work with commercial-grade electrics. It's easier to buy in bulk cheaper and replace when it brakes.
- eye-robot 3y agoWestWorld: "Where nothing can possibly go worng"....
- RajT88 3y agoAlso WestWorld: Some of these machines were designed by other machines - we have no idea how they work!
- sschueller 3y agoFrom what I read it is also the first carbon fiber deep water vessel. I find that scary as carbon fiber does not start to bend before falure, it fails catastrophically.
- throw9away6 3y agoNot quite you get first ply failure before catastrophic
- vicktour 3y agoI would honestly choose that over sitting on the bottom for 96 hours. Something about sitting there for 4 days with no hope is more terrifying to me.
- kiicia 3y agothey literally drilled holes on the inside to mount computer display
- jrockway 3y agoRealistically, aluminum and steel can fail in a similar manner. There was a lot of FUD when carbon fiber bikes came out that they can fail randomly after a crash that is apparently fine, but basically the aluminum bikes they replaced also failed like that.
- rwmj 3y agoThere's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and made it back, but I can see how things could have gone a lot more wrong.
- soumyadeb 3y ago"BBC iPlayer only works in the UK. Sorry, it’s due to rights issues".
- slacka 3y agoYou can watch it outside of the UK here: https://vimeo.com/838023699 https://vimeo.com/838023699
- plugin-baby 3y agoUS is no longer part of UK.
- soumyadeb 3y agoHa, udpated the comment. My point was, why would this content be gated.
- misiti3780 3y agolol
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoI assume this happened with Brexit.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 3y ago
- taylorbuley 3y agoIf the device into which you are plugging that steering device is a regular old PC, as it seems to be here, then something like a Logitech seems like exactly what one might recommend as the USB peripheral. Redundancy plans become easier, not harder, with consumer-grade hardware that can be swapped out during failure.
- beachy 3y ago> Redundancy plans become easier, not harder, with consumer-grade hardware that can be swapped out during failure. True enough on the surface. Not in a mini sub. They couldn't carry spares of everything.
- cmiles74 3y agoDavid Pogue just referred to these kinds of submersibles as "janky" on NPR. He also wasn't impressed with the controller. "All of these submersibles have been kind of janky," Pogue said. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1183057832/a-search-is-underway-for-titanic-touring-submersible-missing-in-the-atlantic-oce https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1183057832/a-search-is-underw...
- nabla9 3y agoAnd where the spare batteries for the controllers are?
- pengaru 3y agoDo we know anything about how many times this submersible has survived descending to such depths? Surely its been sent down to dwell at these depths autonomously dozens if not hundreds of times, right?
- timbit42 3y agoCBS News correspondent David Pogue said 20 to 25 drives in an interview with CBC earlier today. https://youtu.be/q-6jjy3estY?t=338 https://youtu.be/q-6jjy3estY?t=338
- randyrand 3y agoI'd easily take the bet that this controller was not the problem.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thekevan 3y agoEvery time I have seen people calling this amateur hour, I wonder if they are right or if it is similar to NASA using the same chip that was used in the Sony Playstation in the early 90s as in the New Horizons probe which reach Pluto in 2015. https://www.itpro.com/hardware/368293/why-cutting-edge-spacecraft-use-ancient-computers https://www.itpro.com/hardware/368293/why-cutting-edge-space...
- kiicia 3y agothere is no problem in using off the shelf devices, problem is when you choose one that is not fit for intended purpose
- fredoralive 3y agoRadiation hardened CPUs usually use established ISAs / core designs, but they are specially adapted and hardened for space use. It’s not like they’re using the same physical chip as a PlayStation (especially as the PlayStation CPU is custom silicon with stuff like a geometry unit and motion JPEG decoder on chip, it’s not just a standalone R3000).
- nycdotnet 3y agoWith all the talk about failure modes of carbon fiber, the scariest part of this article is the photo of the display and light held up by screws drilled into the side of the pressure vessel.
- buildbot 3y agoYeah, I had exactly the same thought! If it’s a single hull and not a double hull or something, and that’s the actual inside of the hull we are seeing, how the fuck is that safe? Someone uses too long of a screw and bow you have what, 400 atmospheres of pressure pushing against the presumably sharp point of the screw? Strain monitoring built into the hull only helps you if you can surface in time once you notice a problem, and not at all if it is a catastrophic failure.
