9 ms·

Maybe so, but it's easy to say this after the fact. When kludges like this work, we admire "scrappy" and "ingenious" engineers who are finding ways to launch ro

Maybe so, but it's easy to say this after the fact. When kludges like this work, we admire "scrappy" and "ingenious" engineers who are finding ways to launch rockets or build submarines or medical devices or whatever for fraction the price. It's only when it blows up that it turns from "ingenuity" into "amateur hour". People who participated in this knew the risks. They fucked up. None of us would have designed a better submarine, and I'd wager we're not all that qualified to tell a crappy design from a good one, except - once again - after the fact.

joshspankit 3y ago
I just designed a better one while talking this through in the room: Once you realize that ingenuity is not going to be enough to survive: Seal everyone in, then fake the whole experience with a screen built in to the porthole.
Aeolun 3y ago
> None of us would have designed a better submarine I dunno. I would never go with wireless over cabled, certainly not as my primary steering method, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the only method onboard to control the thing. Maybe it’s better if these things are build by paranoid instead of adventurous people?
- kevinpet 3y ago
  You can have safety, or you can have a submarine tourism startup. You can't have a submarine tourism startup staffed by cautious risk averse people.
  - svnt 3y ago
    How many people should we sacrifice to get a submarine tourism startup?
    - worthless-trash 3y ago
      I believe that question has been answered.
      - svnt 3y ago
        We’ve had one, yes. What about the second submarine tourism startup?
        kaliqt 3y ago
        n-1
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- AmericanChopper 3y ago
  The use of a wireless input is a bit suspect, but the headline seems rather sensational to me. What’s wrong with using an inexpensive logitech component? The critical systems in my car are filled with cheap off-the-shelf components.
  - philistine 3y ago
    > cheap off-the-shelf components Your car is filled with cheap off-the-shelf *car* components. There's far more scrutiny given to car parts, even though they're cheap stuff. But to get back to the controller, while it's not necessarily the worst problem, it is emblematic. That's why people reduce it to that. It signifies immediately what kind of company they were. Emphasis on were.
    - AmericanChopper 3y ago
      I think the claim that you’re getting better safety outcomes from a $2 ISO26262 IC over a $30 ISO9001 piece of consumer hardware is a bit spurious in this case. Especially since the operator could just replace the consumer hardware input device with a spare in a few seconds if they ever needed to. I don’t think this is emblematic of the problems with this company at all, because this specific complaint is simply sensationalised and overblown.
- mcpherrinm 3y ago
  People are latching onto the logitech controller, but I think it's low on my concerns list. Controllers are relatively robust, and they stated they had backups, and could surface without any control input by manually dumping the ballast. Much more concerning are the potential flaws in the carbon fiber hull, as disclosed during the David Lochridge lawsuit (mentioned in another thread), the rumoured lack of surface radios, the limited communication with the surface, the lack of any exits, and even the use of carbon fiber (which is strong in tension, good for high pressure tanks, but weak in compression -- not what I'd want for a submarine under massive compression)
  - ghostpepper 3y ago
    Just to nit pick, what good is an exit going to do at 12,000 feet?
    - harambae 3y ago
      The exit would've been for if they surfaced (that plus a life raft presumably)
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - wespiser_2018 3y ago
      When you have a fire and need to surface, it's going to do a lot of good. One of the Apollo crews burned alive because the ground crew couldn't unscrew the hatch fast enough during a pre-flight checkout. One of those astronauts, Gus Grisham, nearly died a previous time when the explosive bolts on another capsule fired early which caused the capsule to take on water. The problems here are just several fold: maybe the door won't help you at depth, but there's a pretty wide envelope of conditions in which a fast escape hatch is the difference between surviving a fire and burning alive. The CEO of OceanGate said he "learned the lessons of aviation", but this is obviously BS if he's locking himself in a capsule with flammable equipment, piping oxygen in, and just hoping it doesn't burn. That's a recipe for disaster we know how to avoid.
    - 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wespiser_2018 3y ago
  It's pretty easy, just hire one subject matter expert (SME) on submarines and listen to them. So many problems with this scheme, though. No rigorous test (depth, survival, atmosphere), lack of SMEs, carbon fiber hull, failed to learn lessons from aviation (don't lock people in a room that can burn), lack of ventilation, failure to provide emergency breathing, no voice comms, and finally the comms loss during testing that was normalized as operating procedure. All you'd have to do is not make one of those mistakes, and you'd be doing a better job. These are all issues that are solved on US Navy subs, where we train hundreds of people every year to work on and retire just as many. You don't need to know all these systems, though, just find a retired sub chief and have them walk you through the safety systems. One thing I've picked up working in software, is that you can enter new domains with relative ease if you just align yourself with experts, and at least listen to their advice. This isn't something that happened on the sub, and I'd be surprised if it ultimately didn't contribute to the total vehicle loss.
