[HN Gopher] Missing Titanic Sub Faced Lawsuit over Depths It Cou...
___________________________________________________________________
Missing Titanic Sub Faced Lawsuit over Depths It Could Safely
Travel To
Author : danso
Score : 155 points
Date : 2023-06-20 19:46 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newrepublic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newrepublic.com)
| 42365767567 wrote:
| Well at least the evidence is at the bottom of the ocean
| glimshe wrote:
| Safety margins exist for a reason in Engineering. Lots of times
| you can just work dangerously and nothing is going to happen; the
| people pushing for using machines operating at the edge of the
| breaking point are seen as "aggressive", "daring" and "true
| leaders".
|
| But from time to time, things DO break and that's why these
| safety measures exist to begin with. They exist for dealing with
| the unknown, with the things that can't be directly measured like
| random imperfections or variations in the operating conditions.
|
| I hope that the company, and its owners/executives, that got away
| for so long with operating unsafe machinery are exemplarily
| punished.
| folugna37 wrote:
| After looking at the photos of the submarine that's missing, I
| have no clue how people who are as rich and successful as the
| ones who were on board could pay such insane amounts of money to
| board that tiny tin-can of a submarine and go 12,500 feet under
| the sea without having a sense of, "You know what? This probably
| isn't the greatest idea ever. I probably shouldn't do this." It
| boggles my mind.
| carbine wrote:
| Sincere question: if this did in fact implode (hopefully not),
| would there be identifiable wreckage? Would we be likely to find
| it? And how likely is it that the Navy or some other group picked
| up the audio of the implosion via hydrophone, etc?
|
| I'm trying to understand whether [1] they've heard a possible
| implosion and are proceeding with search and rescue against all
| hope; [2] they haven't heard one, and think that's indicative
| that it's still intact; or [3] they haven't heard one and aren't
| sure either way.
|
| Thank you.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Even if it would be intact and somehow floating at 3000 meters
| it would be probably very hard to find it. Just think about
| submarine warfare, even the big military ones can be pretty
| stealthy.
|
| And this is a small submarine mostly made of carbon fiber.
| Thats probably even hard to distinguish from a big fish with
| sonar. And if this thing is on the ground then sonar doesnt
| help.
|
| I think if this thing has no ping device on board (to make
| active sound), then they probably never find it. Assuming its
| still under water of course.
| ak_111 wrote:
| With the company's president as one of the passengers this is a
| rare example where "skin in the game" didn't offer much insurance
| (or assurance).
|
| edit: Actually it seems the person responsible for saftey wasn't
| on board (he got fired) and you can claim his skin was much more
| important to be in the game if you were looking for assurance
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| Yeah. Some times the guy at the top puts others in danger
| because he doesn't care. Other times, because he doesn't know
| any better.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| And sometimes taking a calculated risk goes badly the way you
| knew was possible.
| mjb wrote:
| Is it a rare example, though?
|
| Taleb and others spread this idea that "skin in the game" is
| some kind of magical anecdote to faulty thinking, incomplete
| risk analysis, incorrect application of heuristics, and other
| things. That just doesn't seem true. Lots of people do risky
| things every day based on social proof, or familiarity, or
| commitment, or scarcity, or many of the other risk-perception-
| altering heuristics that govern our lives. We do it when we
| drive, when we drink, when we ski, and in all kinds of other
| occasions. "Skin in the game" seems like an extremely faulty
| heuristic in its own way, with little evidence to support a
| strong assurance effect.
|
| Conversely, I know lots of people who take risks themselves
| who'd never recommend the same risks to others (especially
| outdoor and motor sports enthusiasts). That's the opposite of
| Taleb's hypothesis.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Skin in the game is neither magical or infallible, and
| nothing is. It is the greatest display of trust/confidence
| that we have. We can't have perfect, so this is what we have.
| ericd wrote:
| Thanks, you said it better than I could have. I feel like
| engineers frequently get stuck in this "perfect or
| worthless" mindset. Putting your life on the line is a hell
| of an incentive.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I doubt anyone serious has claimed is a magical antidote to
| faulty thinking.
|
| It does provide strong incentives, which you should trust a
| lot more than words.
|
| Your point that some people are daredevils who don't care too
| much about personal risk is interesting though. Hadn't
| thought about that.