- kamranjon 3y agoI heard an anecdote at one point that when a submarine depressurizes that deep, everything inside gets pushed through whatever hole caused the depressurization, like squeezing the contents out of a tube of toothpaste. Might have been from the Byford Dolphin accident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin "Hellevik, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient and in the process of moving to secure the inner door, was forced through the crescent-shaped opening measuring 60 centimetres (24 in) long created by the jammed interior trunk door. With the escaping air and pressure, it included bisection of his thoracoabdominal cavity, which resulted in fragmentation of his body, followed by expulsion of all of the internal organs of his chest and abdomen, except the trachea and a section of small intestine, and of the thoracic spine. These were projected some distance, one section being found 10 metres (30 ft) vertically above the exterior pressure door." I wonder if anyone knows if this universally true? Would the inhabitants of this submarine have experienced a similar fate if one of those bolts failed or a hole in the hull developed?
- HWR_14 3y agoThat was a decompression event with high pressure air flowing out. If a submarine has a rupture that deep, it would go the other way, high pressure water coming in. Most likely, as soon as there was any break the whole thing would collapse in on itself. Picture yourself crushing an empty coke can between the two flat ends. It goes from intact and pretty strong to all of a sudden easy to push and crushed. In the event you could contain it to a simple pinhole and not have it instantly crush, the stream of water would cut anything placed in its path. It would work similar to a lightsaber.
- sabujp 3y agoMy kids play with these controllers a few times a week, the latency is horrible and it's easy to accidentally hit the mode button which causes directional control to shift from the left joystick to the directional pad. The user can also switching between d and x mode and that would also cause the controller to stop working.
- notatoad 3y agoThis sounds bad when phrased like that, but if you change it to say “submarine uses standard USB-HID profile for steering control” then it seems like a reasonable design decision.
- ZiiS 3y agoThe are a lot of people who have spent considerably more on thier chosen USB-HID for flying a virtual spaceship (myself included).
- littlecranky67 3y agoGoing to get me one of these logitech gamepads now to re-play Subnautica for true submarine immersion.
- m3kw9 3y agoThey could have brought a better one but logitech ain’t bad, but not sure about going wireless instead of cable
- barbs 3y agoRight? Imagine being dead in the water because the batteries ran out
- komadori 3y agoI read "No Time on Our Side" by Roger Chapman a few months ago on the recommendation of HN commentor /u/z991 [1]. It recounts the 1973 rescue of a damaged submersible on the ocean floor from the perspective of the crew trapped inside [2]. Mainly their struggle with limited oxygen and rising CO2 levels. A fairly brief but gripping read which I also recommend. Of note, I recall even though the sub in question had a working acoustic phone and beacon, the rescue vessels really struggled to pinpoint its precise location and maintain communications. The ocean is a big place! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34360329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34360329 [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Roger_Mallinson_and_Roger_Chapman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Roger_Mallinson_an...
- iancmceachern 3y agoThanks for posting, this is nuts. They were rescued with 12 minutes of oxygen left
- aktuel 3y agoLogitech is the last thing I would use if reliability counts anything, unless you want it reliably to fail after twelve moths.
- whyage 3y agoLooks like Stockton Rush is about to win a Darwin award
- Karupan 3y agoAccording to the NYTimes, OceanGate refused to undergo any sort of external audit/certification process [0]. I would imagine using an off the shelf, cheap controller would have been one of the first things to be flagged. Makes you wonder how many other critical components did they skimp on [0] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/20/us/titanic-missing-submarine https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/20/us/titanic-missing-s...
- analog31 3y agoThis is what actually amazes me. The reliability of something like an airplane, bus, or train, is held to extremely high engineering standards. There are even safety rules for bicycles. But you're allowed to take people for rides in a submarines with barely any oversight.
- adamckay 3y agoAs the saying goes, "safety regulation is written in blood" and I expect this to be somewhat modified. It's complicated somewhat if the submarine is launched and operated in international waters, however.
- Razengan 3y agoHow else would Cthulhu be kept pacified?
- mcbutterbunz 3y agoLikely due to two things: 1) Many more people fly or bike than ride in submarines. 2) Regulations are written in blood. Too many of these types of accidents and then safety rules will be established and enforced (hopefully).
- afavour 3y agoWhat international safety standards apply to bicycles? Seems to me that if you’re way out in international waters it’s not too surprising that no one is going to step in to stop you doing something this stupid. There’s not much jurisdiction.
- gcanyon 3y agoThe more I read about this, the more it (sadly) reminds me of a bungie jumping accident years ago: the bungie cable contained many separate strands, all ending in loops. The habit of the operators was to hold all the loops together and pass a large carabiner through the bundle, catching a number of the loops. Until one time they caught few enough (none? I remember "none," but that seems absurd) that the whole thing failed, and the jumper fell straight to their death. Going down in the ocean to a depth far deeper than any military submarine goes -- I don't see any info online, but I wonder if fewer people have been as deep as the Titanic than have reached Earth orbit -- in something that apparently was put together and vetted by effectively hobbyists seems the pinnacle of lunacy. Apologies to the missing for saying it.
