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Debris Field Confirmed as Titan
- DrNosferatu 3y agoTime to update those classic Data Science datasets…
- JennaDawn20 3y agoDoes anyone know if they had any “deep-sea” or “submersible” cameras recording the expedition and can recover those cameras/footage to help in knowing what happened?
- pch00 3y agoMassive condolences to the families of those involved :( I wonder, what happens to OceanGate as a company now? They've lost the CEO who I suppose bore the ultimate responsibility but are other executives on the hook here? Would a full investigation look at design decisions, etc.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yabones 3y agoWhat can we learn from this? Don't go in pressure vessels; don't go in confined spaces.
- iancmceachern 3y agoA commercial airplane is a pressure vessel. So is the hot water heater in your house, the espresso machine on your countertop, on and on. I'm going to keep flying, but just not get on any experimental, uncertified craft of any kind, airplanes, submarines, etc. Your comment is akin to saying well, that sub had bolts on it so I'm not going to trust bolts from now on. Really, it's just that the bolt was used incorrectly by a person with less than virtuous intentions.
- methodical 3y agoI mean I think the bigger take away is to not cut corners when operating with such a small margin of error as DSVs. Safe deep-sea exploration is possible, and has been for a long time, in manners such as the DSV Alvin, DSV Limiting Factor, etc., etc. The manner in which the Titan was made and tested indicated a severe lack of safety oversight from OceanGate. As unfortunate as this is, there's the saying that rules are written in blood, and this is yet another case. I doubt there will be many such cavalier attempts at deep sea exploration and tourism in the future as a result, for the better.
- housemusicfan 3y agoThat's a gross oversimplification. There have been multiple vessels that have successfully explored the sea floor. What set them apart was a distinct lack of SV VC-level "move fast and break things" bullshit and utter reckless disregard for safety.
- redroyal 3y agoWas there a legitimate reason to take that risk? What I don’t get is why there is no beacon on this device. That should be law. This search is costing tens of millions and without a beacon they never had a chance. From what I understand of the construction and debris there is a very low order of probability they will be recovered alive. Even if they are found conserving air they can’t extract the module in time. It takes at least 24 hours to build the necessary rig. They knew this going in, so why search at all? I mean they’re lost at sea no matter how you slice it. Apparently while touring at the wreck of others lost at sea which isn’t a rational gamble to risk your life over. I mean they bolted the door from the outside because the pressure was so high surely that was a clue. And if they did survive the impact, five people panicking without air in that confined space can’t have been pretty. What a mess
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sesuximo 3y agoDo airplanes count?
- aflag 3y agoAlso the airplane shell has to endure tension forces, as inside has greater pressure than outside, whereas the sub has to endure pressure. Some materials work well under tension but not pressure and vice-versa.
- yabones 3y agoEh, the pressure gradient is a lot less dramatic in a jet vs. under 3500m of water.
- vkou 3y agoAs Futurama famously said, airplanes are rated for a pressure differential somewhere between zero and 0.7 atmospheres. With the positive pressure being inside the plane. This submersible needed to survive a differential of ~350 atmospheres. With the positive pressure being outside the craft.
- davejohnclark 3y agoClip for anybody who doesn't know the Futurama reference https://youtu.be/O4RLOo6bchU https://youtu.be/O4RLOo6bchU
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- powderpig 3y agoThere are a number of reasons why it might have failed, fatigue, deviation from process/protocol but pressure vessels are well understood and not the problem here.
- vkou 3y agoAre carbon-fiber pressure vessels well understood? I get that there's a lot of armchair quarterbacking from internet material experts here, but this does seem to be an outlier with this particular submarine.
- aflag 3y agoI think their behaviour under pressure is well understood. Not a popular choice for subs, though.
- PepperdineG 3y agoThe issue seems to be hull integrity, namely being able to inspect the hull before it's failing in order to detect issues without risking anyone's life. The only thing they could do with a carbon fiber hill is use an acoustic hull monitoring that only told you that the hull was in the process of failing - so potentially getting no real warning at all. It does you no good finding out your hull is going to implode in 10 seconds when it will take you an hour to get to safety. This is what the ex-OG employee got fired over because he made a stink about how the carbon fiber hull was unsafe for this reason.
- shadowgovt 3y agoThey're well-understood to not be what you want to build a high-pressure submarine out of. They can take the pressure. But they're incredibly expensive to check for defects, and the result of a defect is "sub-second catastrophic failure" instead of any warning of imminent structural degradation.
- slowmovintarget 3y agoThe main cause for the failure seems to be "sheer f-ing hubris," but those could certainly be contributing factors.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- EA-3167 3y agoWhat can we learn? Just because the CEO is on the firing line with you, doesn't make him right, just overly confident. DO hire "50 year old" people with experience, not just kids from university. Don't build your pressure vessel out of materials which are hard to monitor for wear and fatigue. Listen to your experienced employees when they tell you that you've built a death-trap. If you have $250,000 to spend on a short vacation, maybe pick one with better odds of getting home. and finally... ...The media will always stretch out the agony of these stories for as long as it generates clicks.
