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News Titanic Tours Submersible missing in atlantic ocean

Everyone is going to pretend to be an expert now, and I have no doubt that there is some morbid glee within the community that was doubting him, because you know damn well this guy was told his sub was a coffin, before he ever even tried it out. When he surfaced on any number of successful dives, he likely rubbed it in their faces. Shit, I would.

All in all, I can't blame the guy for wanting to innovate, and who knows? It ultimately failed, but there is probably valuable data that that community can take from this guy's experimentation. Progress on this kind of level, whether it be flight or shit, race cars, is gonna have some casualties along the way.

I would just say that it should never have been opened up to tourists and should've remained an in-house project, until they worked all the kinks out. That's where this guy deserves the flack. I have no problem with people taking a different perspective on things, and risk their own lives to go for it, but leave the normies out of it, until you're 100% sure that it's 99.9% safe.

If it wasn't being run as a commercial touring company, I wouldn't be that critical. In that case I'd even agree with him about nanny state regulations.
Sadly it wasn't only his own life he was willing to risk, despite the fact he obviously had some previous warning of the issue with cyclic fatigue.
Passenger aircraft are tested rigorously to determine the LOV (limit of validity) in pressurisation cycles, whereas there's nothing to indicate they'd done significant pressure testing to determine the LOV of these experimental hulls. From his interviews it sounds like he was relying on the embedded sensors to warn of impending hull failure, but by it's very nature carbon fibre structures tend to fail abruptly and catastrophically. Which I'm sure he knew. I'd say his conduct amounts to criminal negligence if the reports of him downplaying his "experimental and potentially fatal" waiver are true.
His failure to conform with the prototype testing regimes in place, and then operating as a tourism outfit, will actually inhibit future developments in the field as a result of this incident, it's global coverage and the impact on what was an excellent safety record.
 
If it wasn't being run as a commercial touring company, I wouldn't be that critical. In that case I'd even agree with him about nanny state regulations.
Sadly it wasn't only his own life he was willing to risk, despite the fact he obviously had some previous warning of the issue with cyclic fatigue.
Passenger aircraft are tested rigorously to determine the LOV (limit of validity) in pressurisation cycles, whereas there's nothing to indicate they'd done significant pressure testing to determine the LOV of these experimental hulls. From his interviews it sounds like he was relying on the embedded sensors to warn of impending hull failure, but by it's very nature carbon fibre structures tend to fail abruptly and catastrophically. Which I'm sure he knew. I'd say his conduct amounts to criminal negligence if the reports of him downplaying his "experimental and potentially fatal" waiver are true.
His failure to conform with the prototype testing regimes in place, and then operating as a tourism outfit, will actually inhibit future developments in the field as a result of this incident, it's global coverage and the impact on what was an excellent safety record.
well said and I agree I think he was criminally negligent and the families of the dead will, in time, launch large legal suits against the company OceanGate and/or the Estate of Stockton Rush.

I do hope in the end that this results in legal requirements to have commercial submersibles conform to certain standards of certification, testing, redundant systems, and have key equipment installed under international law. As James Cameron said in numerous recent post-incident interviews (they're worth watching particularly the one with Anderson Cooper), the deep-dive submersible industry had a great safety record with no fatalities until.......this Titan sub failed last Sunday.
 
One more bit of info from Cameron who has now clearly been able to see video from the R.O.V. at the Titan wreckage site :

'If I had to put money down on what the finding will be, the Achilles heel of the sub was the composite cylinder that was the main hull that the people were inside.

'There were two titanium end caps on each end. They are relatively intact on the sea floor.

'But that carbon fiber composite cylinder is now just in very small pieces. It's all rammed into one of the hemispheres. It's pretty clear that's what failed.'


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...s-used-Titan-sub-tried-simply-didnt-work.html


As I expected, the titanium end-caps are intact and were not the failure point and the entire carbon-fiber hull has shattered into tiny pieces and rammed into an titanioum end-cap. Plus I guess fragments of organic matter too.....
I really doubt that they can forensically examine the fragments and find the INITIAL failure point but I'm really not sure about that.
 