- peteradio 3y agoLunacy yes but this behavior has been the norm for all of human history, this seems like a fairly reasonable attempt to do something great IMO. Go read Darwin awards and realize the incredibly stupid shit people do daily.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stringfood 3y ago[dead]
- curiousgal 3y agoWhy is a submarine going missing such a big deal? I am either growing old and grumpy faster than I thought or the media is in shambles.
- Exuma 3y agoI wondered why they can't install a GPS anyway on the sub so that when it eventually does get to the surface, at least they can be found then.
- foobar1962 3y agoYou'd just use your phone for GPS. Doing something useful with that information may be a challenge. All that is moot if they are locked on the wrong side of the airtight hatchway.
- outworlder 3y agoWhy would it eventually get to the surface? The issue with submarines is that they don't normally float (and if you need them to have positive buoyancy, they have to be functional).
- Exuma 3y agoBecause its been programmed to return to the surface upon error, that is what I've read about 30 times over.
- aa_is_op 3y agoAnd?
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- footlose_3815 3y agoDude doesn't game... Imagine trusting your life to a wireless controller.
- HL33tibCe7 3y agoThe engineering culture at this company seems insane to me. From what I read they actively took pride in using as little technology and safety mechanisms as possible. If this isn’t gross negligence, what is?
- giantg2 3y ago"wireless PC game controller" I wonder if they forgot spare batteries.
- snickerbockers 3y agoi have that one, logitech f510. it's a quality game controller and very reasonably priced.
- asylteltine 3y agoI have that controller. It’s awesome.
- dang 3y agoRelated ongoing thread: Missing Titanic sub faced lawsuit over depths it could safely travel to - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36409475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36409475 - June 2023 (177 comments)
- thepasswordis 3y agoI am blown away that there is any overlap between HN readers and people getting gotten by this clickbait. The controller is sending control signals to the computer which controls the motors. The controller itself is basically irrelevant. It’s not actually doing the control, the motor controllers are. Using off the shelf stuff like this is also common since it’s extremely well tested and usually very physically robust.
- Solvency 3y agoRobust? Neither my Xbox controller, or a third party alternative, are rated and proven to work in submarine conditions. My two controllers don't even work flawlessly from my couch.
- KeplerBoy 3y agosubmarine conditions aren't different than living room conditions, otherwise the crew is dead.
- dagmx 3y agoI’m not surprised at all. It’s common on pretty much every rage bait post here. People think they’re technical enough to understand everything and want their hot takes heard.
- pbourke 3y ago> The controller itself is basically irrelevant. It's irrelevant until it fails with no backup mechanism when maneuvers are needed.
- mrtksn 3y agoWhy wouldn’t there be a backup? In an old video, the CEO explains that there are 2 more backup controllers on board “just in case ”. Also, considering that the controller is just a dumb interface for controlling a computer I would assume that this computer also has a screen and a keyboard. My only gripe with this is that the controller has a battery in it, which may cause a fire and smoke but those are well commercialized items made to be used by kids, so I find it unlikely to have design flaws to cause that and would expect to be quite a robust piece of equipment. I would be very surprised if the incident has anything to do with the controller.
- make3 3y agothat's not the problem honestly it's everything else
- sbr464 3y agoIt’s a good and reliable controller. Commonly used in auto/self driving projects also.
- blobbers 3y agoThis is a shockingly simple product to make "self driving". Why on earth do they have any controller, aside from some sort of emergency up button. Furthermore, what the hell is the emergency plan??? This is going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The CEO who should be held criminally liable is inside the sub. I really, really hope they're found alive so that he can be held to account for this. With regard to the people talking about COTS reliability of Microsoft, Logitech or whichever non mil spec components etc. * Nobody tested that device when they had been working on an ocean going vestle. * Nobody checked what happens if you have saltwater on your hands when you pick it up. * Nobody checked what happens if it is exposed to salt fog for periods of time. This is a potentially tragic event that I hope has a happy ending.
- jojobas 3y ago>The CEO who should be held criminally liable is inside the sub. The ultimate indemnity.
- accrual 3y agoPresumably the company could at least still be sued and have all assets liquidated. Perhaps some others will still be found liable.
- bigyikes 3y agoI’ll bite, how do you make a self-driving submarine? There’s no GPS under the ocean? I imagine you’d need some kind of sea floor SLAM which sounds… really hard?
- blobbers 3y agoYou know, once you challenged me on this I thought about a bit more and it seems its actually probably pretty hard short of using sonar off the sea floor. If you use inertial sensors, you're in a moving fluid which really messes up your ability to dead set navigate. That said, it seems like it would be much easier for a computer to handle this than a person, especially if it had already mapped the area.
