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It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-dest
by proggy 3y ago
It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to.
Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-existent. Their test program was extremely lightweight to say the least, and the results that came back from what little hull testing they did do were ignored, resulting in the dismissal of an internal whistleblower [1]. We also learned that there were flammable materials within the pressure vessel, no practical contingency plan to speak of, no emergency beacon fitted, the list goes on. The whole thing was just cobbled together, not fully thought out or vetted, and yet the intent was to journey to one of the most unforgiving environments imaginable.
But getting back to the account of the reversed motor above -- it is one of the purest examples I can now think of where life imitates art. Piloting a stolen (but seaworthy) deep-sea submersible to the wreckage of the Titanic -- that was only able to make right-hand turns due to a "sub club" anti-theft device -- was a major plot point in the pilot episode of the TV series "Pinky and the Brain". Narf.
[1] https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-faced-lawsuit-depths-safely-travel-oceangate https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-face...
- bpp 3y agoI haven't thought about that episode of "Pinky and the Brain" in years, thanks for a chuckle.
- acqq 3y ago3:54 Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate: "so the pressure vessel is not MacGyver at all because that's where we work with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail: your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you're still going to be safe" https://youtu.be/29co_Hksk6o?t=219 https://youtu.be/29co_Hksk6o?t=219
- erik_seaberg 3y agoThis explains the “one button” and hokey controls. Only dropping ballast to surface is life-critical.
- acqq 3y ago"The experts wrote in their letter to Mr. Rush that they had “unanimous concern” about the way the Titan had been developed," "Mr. Kohnen said that Mr. Rush called him after reading the letter and told him that industry standards were stifling innovation." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-missing-submersible.html?smid=nytcore-android-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-miss...
- javajosh 3y ago>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to the bottom. It's a very big world, filled with mostly ocean, and plenty of thrill-seekers who will attempt anything half-way reasonable. Even 10% reasonable. You can't stop that, and personally, I don't think its a good idea. To get it you'd need a nanny state that snoops on everyone and steps in to stop you "for your own safety". It's easy to imagine scenarios where this gets out of hand.
- reaperman 3y agoThere’s a difference between Jacques Cousteau building a janky submarine rig for himself vs. Creating a business model of selling tickets to random strangers on that janky submarine.
- brutusborn 3y agoThere is definitely a difference, but it doesn’t really matter philosophically speaking. If people want to take huge risks, then so be it. Whether they build the sub themselves or pay and give that responsibility to a proxy, it is still up to them to make their own risk assessment.
- fasthands9 3y agoThis is not really how the government operates. If this was operating at scale the government would absolutely be involved. You can't just run cruise ship operations and advertising without government involvement. I dont see how this is any different. Perhaps you personally have a "so be it" libertarian view but thats not the view the government takes.
- Osiris 3y ago
- dmix 3y agoSo basically like when a Russia technician installed a sensor upside-down destroying an entire $200 million Proton-M spacecraft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLnNc_0TnXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLnNc_0TnXA Except there's not whole teams of engineers and checklists to prevent that sort of thing. Nor humans aboard.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y agoThe lack of emergency beacon is the real WTF. Not even an inflatable buoy. Using a game pad is probably OK. But no emergency method to mark their last location or even surface?
- jibe 3y agoThey did have multiple emergency methods to surface. Neither those, nor a beacon help if it imploded under pressure.
- ghostpepper 3y agoThere was some speculation that any sort of implosion would've been detected by military sonar, and it hasn't been yet. I do not know if that's accurate -- just repeating what I've heard.
- lyu07282 3y agodoesn't necessarily mean they ever tell anyone about it, it would just reveal capabilities.
- simonblack 3y agoSeeing that everything stopped at once, I'd bet that is exactly what happened. Shades of the Thresher disaster. No doubt we'll hear a few months down the track that the Navy's sound receivers did actually pick up the implosion noise.
- asddubs 3y agoor someone makes a startup offering submarine exploration of the titanic tours crash site
- speed_spread 3y agoRecursive Ventures
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago> it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. The pressure vessel was a titanium hemisphere bonded to a carbon fiber cylinder. It was destined to fail with such a fundamentally compromised design like that.
- tylerchr 3y agoI don’t know that much about materials science. Why is a “titanium hemisphere bonded to a carbon fiber cylinder” “such a fundamentally compromised design” in this application? I imagine maybe carbon fiber would be better in tension (e.g. airframes) than in compression (this), perhaps. Or do carbon fiber and titanium not get along somehow? (EDIT: Had tension and compression backwards.)
- xdavidliu 3y ago> Narf. <in an Obi-Wan Kenobi voice> Now that is a word I have not heard in a long, long time.
- bandrami 3y ago> there were flammable materials within the pressure vessel Whut
- dheera 3y agoI wonder how much of this has to do with investors giving them only 18 months of runway and "launch or die" mentality. That mentality is okay for software but this ecosystem is NOT okay when lives are in question. When investors are bickering about shitty terms and being stingy with their aerospace and nautical investments, people die. There needs to be a system by which any company can ALWAYS be guaranteed some $X for 0% equity if it is going to be used and documented for life safety improvements and tests. That $X can even come from taxes, I'm okay with that.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoI am so glad the CEO is on board. Normally they’d just be able to get away scott free with billions and tell everyone how sorry they are.
- gshulegaard 3y agoI mean, it wasn't too long ago we had auto pilot software from a major aerospace engineering company that would literally pitch planes into nosedives when only one of two redundant angle-of-attack sensors misbehaved/failed. Also there seem to be quite a few train derailments as of late. Oh and what about that apartment building that just...collapsed in Ohio? Seems like there have been quite a few cases of safety regulatory failure in recent memory.