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If it wasn't being run as a commercial touring company, I wouldn't be that critical. In that case I'd even agree with him about nanny state regulations.
Sadly it wasn't only his own life he was willing to risk, despite the fact he obviously had some previous warning of the issue with cyclic fatigue.
Passenger aircraft are tested rigorously to determine the LOV (limit of validity) in pressurisation cycles, whereas there's nothing to indicate they'd done significant pressure testing to determine the LOV of these experimental hulls. From his interviews it sounds like he was relying on the embedded sensors to warn of impending hull failure, but by it's very nature carbon fibre structures tend to fail abruptly and catastrophically. Which I'm sure he knew. I'd say his conduct amounts to criminal negligence if the reports of him downplaying his "experimental and potentially fatal" waiver are true.
His failure to conform with the prototype testing regimes in place, and then operating as a tourism outfit, will actually inhibit future developments in the field as a result of this incident, it's global coverage and the impact on what was an excellent safety record.
I hate saying it because he is dead and his family is no doubt suffering, including from all the criticism directed his way, but the guy was just delusional on safety. The fact that he , and his passengers, managed to survive the 5 or so dives they did with the Titan is amazing 'luck'. Also amazing is that high profile competent passengers went on the sub - from the French ex navy guy and seasoned deep diver to former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski and his wife (a planatary scientist) to Hamish, who had already dived to the bottom of Challenger Deep.
 
I hate saying it because he is dead and his family is no doubt suffering, including from all the criticism directed his way, but the guy was just delusional on safety. The fact that he , and his passengers, managed to survive the 5 or so dives they did with the Titan is amazing 'luck'. Also amazing is that high profile competent passengers went on the sub - from the French ex navy guy and seasoned deep diver to former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski and his wife (a planatary scientist) to Hamish, who had already dived to the bottom of Challenger Deep.

We live in a world where you barely think twice about getting on an airplane or taking an elevator to the top of the space needle because it is assumed that things have been tested and certified and that the wisdom of centuries of engineering has been applied to ensure your chances of injury are close enough to zero that you needn't worry.

When some asshole sells seats on a vehicle going down to the Titanic for a quarter million dollars each...it's hard to kick the presumption that the same wisdom has been applied.

This guy deserves everything bad that is going to happen to his name. His family doesn't deserve to suffer...but they were lucky enough to not be on that piece of shit vehicle with him.

In moral and ethical terms Stockton Rush was substantially worse than a drunk driver.
 
I'm no expert. I've had and interest in deep sea diving since seeing television coverage of Piccard and Walsh going to the bottom of the Challenger deep in the Trieste in 1960. I've watched many documentaries on diving on shipwrecks including one on how Ballard found the Titanic as well as dives on other major shipwrecks. I've never wanted to do it myself.

Just from the limited knowledge I have, I assumed they were dead when I heard the first report of the missing sub. Then I heard the reporter who was on the dive in the same sub previously who I think said they lost contact for a couple of hours so I thought it might have suffered a communication problem. That might be why the topside crew didn't report it missing sooner.
Ok what is the challenger? Is it a space ship that crashed?
 
Ok what is the challenger? Is it a space ship that crashed?

Challenger Deep is just the name for the deepest point in the Mariana Trench. The old ship way back in the day that was used to discover / measure the area was called the Challenger...hence the name for the actual spot.
 
Ok what is the challenger? Is it a space ship that crashed?
There was a space shuttle named Challenger that did break apart and explode but as others have mentioned in this instance its a reference to the Mariana Trench.
 
We live in a world where you barely think twice about getting on an airplane or taking an elevator to the top of the space needle because it is assumed that things have been tested and certified and that the wisdom of centuries of engineering has been applied to ensure your chances of injury are close enough to zero that you needn't worry.

When some asshole sells seats on a vehicle going down to the Titanic for a quarter million dollars each...it's hard to kick the presumption that the same wisdom has been applied.

This guy deserves everything bad that is going to happen to his name. His family doesn't deserve to suffer...but they were lucky enough to not be on that piece of shit vehicle with him.

In moral and ethical terms Stockton Rush was substantially worse than a drunk driver.



This is kind of how I feel too. All the people trying to excuse the negligence in the name of ‘exploration’ are ignoring the fact that this dude threw all that out the window when he ignored the already known variables that were dangerous about his dives.


That doesn’t make him an explorer -it makes him an idiot. True exploration deals with the unknown, what got this guy and those onboard killed was what was already known, and alarms already sounded off on. Just pure negligent stupidity on his part.
 