- StillBored 3y agoA lot of people going on about the game controller, which itself wouldn't bother me if there was a direct connection way to control it too (aka via the touchscreens). What bothers me more and is clear as day in those pictures are things like the screws into the carbon fiber pressure hull holding the screens up. There was someone (ex test engineer?) on reddit yesterday talking about a few things, but what really stuck out was how he mentioned there were a lot of questionable decisions being made that made him nop out of the project. And others mentioning simple things like painting it orange so it can be found on the surface easier were simply not being done. So, while its possible the surface ship didn't have a sensitive hydrophone recording the dive, which seems almost impossible so i'm going to assume it does, everyone seems focused on how they should be able to hear it implode. Meaning it is drifting about somewhere... But, I wonder, it seems quite possible to me that the thing simply sprung a leak, and flooded out in a matter of seconds rather than imploding. Once that happened none of the fail safes to surface would work because its likely not buoyant enough once full of water. A microscopic pinhole would probably ablate really fast, but would be completely unstoppable. Given the hull is only 5" thick, even a 1/2" screw on the inside would be a significant percentage of the way through already.
- naizarak 3y agoThat's just a decorative shell. You really think they drilled into their pressure hull?
- jcrash 3y ago> That’s just a marketing strategy. You really think they believe it’s unsinkable? Although I would be surprised if they drilled into the hull, I wouldn’t be THAT surprised.
- StillBored 3y agoI mean how should I know? The point is that I suspect there could be another option, which is that the pressure hull could have failed without imploding. So, yes it seems insane, and having seen pictures which look both like that is a liner and ones where it looks like its not, I don't know. There is very clearly an outer shell offset from the pressure hull. Whats on the inside isn't as clear, but I'm not sure why they would be running cables out of the floor when they could just be running them out closer to the arm/etc if there is space behind. Although from a human comfort perspective, I'm not sure why there isn't a little foot well/bench either. There is obviously stuff under the floor, but it also looks fairly hollow too.
- daniel-cussen 3y ago[dead]
- js2 3y ago> Dear Stockton, > This letter is sent on behalf of our industry members who have collectively expressed unanimous concern regarding the development of 'TITAN' and the planned Titanic Expedition. Our apprehension is that the current 'experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/marine-technology-society-committee-2018-letter-to-ocean-gate/eddb63615a7b3764/full.pdf https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/marine-technology-soc... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-missing-submersible.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-miss...
- AHOHA 3y agoWhat’s wrong with Logitech controller? It’s good and reliable, I use it in the drone platform I built (in addition to xbox/ps4/ps5 controllers) and we flew the drone from the other half of this planet, this is like saying “oh your tank/car/whatever steering wheel or this component is only $150 so it’s bad!!”, that’s the idea of engineering, find/make reliable pieces at an affordable price, guess that contractor if they rebranded that joystick sensors and sold for $50000 then it will be better!?
- mmkos 3y agoI think you're missing the point. When making these design decisions, you have to ask 'what can go wrong, and what is the implication of that?'. In your example, you can replace the controller with ease if it breaks, but you can't do that when you are underwater at 4000m below the sea level. Therefore it should at least be designed to be more durable and redundancies should be built in, say a basic console with physical buttons. But anyway, this controller debate is probably irrelevant anyway. I think it's unlikely to have been the cause of the problem here. Hope the sub is found soon so we can know what happened exactly.
- AHOHA 3y ago>but you can't do that when you are underwater at 4000m below the sea level. True, but doesn’t that apply to most if not all parts in the submarine? In fact, you can easily pack like 10 of these joysticks in the submarine inventory. But yeah I agree, I don’t think it’s been a controller issue. Edit: Unless it was “lost” on purpose, it’s probably the crew doesn’t want to be found in the mean time, and having a billionaire on board also make things more interesting, maybe they are after some treasure hunting stuff. >This is not the first time the Titan has gotten lost. On Monday, Pogue tweeted that during his report last summer about the Titan, the submersible got lost for a few hours as well (while Pogue was on the surface),
- quickthrower2 3y agoYou can stock some spare controllers. Maybe 2 brands in case on brand has a recurring issue that is affected by being in that environment.
- poopsmithe 3y agoThe missing craft is not a submarine. It's a submersible.
- Nellyz 3y ago[flagged]
- Kalanos 3y agoThose bluetooth devices always break... permanently
- lost_tourist 3y agoI mean as long as they had 4 or 5 backups would it be any worse than some other wireless control they cobbled together? Doesn't sound like they had the best engineers on the team, honestly.
- MrGuts 3y agoI'm sure, even while the sub was sinking, that the Logitech gamepad went down prompting for installation of its Options Plus bloatware.