  - conradfr 3y ago
    That "retired sub chef" mais not be inspirational enough. https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1671372833979785217 https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1671372833979785217
ehnto 3y ago
The major difference is serving the public I suppose. I would admire a scrappy vessel for research (SV Seeker for example) but if you are essentially building a transport service for the consumers, you are now being irresponsible. All credit to SV Seeker, it is a wildly impressive project, but I don't think they would be mad if I suggest they had the resolver spirit while putting that vessel together.
- jart 3y ago
  Are you saying consumers lives matter more than researchers?
  - plewd 3y ago
    Researchers are aware of the risks they're taking. Consumers (who don't really understand the dangers of the environment they're about to enter) just blindly trust that they're in good hands, and in this case it seems like they were deceived about the trustworthiness of this vessel.
    - jacurtis 3y ago
      If using the term "consumers" broadly speaking, then I would agree that they assume trustworthiness of the vessel. When I drive my car onto one of the Seattle ferries, I pay my ticket and as a consumer I have total trust in the safety of the vessel, that they are following all safety protocols and that it is inheritely safe. I don't know how this thing carries hundreds of passengers and 80 heavy cars across the waters, but I trust that the company I bought the tickets from knows and has taken proper precautions to get me safely to the other side reliably. But this trip to see the Titanic is completely different. This was an experimental trip on an experimental vessel (they signed specifically to that affect). Anyone who thinks that journeying down to 13,000 feet to see the titanic was going to be as risk free as crossing the Puget sound or going to disney world is crazy. The sheer reason they are paying for this trip is because it has been relatively impossible up to this point. They are breaking new frontiers by doing so which is by its nature inherently risky. There has to be known risk involved here. It isn't a ride at disneyland. This was serious. I am sure they didn't actually expect to die, but they had to know that there was a realistic possibility of that outcome.
meepmorp 3y ago
> People who participated in this knew the risks. Did they? Knowing the risks, imo, requires more than just being aware of the failure scenarios - it also means having an understanding of the probabilities involved. Playing Russian roulette with 1 vs 5 rounds have the same worse case outcomes, but the odds are very different. Not doing destructive testing, hiding info from the guy who was supposed to look at the ship, etc. that's avoiding getting a handle on risk. > None of us would have designed a better submarine Probably not, but otoh, it sounds like they probably could have done so and failed to take the necessary steps to make it happen.
- benatkin 3y ago
  At least there wasn't a Groupon getting people to sign up. https://www.chronline.com/stories/woman-paralyzed-in-toledo-skydiving-accident-sues-skydive-toledo-county-and-affiliate,278700 https://www.chronline.com/stories/woman-paralyzed-in-toledo-...
MPSimmons 3y ago
Scrappy is overcoming adversity by improvising and solving the problem with what you have. This would have been a scrappy solution for a sub in a pool where there was a chance for help. You don't take paying customers on a scrappy sub to the bottom of the ocean.
mcpherrinm 3y ago
I am not a mechanical engineer, so you're right, I wouldn't design a better submarine. Peers in the industry though have expressed concerns, such as in this 2018 letter: > 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... Or when they fired and sued their director of marine operations who raised safety concerns: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23854184-oceangate-v-david-lochridge https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23854184-oceangate-v...
- proggy 3y ago
  It’s a relief to see that the Marine Technology Society saw this coming 6 years ago, and did what they could to encourage OceanGate to do the right thing. There are inherent, known risks with deep sea exploration and firms need to be held to a minimum standard of safety out of a basic respect for human life. Being a scrappy startup isn’t a valid excuse for cutting corners when it comes to engineering and qualification of a pressure vessel and its essential components. I really hope that the foresight of the MTS is recognized amongst the general public, and the DSV space doesn’t suffer a setback in perception and/or funding. At present, it does seem like the general sentiment is that this specific submersible was built to an incredibly poor standard when compared to, say, the famed Alvin or Deepsea Challenger. I hope that sentiment holds.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

joshspankit 3y ago

I just designed a better one while talking this through in the room: Once you realize that ingenuity is not going to be enough to survive: Seal everyone in, then fake the whole experience with a screen built in to the porthole.