| mjb wrote:
| They aren't just daredevils, though. Check out "Heuristic
| Traps in Recreational Avalanche Accidents" http://www.sunro
| ckice.com/docs/Heuristic%20traps%20IM%202004... for one
| interesting example: a lot of these people would think of
| themselves as cautious and informed, and still fall prey to
| heuristic traps (and, many explicitly don't recommend their
| sport to others, who they believe may not be informed
| enough to apply the same cautions).
| natdempk wrote:
| I thought that "skin in the game" just means that you feel
| the consequences of your actions, and are (maybe) forced to
| learn as a result. I think that doesn't work well for single
| catastrophic events as you describe because single mistakes
| are deadly/ruinous/etc. IIRC Taleb is focused more on the
| field of managing risk for shared-decision-making and
| aligning incentives, but none of that rules out total failure
| etc, it just means that everyone bears the consequences.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| They are different failures, we should not be surprised.
| After all we are not surprised when a man with a parachute
| drowns.
|
| It's just that we have better categorisation of physical
| failures than psychological ones.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Taleb and others spread this idea that "skin in the game"
| is some kind of magical anecdote
|
| "some kind of magical anecdote" [sic. You mean "antidote"]
|
| I don't think you've even read the book, or you wouldn't say
| something so devoid of logic. "I know lots of people who take
| risks themselves who'd never recommend the same risks to
| others" is a non sequitur.
|
| > "Skin in the game" seems like an extremely faulty heuristic
| in its own way, with little evidence to support a strong
| assurance effect.
|
| The entire book is full of evidence from history.
| mjb wrote:
| I did mean "antidote", thanks for the correction.
|
| I did read the book, although that was around the time it
| came out and my memory may be faulty. I remember not being
| particularly impressed with the level of evidence
| presented, and the care taken to present that evidence
| accurately.
| bambax wrote:
| Didn't know about the Taleb part, but you're obviously right.
| Just because someone has "skin in the game" doesn't tell us
| anything.
|
| We need to know more about said someone, their risk aversion
| profile and history, and what part of their area of expertise
| matches the "game" -- if any.
| ak_111 wrote:
| "Rare" might be a strong word, but I would have order of
| magnitude more confidence living in an apartment if I know
| the head engineer who supervised its construction lives in
| the top floor. Or I would feel 10x more confident in an
| investment if I know its seller has a significant amount of
| his net worth invested in it. It is a very natural heuristic
| and has a long history.
|
| Where it mostly fails is incompetence, some might have the
| best intention of something succeeding but their best effort
| is still not worth much.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _but I would have order of magnitude more confidence
| living in an apartment if I know the head engineer who
| supervised its construction lives in the top floor_
|
| I absolutely do _not_. Pretty much all of the risky
| decisions I see people make, they seem to be self-harming
| just as often as they harm others.
|
| To me whether the engineer lives in his own building
| doesn't tell me anything, because a guy who cuts corners
| does it because he thinks _it 's safe_ to cut corners.
|
| What I want to know is, is the engineer's personality risk-
| seeking or risk-averse? Are they the kind of person who
| does things by the book or is always looking to cut
| corners? Do they value a job well done or do they value
| speed? _These_ are the things that matter, _not_ their
| personal tolerance for risk.
| potatolicious wrote:
| Exactly. The notion that skin in the game decreases risky
| behavior assumes that everyone is perfectly rational,
| which is demonstrably untrue. It's a classic "spherical
| cow" modeling of human behavior.
|
| Overconfidence, hubris, obsession, laziness, envy, spite,
| and a nearly-infinite list of other "irrational"
| behaviors are a function of human existence _and_ would
| cause someone to take stupid risks with both themselves
| and others!