- JBiserkov 3y agoFrom David Pogue's Twitter: > This submersible does not have any kind of beacon like that. On my expedition last summer, they did indeed get lost for about 5 hours, and adding such a beacon was discussed… > To be clear, I was not on the sub that day—I was on the ship at the surface, in the control room. They could still send short texts to the sub, but did not know where it was. It was quiet and very tense, and they shut off the ship’s internet to prevent us from tweeting. https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1670826522138091521 https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1670826522138091521 https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1670835763536183297 https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1670835763536183297
- windowshopping 3y agoCan anyone who knows something about this industry answer a question? I know nothing about it and I was surprised to read about this situation because I would have assumed a submersible would be in fairly constant sonar contact with its surface vessel. I would've thought it would be followed a rigidly planned route and its location relative to the surface ship would be well understood at all times, i.e. "you are 3508.3m below us, 340m east, 233.1m south." How does a submersible "get lost"?
- xwdv 3y agoThe sea is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. The only thing bigger is space.
- userbinator 3y agoIt is recommended to take a long cruise if you want to see just a tiny piece of it, and indeed even that experience is mind-boggling for the first time. That said, seeing nothing but water all around, as far as the horizon, can trigger intense fear in some people.
- windowshopping 3y agoSorry but this doesn't really answer my question. I know the sea is vast. Yet we are able to navigate it consistently. Why is this vessel unable to stay in contact with its parent and relay its relative location?
- xwdv 3y agoYou know the communication equipment failed right? I’m not sure what you expect. You know radio signals don’t travel through water?
- muspimerol 3y ago> I know the sea is vast. Yet we are able to navigate it consistently. I'm not an expert, but I think this is an incorrect assumption. We can navigate it decently on the surface (even then, plenty of ships sink/go missing each year [1]) but underwater is a whole different story. > Why is this vessel unable to stay in contact with its parent That is kind of the big question here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_2022
- porknubbins 3y agoThis move fast and break things approach to engineering seems like a Hollywood influenced dumb person’s idea of a smart person. Real engineers are slow and conservative because they are aware of various unknowns and probabilities of things failing. Before I studied engineering I saw the world in kind of binary works/broken plug and play terms. While real engineers are able to think below this abstraction to various wires, forces, resistances failing even if they usually work at a higher level. I can tell from the video this subs creators are unserious.
- joemazerino 3y agoWhere do they.. Go to the washroom? Or sleep? It looks like a pipe.
- chrononaut 3y ago> Where do they.. Go to the washroom? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65960217 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65960217 > Unusually though, it includes a private toilet for customers at the front of the sub. A small curtain is pulled across when it is in use and the pilot turns up some onboard music. > However, the company's website does recommend "you restrict your diet before and during the dive to reduce the likelihood that you will need to use the facilities".
- lxgr 3y agoWhy is this news, when "hedge fund manager uses $30 Logitech keyboard/mouse to execute market-moving trades" isn't?
- mocana 3y agoI think the game console controller is getting undue attention. Those things are super-durable and reliable! If it can handle years of Donkey Kong, Galaga and Frogger at the hands of obnoxious teenagers it can handle a mini-submarine at the hands of adults.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- efitz 3y agoWhy would a bespoke one- or few-of-a-kind controller be better than a commercial one? The commercial controller has statutory requirements to provide warranty and would financially damage the company if it had a high failure/return rate. I thought the idea of using it in Bluetooth mode was sketchy, but the selection of a commercial controller didn’t bother me.
- Solvency 3y ago"At the meeting Lochridge discovered why he had been denied access to the viewport information from the Engineering department—the viewport at the forward of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate intended to take passengers down to depths of 4,000 meters. Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to experimental design of the viewport supplied by OceanGate, which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy (“PVHO”) standards. OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters." Well, that about it settles what happened.
- wongarsu 3y agoThe sub has already survived multiple dives to 4000 meters, and so far nobody has come out with reports of any apparent problems with the viewport. Maybe it failed from an impact or from accumulated fractures from all these pressure cycles, but I'm also completely willing to believe that the depth-rating for human occupancy has enough of a safety factor that going 3 times deeper doesn't lead to failure. From the pre-accident reports about the sub it seems like hull integrity was the thing they actually cared about the most, with everything else being in an even worse state. My money would be on the sub drifting somewhere with no power or no control or whatever.
- lagolinguini 3y agoNot an expert on submarine design, but if it's comparable to aircraft, each pressurization-depressurization cycle actually increases the stress on the vessel. Just because it worked once doesn't necessarily mean it will always work. https://simpleflying.com/pressurization-cycles-aircraft-lifespan/ https://simpleflying.com/pressurization-cycles-aircraft-life...
