Titan Terminated at Titanic

[lpm]

Can't help but notice it was 5 men who got inside a DIY submersible that looks to have been made from a hot water cylinder steered by a gameboy controller. There's a reason why women live longer.

[bjn]

That is an arrant bit of sexism.

[lpm]

1) It's been shown by multiple studies that males have riskier behaviours

2) It is sexist to deny there are differences between the sexes

3) You used arrant wrong

[shpalman]

It's an -ism to apply a generalization about a subset of the population to a specific case.

[EACLucifer]

It's an -ism to apply a generalization about a subset of the population to a specific case.

This. It's also deeply insensitive in a case of people missing at sea, even if it is clear they were doing something very reckless and hadn't properly prepared for what they were doing.

[bjn]

What schlappers said.

[Pishwish]

Not going to even bother.


(Hope they get rescued. I was at a lecture given by a guy who is currently on the support boat. Wish I remembered more about the talk.)

[lpm]

It's an -ism to apply a generalization about a subset of the population to a specific case.

All populations are made up of subsets. By definition.

In this specific case the subset was clearly reckless, forming part of the generalisation.

[lpm]

It's an -ism to apply a generalization about a subset of the population to a specific case.

This. It's also deeply insensitive in a case of people missing at sea, even if it is clear they were doing something very reckless and hadn't properly prepared for what they were doing.

It's a bit late for this forum to start with that, given its long standing tendency for Death Pools, celebs dying of Covid, good riddance to the recently deceased threads, and similar insensitivity.

Although I accept you've always spoken strongly against such forum threads, despite your solo exhortations always going in vain.

[Grumble]

The basic shape of submarines is the same for all of them, the simplest vessels for deep sea are just spheres, they can get made bigger by putting a cylinder between hemispheres. This is similar for vessels designed to keep pressure in as well as out, which is why it resembles a hot water cylinder. Can’t think of many things more horrible than an accident in a submarine.

[Pishwish]

Lpm knows this. It's fake argument-from-incredulity. Likewise with the game controller thing, electrically actuated control surfaces or thrusters don't need yokes to move cables or hydraulics. After all, Airbus passenger jets are flown using a joystick, like the ones computer nerds use.

[insignificant]

yeah, the use of a game controller for anything fly-by-wire is irrelevant

I'm not an engineer, but the most hmmm thing about this vehicle for me is the hinged front hemisphere with a lot of fasteners that have to be loosened and tightened to let people in and out and the potential for error every time that happens

I don't think I've seen anything else that dives this deep use a cylinder plus hemispheres design instead of spheres with a pressure sealed top hatch

[El Pollo Diablo]

That's probably because all the other sea-going vessels weren't built on Scrapyard Challenge

[El Pollo Diablo]

I wonder if there's more of a market for this sort of thing - "pay me £250,000 and I'll push you down a hill in a go-kart. Don't worry about that axle, it's only half-broken"

[El Pollo Diablo]

Lpm knows this. It's fake argument-from-incredulity. Likewise with the game controller thing, electrically actuated control surfaces or thrusters don't need yokes to move cables or hydraulics. After all, Airbus passenger jets are flown using a joystick, like the ones computer nerds use.

Men are idiots though

[El Pollo Diablo]

The important debate for me is who should have been on the missing submarine? Hmm, maybe one for the other forum.


Elon Musk, obviously. Goes without saying

[purplehaze]

Has the Bermuda Triangle moved north,
indicating a change
not only in climate
but also in
whether or not
this is a about
rich men shouting a lot.

[monkey]

If I had a Billionaire submarine I'd want to see stuff like weird fish, not the Titanic.

We have boats up here. They still work too.

[tenchboy]

Image of same or similar vehical.
Spoilered cos nsfw
I kid you not
Spoiler:

bzzzzz.png (182.4 KiB) Viewed 778 times

[Fishnut]

I hope that OceanGate will be paying for all this help.

It seems that they had an incident last year where the sub was lost for 5 hours. David Pogue, a journalist who was invited by the company to join them on one of their trips to the Titanic, reports that the sub was lost for 5 hours - they could send short texts but didn't know where it was. There were subsequent discussions about adding some sort of beacon to help find the sub if the situation was repeated but it doesn't seem anything came of it. The company shut off the ship's internet to prevent the news getting out.