- BillWyeRex 3y ago[flagged]
- Vecr 3y agoPeople on various websites looked at the people who made and worked on the submersible, I say at least 70% were white or white-ish, probably more for the designers, potentially approaching 100%. There were young men and women though, that's probably the problem.
- meepmorp 3y ago> It may well be that this is another diversity casualty. This take seems a lot like you looking for something to be offended by.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago> The media will always stretch out the agony of these stories for as long as it generates clicks Off topic random thought: the increase in mass shootings and their normalization in the US media means those stories don't get as many clicks as they used to.
- EA-3167 3y agoI suppose any given stimulus becomes routine after enough exposure, so yes I guess to reach the same audience a more novel sort of shock is required.
- ohazi 3y agoCarbon fiber composites are a wet noodle in compression. They're supposed to be used under tension. Hopefully this is the last time anyone tries to make a negative pressure vessel out of carbon fiber.
- elliekelly 3y agoI think it’s more along the lines of “learn from the experiences of others”. It’s my understanding that there are quite a lot of very smart people who have spent decades figuring out how to build these things relatively safely. This company decided to ignore the existing knowledge base entirely because what the industry had learned was expensive and inconvenient for a fledgling tourist company. What’s that analogy about taking down a fence without understanding why someone put it up in the first place?
- salawat 3y agoChesterton's Fence.
- Buttons840 3y agoBeing charitable to those lost, I'm reminded that explorers are courageous and always have some measure of hubris.
- troupo 3y agoThere are exactly two lessons to learn from this: - safety regulations, especially for high-risk low-margin-of-error endeavours are there for a reason, and we've already learned all these lessons the hard way - the probability of any given billionaire being dumb as rocks is close to 1
- shusaku 3y ago> What can we learn from this? Probably the same lesson we learned last time an ocean vessel named after a Titan went missing in that vicinity
- mattbrewsbytes 3y agoThe outcome everyone knew would happen. I don't understand the desire to go to that depth to see a sunken ship when I presume there is camera footage of it available. You can't get out and do anything, your view is probably pretty crappy given the thickness of any see through material. I see the allure with Everest and the view for your 60 seconds at the top must be impressive and it is a physical feat. But a sunken ship? I don't get it. It would be pretty cool to send down a camera to get footage all around it at various angles and then build an app for a VR headset.
- legitster 3y agoIn a weird way, this is almost relieving. The speculation that they were suffocated and entombed in their own filth somewhere on the ocean as they died slowly seemed so, so much worse.
- rconti 3y agoI mean, unless it imploded after a horrible fire or something.
- joegahona 3y agoJust thinking about that outcome yesterday caused my blood pressure to skyrocket. Dark, cold, cramped, fetid, hungry, thirsty, knowing oxygen is running out.
- Buttons840 3y agoIn that scenario, as long as they could keep CO2 levels down, running out of oxygen isn't so bad (ignoring the other troubles). The human body can't detect a lack of oxygen, you just get tired and light headed and pass out.
- taylodl 3y agoYes, but as you hinted at the human body can detect a rise in CO2 levels and it doesn't take much for things to start getting really uncomfortable and fast. To your point, if you could somehow manage the CO2 levels then you would just peacefully fall asleep and die.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoi understand what you are basing your statement on (a cleaner version would be asphyxiation by breathing an inert gas) but you are very wrong. as a matter of fact people with an impaired amygdala who can't experience fear will panic when forced to breathe co2. also your breathing will get very shallow and cause co2 to accumulate triggering those very receptors you argue will stay silent. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.12350 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.12350
- antisthenes 3y agoNo idea why every single journalist kept forcing the "air remaining" theme. It was far more likely that the sub suffered a catastrophic implosion at the time contact was lost. Glad to see it confirmed, and finally people stop posting the nonsense about air. Shame about the passengers though.
- iancmceachern 3y agoHope
- rsynnott 3y agoWhile this was alway probably the most _likely_ outcome, "shoddy submarine breaks down/gets trapped without actually imploding" was certainly always _possible_. This thing had a lot of potential failure modes.
- Vecr 3y agoYou have to look at the subset of the probability space where anyone is alive and base the rescue attempt off that. There's no reason to do a body recovery in this case, it's not like when a dead SCUBA instructor is blocking up a underwater cave and you want to use the cave again, or if it's easy to get the dead body out. It's not, it's really hard and dangerous. In the Thai cave, it was thought that the probability that at least one or two of the children were still alive was high enough to risk a couple of old divers having a look. In my opinion the Thai SEALs (as well as dumb ideas like sending people in to string up lights and pump water) should not have taken the risks they did, the more people you put in the cave the more likely something will go wrong for one of them. So, after ruling out body recovery, the only plans you have to make include the submersible being intact, hence needing to know how much air was left.