- andromeduck 3y agoYeah for which carbon fiber yube is a far more likely failure point given it's ulyrw low longitudinal compression strength not to mention risk of cyclic failure from delamination.
- lovegrenoble 3y agoDoes this mean that Logitech is a reliable brand?
- gliixo 3y agowelp those people are fuckin dead
- koreanguy 3y ago[dead]
- vanattab 3y agoWhat I am wondering is if this becomes a tragedy will it have knock on negative effects in the space tourism industry.
- jiggawatts 3y agoSomething that I found strange was the use of carbon fibre for the main pressure vessel. I was under the impression that the exceptional strength carbon fibre is only in tension, and that it isn't particularly good in compression. Why would OceanGate use carbon fibre? Other similar deep-diving submersibles used either steel or titanium, which are isotropic and have high compressive strengths.
- thehappypm 3y agoWhy use cutting edge materials at all? 6” of steel is impenetrable..
- LarsDu88 3y agoNothing wrong with using a logitech gamepad for a submarine. What can be problematic is if they only packed one :(
- fencepost 3y agoAccording to the person in this NPR piece (who was on it last year) there are a variety of fairly inexpensive off-the-shelf things used, including the LED lighting. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183273102/titan-missing-sub-titanic-rescue-oceangate https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183273102/titan-missing-sub-... Also relevant (and discussed in the piece) there are multiple independent systems to increase buoyancy and bring it back up to the surface, including some that should trigger automatically even if everyone aboard is unconscious. Not discussed was whether any of them would operate if it lost pressure containment.
- kossTKR 3y agoThe most bizarre thing in this thread is the people defending the cheap shit controller with lots of bad reviews on Amazon. Some devs are so cheap it's grotesque bordering on delusional. Just splurge on the controller that's 100$ dollar more or maybe buy the lamp that's not from alibabas camping section, i promise you that's not what is going to tilt the budgets. The xbox controller is already used by the military and other industrial environments exactly because of reliability - if you can't research your way to that info from just googling and instead want to "stock up on probably good-enough controllers, or have an extra one lying around (because there's lots of space in a sub??)" or "just be economical" or "i used the controller and it was good" - i'm happy you are not working with any software i would ever use, and for gods sake never anything mission critical. Imagine being able to 100x the reliability of large parts of the one and only prototype you have, but instead you save 300 dollars of your 50 million dollar budget.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nailer 3y agoTiktok is reading the reviews of the Logitech gamepad and it has a reputation for frequently disconnecting.
- marmakoide 3y agoIt's a mass produced controller, cheaper and as good as anything made in a small workshop. That's really not the issue here.
- _V_ 3y ago> The company bills the eight-day trip on its carbon-fibre submersible as a "chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary". Well, they did deliver on their promises I guess...
- harisec 3y agoThere are two podcast episodes where David Pogue explains in a lot of detail how the whole system works. Kind of interesting. https://unsungscience.com/news/back-to-titanic-part-1/ https://unsungscience.com/news/back-to-titanic-part-1/
- drumhead 3y agoDoesn't mean it's bad, it might just mean other steering systems are massively over engineered and expensive.
- sublinear 3y agoWhy is this part being focused on instead of the hull being crap?
- major4x 3y agoOne shall not obsess with the game controller they use, I suppose, in their analysis, failing the controller wouldn't prevent the sub from resurfacing... It is symptomatic, however. The whole Silicon Valley is like that. You have the old guard, NASA, millions for fault analysis, rumors go the C code on some NASA rocket was certified at $1000 per line---human eyeballs reading it... All those start-ups and unicorns, though. Just do it, when to be a hacker became an honorific, a title... Code your stuff, design your mechanics at Starbucks, who needs mathematics and physics when we can have s*t done instead. Who needs signing-off when we can have a carate-belt meeting standing on bouncing balls instead... I don't want to be the dean of the faculty of prophecy but this is only the beginning. Wait until those autopilots starts using ChatGPT/Stack Overflow/copy/pasted code... P.S. Hope they make it to the surface somehow...
- reikonomusha 3y agoToo bad even the "hacker" title has changed. One of the greatest "founding" hackers ever, Bill Gosper, is also a mathematical genius.
- toadi 3y agoHacking a social media site together and break stuff is fine. Move fast and kill people and iterate seems not so fine.
