Enough with the Titanic!

[Jimmy Higgins]

5 people have gone missing as a tourist sub has lost communication with the world. The sub was heading to the Titanic which is about 2 miles below where human beings can survive for longer than 2 minutes.

There really isn't much hope. If the boat had an issue and they could surface, presumably there is some tracker on it. But if something bad happened below the water... well, dead idiots. I mean come on. What, Everest has been fucked so much by a bunch of rich people that want to pretend they climbed a tall mountain, that rich people need a new thing. People suffocating to death in a sub waiting in a long line of other submersibles to view the Titanic?! Or are people just itching for the ironic death of being super wealthy and dying as a part of that fact?

Can't we just let the Titanic go?! I can't fathom the idea of more people dying due to the Titanic.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And apparently, this might not have been a surprise? link

And yet, I couldn't help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components. Piloting the craft is run with a video game controller.

Pogue said, "It seems like this submersible has some elements of MacGyver jerry-riggedness. I mean, you're putting construction pipes as ballast."

"I don't know if I'd use that description of it," Rush said. "But, there are certain things that you want to be buttoned down. The pressure vessel is not MacGyver at all, because that's where we worked 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."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, I've seen many references to the sub being rather improvised. And while the pressure hull itself certainly wasn't (you don't get that deep without careful engineering) I seriously question the level of safety systems an improvised vehicle would have. The most important part to me would be that the ballast weight use a fail-safe design, held on with electromagnets only, if the power fails it falls off. And ensure there is less power for the magnet than there is oxygen for the people inside. I've seen too much improvised stuff with no thought paid to fail-safe designs. (And have, once, categorically refused to have anything to do with a system unless it was redesigned to meet my safety standards. The E-stop must be implemented in hardware!)

 

[ZiprHead]

Watching Morning Joe they referenced an old NBC story about this company. The NBC reporter was given a trip by the company and they had to turn back twenty minutes in due to some sort of malfunction.

 

[Ford]

Yeah, I've seen many references to the sub being rather improvised.

I've read a couple of stories about a whistleblower from 2018 basically saying "this is a disaster waiting to happen." Something about the carbon fiber hull not being as robust as advertised.

That NBC reporter probably has a few things to think about.

The report I heard on the way home today said something about these people being "adrenaline junkies" who got a thrill from "the risk." Now, while you'd never get me in this sub due to my aversion to enclosed spaces, I understand the appeal. I've signed a few "if you die, that's the risk you take" waivers to do "extreme" things in my life. Going 4 kilometers down to the bottom of the North Atlantic? And the sub has a Logitech game controller?

Yeah, that's gonna be a no from me, dog...

 

[Tharmas]

Yeah, I've seen many references to the sub being rather improvised. And while the pressure hull itself certainly wasn't (you don't get that deep without careful engineering)

According to "The Guardian" the pressure hull was constructed largely with carbon fiber, which they claim is not well tested in this application. By the time contact was lost the sub would have reached a depth of 3500 meters. Best case, the Titan lost all power and is adrift on the surface somewhere. Worst case - catastrophic failure.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Titanic is 50 times deeper in the ocean than Andrea Doria, and both have claimed lives from subsequent explorers (assuming this new story turns out the way it's shaping up.) In the case of Andrea Doria, it's divers who go into the wreck to retrieve relics and get lost inside her. They continue to chance it, even knowing the history of the wreck. If all are lost on the submersible, it's hard to see how the tourist shuttle business continues.
This, from someone who stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, because it was there and I was there.

 

[Ford]

Yeah, I've seen many references to the sub being rather improvised. And while the pressure hull itself certainly wasn't (you don't get that deep without careful engineering)

According to "The Guardian" the pressure hull was constructed largely with carbon fiber, which they claim is not well tested in this application. By the time contact was lost the sub would have reached a depth of 3500 meters. Best case, the Titan lost all power and is adrift on the surface somewhere. Worst case - catastrophic failure.

I'd argue that worst case would be the sub stuck at the bottom of the ocean running out of oxygen over the next couple days. Catastrophic failure at depth? That would be mercifully quick.

 

[Derec]

5 people have gone missing as a tourist sub has lost communication with the world.