This is kind of how I feel too. All the people trying to excuse the negligence in the name of ‘exploration’ are ignoring the fact that this dude threw all that out the window when he ignored the already known variables that were dangerous about his dives.


That doesn’t make him an explorer -it makes him an idiot. True exploration deals with the unknown, what got this guy and those onboard killed was what was already known, and alarms already sounded off on. Just pure negligent stupidity on his part.


He was cutting corners to make money.


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This guy is a total cunt.

It is a little amazing that he was able to put together a vessel that did make a journey a few times. Part of me wonders if you could have an industry of disposable carbon fiber subs that only are sent on a few journeys. At 250k a person, I think you could cover the cost of a <$1,000,000 very quickly.
 
It is a little amazing that he was able to put together a vessel that did make a journey a few times. Part of me wonders if you could have an industry of disposable carbon fiber subs that only are sent on a few journeys. At 250k a person, I think you could cover the cost of a <$1,000,000 very quickly.

I don't think you could have such an industry in the long run. You would probably be subjected to massive punitive damages every time one of these fails...and possibly some manner of negligent homicide or manslaughter charges as well.

I mean...imagine passenger jets that fail mid-air and nosedive on average every tenth flight and kill everyone. So you only sell tickets on them for five or six flights before retiring them. But they still sometimes crash on the fourth, fifth and sixth flight.

Not to mention...who is ever going to get on a carbon fiber deep sea sub for the rest of human history after this...
 
I don't think you could have such an industry in the long run. You would probably be subjected to massive punitive damages every time one of these fails...and possibly some manner of negligent homicide or manslaughter charges as well.

I mean...imagine passenger jets that fail mid-air and nosedive on average every tenth flight and kill everyone. So you only sell tickets on them for five or six flights before retiring them. But they still sometimes crash on the fourth, fifth and sixth flight.

Not to mention...who is ever going to get on a carbon fiber deep sea sub for the rest of human history after this...

No. I am stating that you dispose of the sub after one or two dives. This is assuming that the failure mode is just fatigue, which it likely is. Airplanes get scrapped because of so many cyclings of the frame expanding and contracting due to the internal pressure of the cabin being different. I very easily could imagine disposable something. I strong suspect it get to be extremely expensive to build metal deep subs that have that much room. Titanium would be tremendously expensive but the perk with it is that it can flex a lot without fatiguing.
 
He was cutting corners to make money.


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"serious personal insult" -- the fucking arrogance of that man (now a DEAD man) is remarkable.
Basically as far as i've read almost EVERYONE said "this is a mistake you're gonna kill people" and Mr Fucktard Rush took at as "you don't want me to succeed, you're afraid of the competition".

It's almost a shame that Rush didnt live so he could be PROSECUTED and lose every penny he has and ADMIT he fucked up and his design was a death-trap. I hope OceanGate is litigated out of existence and issues in time a formal written apology and ADMIT it's negligent homicide.
 
"serious personal insult" -- the fucking arrogance of that man (now a DEAD man) is remarkable.
Basically as far as i've read almost EVERYONE said "this is a mistake you're gonna kill people" and Mr Fucktard Rush took at as "you don't want me to succeed, you're afraid of the competition".

It's almost a shame that Rush didnt live so he could be PROSECUTED and lose every penny he has and ADMIT he fucked up and his design was a death-trap. I hope OceanGate is litigated out of existence and issues in time a formal written apology and ADMIT it's negligent homicide.

It's a shame he couldn't have just died down there alone and taken his business model with him. Instead some kid paid him a quarter million dollars to die with him...not to mention everyone else on board.
 
It is a little amazing that he was able to put together a vessel that did make a journey a few times. Part of me wonders if you could have an industry of disposable carbon fiber subs that only are sent on a few journeys. At 250k a person, I think you could cover the cost of a <$1,000,000 very quickly.
Don't think many people, especially rich people, will want to go soo deep in a disposable vehicle.
 
I heard this on one of the news or commentary videos on YouTube: the name "OceanGate" is just a bad name, because the suffix "Gate" is associated with controversy.

When I hear something something "gate" I think of Watergate, like everyone else, but I also think of the Heaven's Gate suicide cult.
 
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