- truemotive 3y agoI'm really frustrated by anyone that poo-poos this specific issue. One shall absolutely fucking obsess, me for instance about the game controller they used. Look at this. https://i.imgur.com/FrdR7TP.png https://i.imgur.com/FrdR7TP.png So the F710 Logitech gamepad was something I wouldn't even trust as a teenager to let me play emulated retro games accurately. It has a hardware switch to toggle between DirectInput (an ancient input technology within Microsoft stack), and XInput which is a non-trivial third-party software to map controllers to do things on your computer. Complaints range from 'the input switch was finicky and I had to tape it down' to 'you had to insert the USB dongle into the computer carefully like trying to get a Nintendo cartridge to work'. In this case, it was the main navigation control on a submersible far exceeding its safety buffer by orders of magnitude. Sure, military applications have found use for XBox and other controllers as system inputs because generations of those serving are used to that interface. The differences are not subtle: 1. There had to be a certification process to use the controller, including risk analysis which would absolutely deny any attempt to use wireless controllers to operate any piece of equipment, no less anything that was weapon or safety critical. The military doesn't drive boats with XBox controllers. 2. XBox controllers are well designed and reliable, at an order of magnitude of this one. THEY ALSO COME IN A WIRED VERSION. 3. They decided to further mod the controller for no reason with longer sticks, maybe to make it look less like the toy it is which actually reduces the dead spot response of an analog joystick. Why? What the fuck. The reason for the photo above is to show what I've seen in every media piece where they talk about it: It is NEVER wired in any video or photo. In one video, which I can't dig up right now, the CEO actually tosses the controller carelessly on the ground and quips that "these things are designed for 16 year olds to throw them around". Edit: The bit mentioned above is at 0:37 in this video: https://youtu.be/ClkytJa0ghc?t=37 https://youtu.be/ClkytJa0ghc?t=37 - "we keep a couple of spares on board just in case", that's great but I'm wondering who in that sub knows how to pair an ancient Logitech gamepad and remap XInput like a kid playing Diablo. That is on video and a joke during the interview, forget for a second that they're using a controller from 2005-era for a moment; at that point on something like an airplane or a battleship, you just caused an incident that requires maintenance testing to make sure you didn't just disable the fucking vehicle by throwing the controls around for fun. No. Don't disregard this specific reckless decision even though it likely had nothing to do with whatever went wrong in this situation. The CEO of the company from the get-go abandoned any semblance of basic safety in engineering, and fired/sued the guy in charge of safety when he called it out. This controller is a metaphor for something that needs to immediately be regulated so that people like this can never get away with it again.
- jacquesm 3y agoThere are far more worrisome things about this submersible than the controller used for steering.
- heavyset_go 3y agoThere was a BBC special on this submarine, and it features that $30 Logitech gamepad extensively. At one point they were at the bottom of the sea and the gamepad just stops working, as in the mapping of the gamepad keys to the controls of the sub weren't working correctly. They were stuck spinning around in circles on the sea floor. The owner, on a boat in the middle of the ocean, had to call whoever it was that set up the gamepad for him on a cell phone, while his team and customers were at the bottom of the ocean, to figure out how the gamepad worked. That person never answered. They eventually troubleshoot it and find out that 'left' on the gamepad was actually forward in real life and all of the keys were mapped incorrectly. The software that they depended on was just as buggy as you'd expect, and having watched the BBC special, I would never get in any submersible that this team designed or touched. BBC Special Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLI9SpUDdwo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLI9SpUDdwo BBC Special Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOhOAJV5II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOhOAJV5II edit: apparently they were made private. You can find the show here on BBC Travel's website, they're the "Take Me to Titanic" episodes: Part 1: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d2ml https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d2ml Part 2: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d7b6 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d7b6 Some other horrors from the episodes if you can't access them: - They didn't have navigation systems on the sub, so they were basically dead reckoning and trying to confirm their location with their team at the ocean's surface. - They lost control multiple times. - There were multiple incidents where they almost aborted the trip 16+ hours into it. - It looked like they didn't even have voice or video communication with their team at the surface, they were communicating using text on what looked like an 1990's AIM client. - It looked like everything was rigged together with consumer hardware, using older versions of Windows and custom software.
- truemotive 3y agoBoth of these videos went private apparently, I'd really like to see this doc.
- heavyset_go 3y agoI'll see if I can find a mirror, the show is "BBC Travel - Take Me to Titanic" if you're able to access BBC content in your country.
- SillyUsername 3y agoYou have to wonder why many migrants in Europe go missing at sea on rickety barges on a regular basis and they call off a few search boats in 24 hours. 5 Billionaires go missing on a rickety sub and multiple nations respond with everything they have. Double standards much?