I was wondering how the mothership was communicating with the submersible. Regular radio waves are a no go - maybe ELF (extremely low frequency)? Those require long antennas though.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Stunned Russia isn't blaming Ukraine.

 

[Tharmas]

5 people have gone missing as a tourist sub has lost communication with the world.

I was wondering how the mothership was communicating with the submersible. Regular radio waves are a no go - maybe ELF (extremely low frequency)? Those require long antennas though.

From "The Guardian" article mentioned above:

When the Titan is submerged, communications with the support ship on the surface are conducted over an acoustic link. Crewed submersibles sometimes have two separate systems with independent power supplies: one an acoustic beacon that regularly pings the ship to reveal its location, and another that can carry short text-like messages. This ensures that if the main power supply fails, the beacon keeps working, allowing the surface ship to track the vessel. According to some reports, the Titan did not have an acoustic beacon and had become lost before.

I had no idea how an acoustic beacon works. Here is the Wiki article.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Titanic is 50 times deeper in the ocean than Andrea Doria, and both have claimed lives from subsequent explorers (assuming this new story turns out the way it's shaping up.) In the case of Andrea Doria, it's divers who go into the wreck to retrieve relics and get lost inside her. They continue to chance it, even knowing the history of the wreck. If all are lost on the submersible, it's hard to see how the tourist shuttle business continues.
This, from someone who stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, because it was there and I was there.

NPR had a guy on (who was part of the sea diving biz) worrying that government and bureaucracy would rush in and over regulate as a result of this. I'm thinking that the system didn't regulate itself. It tried to, but it didn't amount to a hill of beans. It sounds like one of the world's experts on ocean related search / discovery will be lost in this accident inevitable tragedy.

 

[Elixir]

Yeah, I've seen many references to the sub being rather improvised. And while the pressure hull itself certainly wasn't (you don't get that deep without careful engineering)

According to "The Guardian" the pressure hull was constructed largely with carbon fiber, which they claim is not well tested in this application. By the time contact was lost the sub would have reached a depth of 3500 meters. Best case, the Titan lost all power and is adrift on the surface somewhere. Worst case - catastrophic failure.

I'd argue that worst case would be the sub stuck at the bottom of the ocean running out of oxygen over the next couple days. Catastrophic failure at depth? That would be mercifully quick.

Nah. The worst would be if it’s bobbing around on the surface, now somewhere hundreds of miles away. Locked in a metal can running out of air AND seasick … every billionaire’s dream, right?

 

[ZiprHead]

I heard the windows were rated for 1100 ft but they're going much deeper.

Yes, a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[Derec]

I had no idea how an acoustic beacon works. Here is the Wiki article.

The article says the sub did not have the locator beacon (very stupid). So, just the acoustic text message system (using the JANUS protocol maybe)? I wonder if that works all the way down. Titanic is at almost 4km depth. Sound waves propagating horizontally is one thing, but going vertically you have to account for layers of different temperature (and thus acoustic impedance) that bounce sound waves back and only transmit a small fraction of incoming sound energy.

 

[Derec]

I heard the windows were rated for 1100 ft but they're going much deeper.

Yes, a disaster waiting to happen.

More than 10x the depth. That means more than 10x the pressure.
How did they ever get the necessary permits (or were there none necessary?)

 

[Derec]

NPR had a guy on (who was part of the sea diving biz) worrying that government and bureaucracy would rush in and over regulate as a result of this. I'm thinking that the system didn't regulate itself. It tried to, but it didn't amount to a hill of beans. It sounds like one of the world's experts on ocean related search / discovery will be lost in this accident inevitable tragedy.

The pendulum swinging too far in the other direction is a real danger with such tragedies (if it turns out to be one). It would not be the 1st (or 1000th) time a government overreacted about something.

 

[Playball40]

Too bad the government doesn't "overreact" about gun deaths.

 

[ZiprHead]

I heard the windows were rated for 1100 ft but they're going much deeper.

Yes, a disaster waiting to happen.

More than 10x the depth. That means more than 10x the pressure.
How did they ever get the necessary permits (or were there none necessary?)

It was probably meters, not feet. I think I misremembered. Sorry.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Report of a debris field being detected in the search area. With the chance of rescue being zilch at this point, a catastrophic disaster is probably the best way to have gone, if going had to happen. They need to investigate, before concluding what the debris field consists of.