Aeolun 3y ago

> None of us would have designed a better submarine I dunno. I would never go with wireless over cabled, certainly not as my primary steering method, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the only method onboard to control the thing. Maybe it’s better if these things are build by paranoid instead of adventurous people?

kevinpet 3y ago
You can have safety, or you can have a submarine tourism startup. You can't have a submarine tourism startup staffed by cautious risk averse people.
- svnt 3y ago
  How many people should we sacrifice to get a submarine tourism startup?
  - worthless-trash 3y ago
    I believe that question has been answered.
    - svnt 3y ago
      We’ve had one, yes. What about the second submarine tourism startup?
      - kaliqt 3y ago
        n-1
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
AmericanChopper 3y ago
The use of a wireless input is a bit suspect, but the headline seems rather sensational to me. What’s wrong with using an inexpensive logitech component? The critical systems in my car are filled with cheap off-the-shelf components.
- philistine 3y ago
  > cheap off-the-shelf components Your car is filled with cheap off-the-shelf *car* components. There's far more scrutiny given to car parts, even though they're cheap stuff. But to get back to the controller, while it's not necessarily the worst problem, it is emblematic. That's why people reduce it to that. It signifies immediately what kind of company they were. Emphasis on were.
  - AmericanChopper 3y ago
    I think the claim that you’re getting better safety outcomes from a $2 ISO26262 IC over a $30 ISO9001 piece of consumer hardware is a bit spurious in this case. Especially since the operator could just replace the consumer hardware input device with a spare in a few seconds if they ever needed to. I don’t think this is emblematic of the problems with this company at all, because this specific complaint is simply sensationalised and overblown.
mcpherrinm 3y ago
People are latching onto the logitech controller, but I think it's low on my concerns list. Controllers are relatively robust, and they stated they had backups, and could surface without any control input by manually dumping the ballast. Much more concerning are the potential flaws in the carbon fiber hull, as disclosed during the David Lochridge lawsuit (mentioned in another thread), the rumoured lack of surface radios, the limited communication with the surface, the lack of any exits, and even the use of carbon fiber (which is strong in tension, good for high pressure tanks, but weak in compression -- not what I'd want for a submarine under massive compression)
- ghostpepper 3y ago
  Just to nit pick, what good is an exit going to do at 12,000 feet?
  - harambae 3y ago
    The exit would've been for if they surfaced (that plus a life raft presumably)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - wespiser_2018 3y ago
    When you have a fire and need to surface, it's going to do a lot of good. One of the Apollo crews burned alive because the ground crew couldn't unscrew the hatch fast enough during a pre-flight checkout. One of those astronauts, Gus Grisham, nearly died a previous time when the explosive bolts on another capsule fired early which caused the capsule to take on water. The problems here are just several fold: maybe the door won't help you at depth, but there's a pretty wide envelope of conditions in which a fast escape hatch is the difference between surviving a fire and burning alive. The CEO of OceanGate said he "learned the lessons of aviation", but this is obviously BS if he's locking himself in a capsule with flammable equipment, piping oxygen in, and just hoping it doesn't burn. That's a recipe for disaster we know how to avoid.
  - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wespiser_2018 3y ago
It's pretty easy, just hire one subject matter expert (SME) on submarines and listen to them. So many problems with this scheme, though. No rigorous test (depth, survival, atmosphere), lack of SMEs, carbon fiber hull, failed to learn lessons from aviation (don't lock people in a room that can burn), lack of ventilation, failure to provide emergency breathing, no voice comms, and finally the comms loss during testing that was normalized as operating procedure. All you'd have to do is not make one of those mistakes, and you'd be doing a better job. These are all issues that are solved on US Navy subs, where we train hundreds of people every year to work on and retire just as many. You don't need to know all these systems, though, just find a retired sub chief and have them walk you through the safety systems. One thing I've picked up working in software, is that you can enter new domains with relative ease if you just align yourself with experts, and at least listen to their advice. This isn't something that happened on the sub, and I'd be surprised if it ultimately didn't contribute to the total vehicle loss.
- conradfr 3y ago
  That "retired sub chef" mais not be inspirational enough. https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1671372833979785217 https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1671372833979785217