- bloqs 3y agoI think you can follow it all the way back to the taxpayer/voter honestly. Ask people how long search crews should look for migrant boats, citing the cost, youll get some very mixed responses Ask people how long search crews should look for a submersible containing a billionaire, his son and whoever else and it will be longer on average
- jve 3y agoDon't think so... Rescue ops worry people and everyone tries to help. - Some kid lost in my country? Resources deployed for search, community helps, hundreds if not thousands do the land sweeping. - Remember boys stuck in thailand cave? Whole world was trying to help. - Just a moment ago plane crashed in amazon, killing adults, leaving 4 kids. Massive search effort they say was underway - 150 soldiers, dogs not knowing if they are alive - until found after 40 days. Not everyone can help there, you have to know the jungle and the dangers. - Apollo 13 - I read that the whole world was holding the breath. Looks like the more complex the rescue, the more popular it is in the news, the more everyone tries to do something about it.
- mynameishere 3y agoWhy in hell would they send out search boats at all? I can't fathom the stupidity it would take to help invaders invade your country. And by the way, the vacation company will likely get a fat bill from the Coast Guards.
- kwanbix 3y agoWhy would people pay 250k to go underwater in a sardine can to watch a wreckage from a tiny window is beyond my comprehension.
- mackrevinack 3y agoexactly my thoughts. i would imagine the quality of what you would see out the window wouldn't be much better then what you would see from a camera fed displayed on a screen. the only selling point is that you are seeing it in real time. it would still be as good if you were sitting on the deck of a ship in front of a screen or a VR headset watching a live feed. it would be much better than being picked into a tube with 5 people and only 2 people being able to see anything at one time
- unglaublich 3y agoWould a $30k Logitech gamepad be different? Surprise: mass production makes a $30 gamepad from a $30k prototype.
- WastingMyTime89 3y agoI'm not sure what I'm supposed to understand from this article. Using off-the-shelf parts is par for the course even on military boats and submarines. They are far cheaper than custom made parts with fault rates which are acceptable. With proper maintenance and redudancy, this is not at all an issue. The issue here is the carelessness of the team, the lack of proper safety engineering and an utter disregard for industry best practices. The equipment is not the issue. These specific practices would have led to an unsafe submarine even with custom made parts.
- eterevsky 3y agoI firmly believe that people can risk their lives in however manner they wish, but with a few caveats. If your paying customers are also risking their lives, they should have a clear picture (I'm not sure this was the case here.) Also, you should have insurance or some other way of paying for a possible rescue operation.
- schwartzworld 3y agoConsidering the net worth of the occupants, I'm sure the bill won't be a problem.
- al_be_back 3y ago[dead]
- alkonaut 3y agoI see no problem with that so long as it's fit for the purpose. You can bring 2 spares and have a controller and two spares for $90. Or you can bring a fresh one on each trip to spend $30 per trip to have zero concerns for any corrosion or similar that could happen in these environments. Once you start doing the opposite: special-puprose building a fixed controller, you have to deal with all the issues that arise. It needs to handle corrosion, you need redundancy etc. It's going to cost thousands. The question asked should be "why should we not use the cheap off the shelf solution" and only choose something else when there is a good reason.
- samsolomon 3y agoA friend of mine spent two years in Afghanistan—mostly on various fire bases. I remember him telling me about this piece of equipment they used to operate with this $10k controller that everyone hated. One of the bases figured out that they could use an Xbox controller. All the operators preferred using that. Obviously, it is easier to get a replacement Xbox controller to a US base than a lost submarine—so the circumstances are different. But sometimes off the shelf parts are the best option.
- draw_down 3y ago[dead]
- _9omd 3y agoHonestly using an off the shelf gaming controller isn’t crazy, even military subs have used them for certain applications. But why on earth would you chose this controller when you can get a much more reliable wired Xbox controller for 80 bucks. This poor design chose makes me question their judgement during the design process.
- troupe 3y agoXbox controllers are regularly used by the military for controlling all kinds of things. I've seen them for UAVs, submersibles, equipment on subs, etc. Using off the shelf components like that is common so I'm not sure why this is particularly noteworthy. Of all the things they may have done wrong with the Titan, the controller probably isn't on the list.
- numlock86 3y agoThe title seems like absolute clickbait, implying the $30 controller is at fault. Yes, I have read the article and this is not the case. It wouldn't even make sense anyway. But the title together with a mid two digit dollar number heavily try to imply this. The US military uses $49 XBox controllers for basically everything: Training CPGs, drone control hubs and drum roll submarines among a lot of other things. The only gist to take from this is that controllers make fantastic interfaces. Not sure why we need to spotlight this with a potential drama/disaster in relation to it's price.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iAm25626 3y agoFew years old: Navy Submarine using xbox controller. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colo...
- rldjbpin 3y agoas an avid controller user, i wonder if they keep spare controllers at hand for mission-critical scenarios. given how little waranty first-party controller makers provide (3 months for xbox), and how almost all of them use potentiometers for joysticks, which are prone to "stick drift", i wonder how many situations could have a loss of accurate control because of this.