Pogue made a report for CBS but downplayed this incident. In his interview with Stockton Rush he says that "it seems like this submersible has some elements of MacGyver-y jerry-riggedness" to which Rush replies "there are some things which you want to be buttoned down... everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you're still going to be safe" (3 min 39).

He reports that the door is closed from the outside with 17 bolts - "there's no other way out" (4 min 39) - they have learned nothing from Apollo 1.

Pogue's dive was abandoned because of equipment failure, and the dive that did go ahead got lost. In the report he said it was lost for 2 1/2 hours rather than the 5 hours he's now said it was. He also says that the sub has no navigation and is directed by text message from the main ship.

The more I read about this company the more hubristic they seem. It feels like it's only been a matter of time until something like this happened and I'm finding it incredibly hard to have any sympathy for the people who have died. They chose to go on a vessel that is "an experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death" according to the waiver Pogue had to sign (2 min 40). They had the power and influence to force high safety standards but they didn't and they've faced the ultimate price.

[TopBadger]

Image of same or similar vehical.
Spoilered cos nsfw
I kid you not
Spoiler:

bzzzzz.png

Not sure what's NSFW about that. Seems that military subs typically don't go much past 900m in depth... so commercial subs are 'it' when it comes to deep sea diving.

It's not looking good. Even if found in the next few hours there needs to be a plan to raise the thing which doesn't sound at all trivial...

[jimbob]

I hope that OceanGate will be paying for all this help.

It seems that they had an incident last year where the sub was lost for 5 hours. David Pogue, a journalist who was invited by the company to join them on one of their trips to the Titanic, reports that the sub was lost for 5 hours - they could send short texts but didn't know where it was. There were subsequent discussions about adding some sort of beacon to help find the sub if the situation was repeated but it doesn't seem anything came of it. The company shut off the ship's internet to prevent the news getting out.

Pogue made a report for CBS but downplayed this incident. In his interview with Stockton Rush he says that "it seems like this submersible has some elements of MacGyver-y jerry-riggedness" to which Rush replies "there are some things which you want to be buttoned down... everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you're still going to be safe" (3 min 39).

He reports that the door is closed from the outside with 17 bolts - "there's no other way out" (4 min 39) - they have learned nothing from Apollo 1.

Pogue's dive was abandoned because of equipment failure, and the dive that did go ahead got lost. In the report he said it was lost for 2 1/2 hours rather than the 5 hours he's now said it was. He also says that the sub has no navigation and is directed by text message from the main ship.

The more I read about this company the more hubristic they seem. It feels like it's only been a matter of time until something like this happened and I'm finding it incredibly hard to have any sympathy for the people who have died. They chose to go on a vessel that is "an experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death" according to the waiver Pogue had to sign (2 min 40). They had the power and influence to force high safety standards but they didn't and they've faced the ultimate price.

Yes, utterly hubristic

[dyqik]

Image of same or similar vehical.
Spoilered cos nsfw
I kid you not
Spoiler:

bzzzzz.png

Not sure what's NSFW about that. Seems that military subs typically don't go much past 900m in depth... so commercial subs are 'it' when it comes to deep sea diving.

This isn't true. Alvin is US government owned and operated - Alvin is a US Navy vessel operated by Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institute. The US Navy has two 1500m capable submarine rescue vehicles, and the Japanese government owns and operates Shinkai 6500. The Chinese government has a couple of deep ocean capable submersibles and bathyscapes.

[Martin Y]

... He also says that the sub has no navigation and is directed by text message from the main ship.

That seems a bit unlikely. The sub could track its own course by inertial navigation. I gather the sub sends a sonar ping every 15 mins but I can't see the surface ship using that to get a more accurate fix on the sub's position than the sub itself has.

[Fishnut]

... He also says that the sub has no navigation and is directed by text message from the main ship.

That seems a bit unlikely. The sub could track its own course by inertial navigation. I gather the sub sends a sonar ping every 15 mins but I can't see the surface ship using that to get a more accurate fix on the sub's position than the sub itself has.

According to this piece by the BBC,

the sub is guided by texts exchanged via a USBL (ultra-short baseline) acoustic system from a team on the surface vessel above.

Onboard, the pilot steers based on these instructions with a reinforced video game controller.