- civilized 3y agoWishful thinking, they were hoping for another Thai cave drama that would drive big engagement.
- jebarker 3y ago> No idea why every single journalist kept forcing the "air remaining" theme. To keep viewers engaged in the search I'd imagine
- methodical 3y agoA few other notes from the USCG statement: - No noises were heard during rescue operation (the implosion likely happened around the time the communication was lost, as opposed to in the days following) - The "banging" noises discussed earlier were unrelated to the submersible.
- baxtr 3y agoI wonder who or what produced those "banging" noises.
- just_steve_h 3y ago[flagged]
- rsynnott 3y agoThere’s a Stewart Lee bit about old people equating health and safety with political correctness. Now on one level, it’s absurd; it’s a comedy bit. But there’s a point there; particularly for those on the extreme right, the very idea of being careful has become somewhat politicised. Some (and it is only some; there’s no _inherent_ requirement to act like this) right-libertarians disregard basic safety principles precisely because they consider them to be a creation of The Other Side. (There's a bit of irony here; Conservatives aren't the conservatives, anymore...)
- dang 3y agoPlease don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar hell. It's predictable and tedious, and usually turns nasty—as happened below. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- peepeepoopoo11 3y ago[flagged]
- p_j_w 3y agoThe EU economy appears perfectly functional to me.
- peepeepoopoo11 3y agoNow let's see the youth unemployment rate.
- hatsunearu 3y agothis "scoffing at safety and regulation" shit being seen as "hip, cool and rebellious" and somehow a desirable trait is actually completely fucking bonkers to me. Careful analysis and engineering to make things as safe as possible and well characterized is incredibly rewarding and satisfying.
- ranting-moth 3y agoHow long can you survive in a 4000 psi water pressure, going suddenly from atmospheric pressure?
- throwuwu 3y agoA tiny fraction of a second while your skull implodes but you’d be unconscious even before that due to the pressure
- EA-3167 3y agoIt's as close to "instantly killed" as anything can be, literally dead before your nerves can communicate a distress signal to the brain.
- on3twothr33 3y agoLess than a millisecond. Water at that pressure could slice steel in half. The heat from the explosion would be equal to that off the sun. It would probably one of the quickest ways to die, frankly.
- krona 3y agoThe air in your lungs presumably becomes extremely hot. I'm not sure how hot. Perhaps you explode instantly before the implosion scatters you a considerable distance.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoI don't think there will be much heating in the lungs--yes, the air is being compressed and heated to extreme temperatures in the process but pressure can only drive a fluid (liquid or gas) to the speed of sound in said fluid. The wall of water is coming much faster than that, it's going to squash you before much of that hot air gets into the lungs.
- beAbU 3y agoI don't think you do. Outside pressure is almost 400x the inside pressure. The implosion must have been very very violent and sudden. Being surrounded by carbon fibre and titantium means all that material and your body is trying occupy the same space. I think it happened fast enough that nobody realized or felt what was happening.
- iso1631 3y agoWas the company insured for the massive cost of the rescue attempt? Do they have enough assets to pay for it?
- postingawayonhn 3y agoI assume any military assets were quite happy to help. It's a good real life exercise.
- activiation 3y agoOf course, they get to have "fun" and don't really pay for it
- chrisbolt 3y agoThe company is bankrupt many times over, surely.
- watwut 3y agoI would be surprised if there was no criminal negligence or something like that in store for them. At least going on by what was published, the company functioned in a way that made it essentially guaranteed that something like this will happen ... while having no real "in case of catastrophe" plans in place.
- anthk 3y agoYou save up on money ignoring safety, next you fire the guy who could had saved your life, and finally you suffer disasters ending your life. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/21/oceangate-employee-warned-of-major-safety-issues-with-titan-sub-in-2018-he-was-soon-fired/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/21/oc... Money addicts, take notes. This is what happens when you put money cartels before real life physics.
- Our_Benefactors 3y agoThis is what I try to impress on anyone who thinks “saving money” on tires is a frugal way of living.
- Terr_ 3y ago> “saving money” on tires I suspect (anecdotally, n=1) that part of the problem comes from what TV/movie tropes have taught people a tire-failure looks like: Typically it's a slow-leak or very controllable effect. Actors have plenty of time to emote over it, the vehicle can be pulled-over to the side of the road without lots of filming-difficulties, and no need to bring in stunt-doubles. (Then that sets the stage for the haunted house or the rural diner-encounter or whatever.) In contrast, dangerous or chaotic tire-failure doesn't get shown as much unless it's an action movie and somebody's using bullets or bombs or robot swords or whatever, things someone with bad tires doesn't expect to happen to them.
- anthk 3y agoOne thing it's being frugal for your personal needs and another one it's firing people because of marketing/fear to shareholders. Specially when the odds of dying are over 90%.