ehnto 3y ago

The major difference is serving the public I suppose. I would admire a scrappy vessel for research (SV Seeker for example) but if you are essentially building a transport service for the consumers, you are now being irresponsible. All credit to SV Seeker, it is a wildly impressive project, but I don't think they would be mad if I suggest they had the resolver spirit while putting that vessel together.

jart 3y ago
Are you saying consumers lives matter more than researchers?
- plewd 3y ago
  Researchers are aware of the risks they're taking. Consumers (who don't really understand the dangers of the environment they're about to enter) just blindly trust that they're in good hands, and in this case it seems like they were deceived about the trustworthiness of this vessel.
  - jacurtis 3y ago
    If using the term "consumers" broadly speaking, then I would agree that they assume trustworthiness of the vessel. When I drive my car onto one of the Seattle ferries, I pay my ticket and as a consumer I have total trust in the safety of the vessel, that they are following all safety protocols and that it is inheritely safe. I don't know how this thing carries hundreds of passengers and 80 heavy cars across the waters, but I trust that the company I bought the tickets from knows and has taken proper precautions to get me safely to the other side reliably. But this trip to see the Titanic is completely different. This was an experimental trip on an experimental vessel (they signed specifically to that affect). Anyone who thinks that journeying down to 13,000 feet to see the titanic was going to be as risk free as crossing the Puget sound or going to disney world is crazy. The sheer reason they are paying for this trip is because it has been relatively impossible up to this point. They are breaking new frontiers by doing so which is by its nature inherently risky. There has to be known risk involved here. It isn't a ride at disneyland. This was serious. I am sure they didn't actually expect to die, but they had to know that there was a realistic possibility of that outcome.

meepmorp 3y ago

> People who participated in this knew the risks. Did they? Knowing the risks, imo, requires more than just being aware of the failure scenarios - it also means having an understanding of the probabilities involved. Playing Russian roulette with 1 vs 5 rounds have the same worse case outcomes, but the odds are very different. Not doing destructive testing, hiding info from the guy who was supposed to look at the ship, etc. that's avoiding getting a handle on risk. > None of us would have designed a better submarine Probably not, but otoh, it sounds like they probably could have done so and failed to take the necessary steps to make it happen.

benatkin 3y ago
At least there wasn't a Groupon getting people to sign up. https://www.chronline.com/stories/woman-paralyzed-in-toledo-skydiving-accident-sues-skydive-toledo-county-and-affiliate,278700 https://www.chronline.com/stories/woman-paralyzed-in-toledo-...

MPSimmons 3y ago

Scrappy is overcoming adversity by improvising and solving the problem with what you have. This would have been a scrappy solution for a sub in a pool where there was a chance for help. You don't take paying customers on a scrappy sub to the bottom of the ocean.

mcpherrinm 3y ago

I am not a mechanical engineer, so you're right, I wouldn't design a better submarine. Peers in the industry though have expressed concerns, such as in this 2018 letter: > 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... Or when they fired and sued their director of marine operations who raised safety concerns: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23854184-oceangate-v-david-lochridge https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23854184-oceangate-v...

proggy 3y ago
It’s a relief to see that the Marine Technology Society saw this coming 6 years ago, and did what they could to encourage OceanGate to do the right thing. There are inherent, known risks with deep sea exploration and firms need to be held to a minimum standard of safety out of a basic respect for human life. Being a scrappy startup isn’t a valid excuse for cutting corners when it comes to engineering and qualification of a pressure vessel and its essential components. I really hope that the foresight of the MTS is recognized amongst the general public, and the DSV space doesn’t suffer a setback in perception and/or funding. At present, it does seem like the general sentiment is that this specific submersible was built to an incredibly poor standard when compared to, say, the famed Alvin or Deepsea Challenger. I hope that sentiment holds.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]