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Seemingly, "skin in the game" is only assurance against
| getting scammed, not incompetence.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And specifically only protective against getting scammed
| by someone who does not believe their own bullshit, which
| isn't always the case.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| There is also a big "grey zone" where people will do a
| good job when evaluating security for others, but a
| _really_ good job with their own security.
|
| You could think of this as avoiding "a scam", but there
| is no conscious intention involved.
| bombcar wrote:
| It fights against _one kind_ of incompetence (direct and
| deliberate fraud) but it doesn 't remove a bunch of other
| types. Many people will happily live in a deathtrap because
| they don't really think anything will happen to them.
| MrJohz wrote:
| I don't doubt you would have more confidence, but human
| estimations of risk tend to be very poor. So it would still
| be useful to see whether that sort of belief holds true:
| that is, whether people who "have skin in the game" really
| do take fewer risks.
|
| And even if that were the case, it's still quite a complex
| calculation to make. Let's say there are two architects
| building a tower block with the knowledge that they will be
| living in the top floor when it's built. One of them has
| little appetite for risk and builds their skyscraper very
| safely, without any real deviation from classic proven
| standards. Meanwhile, the other architect is much more open
| to risk and designs their skyscraper using brand new ideas
| and techniques. Both of them are equally happy to stay in
| the top floors of their buildings, but are the two
| buildings equally safe and risk free?
| falcor84 wrote:
| I'm unclear on what your argument is - of course if you
| have additional information about the architects, you
| should consider it. But if you don't have any other
| information, all other things being equal, it would be
| rational to strongly prefer to live in a building where
| the architect is willing to live. Of course, if possible,
| you should choose the place where the structural engineer
| lives.
| mandevil wrote:
| Evidence from the US mortgages before the Financial Crisis
| doesn't seem to support this. Middle managers at
| Countrywide (etc.) played even more games with their
| mortgages than normal people, interest-only up the wazoo
| etc. to get themselves into even nicer houses than they
| could afford, because they thought that they understood how
| the mortgage system worked.
|
| The problem is that old line from Upton Sinclair about how
| it was "difficult get a man to understand something when
| his salary depends on not understanding it." The engineers,
| investment people, mortgage people etc. are motivated to
| believe that what they are doing is sufficient. This is
| supposed to be why disinterested government regulators-
| people whose pay does not change on whether this building,
| investment, submarine, mortgage etc. is safe- jump in and
| actually approve things. But, of course, government
| regulators are silly and just slow things down, because
| they don't understand how our new system uses
| computers/crypto/AI/whatever to be just as safe.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| I think these people are more likely to be habituated to
| any risk than people who are forced to keep a professional
| distance and imagine what might happen with less personal
| experience.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _According to the court documents, in a 2018 case, OceanGate
| employee David Lochridge, a submersible pilot, voiced concerns
| about the safety of the sub._
|
| 2018; this would make it the previous model, no? Not the same
| submarine that went missing. At least that's the impression I get
| from this article (2020):
| https://www.geekwire.com/2020/oceangate-raises-18m-build-big...
|
| > _" That meant the Titanic trips -- which had been planned at
| first for 2018, then 2019, then 2020 -- had to be put off until
| mid-2021. By that time, Rush expects the new submersibles to be
| ready to enter service."_
|
| It's my impression that one of those "new submersibles" is the
| one that's lost.
| eigenspace wrote:
| The article talks about how this was to do with their 1/3 scale
| model. I guess the relevant question then is if the "new model"
| is just the old 1/3 model scaled up, or if there are important
| differences. Are they still using a viewport that's not
| certified for the depths they're reaching? Are they still using
| flammable materials? Are there still parts in danger of de-
| laminating? Do they still have a culture and pattern of
| covering up and lying about safety?
|
| If there were relevant changes to the new model other than
| scaling it up, it'd need to go through a much lengthier
| certification and testing phase.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I was also curious about the timeline of this. I'm waiting for
| that one geeky blog post that integrates all the facts.
|
| I'm particularly interested in an educated perspective on their
| choice in materials. I'm familiar with carbon fibre from bike
| frame building, and the common tricks/practices to try and look
| for fissures, find voids/delaminations, etc. after a crash, and
| it's such a complex subject and material. I wonder who
| manufactured this vessel and what the quality of their
| facilities, tools, processes was.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| I expect there will be a lot of books documenting every angle
| of this incident, if for no other reason than because of the
| Titanic connection. I'm looking forward to reading the whole
| story on how this incident happened.
| c00lio wrote:
| My educated (a little bit of engineering at uni) perspective
| is: Completely idiotic to build a submarine out of carbon and
| not have the means for a complete inspection for
| manufacturing defects as the original article suggests.
|
| Carbon, as you correctly note, needs to be very homogeneous.
| Bubbles, lamination defects or -god beware- fissures lead to
| failure, of the sudden, unannounced and total kind. And not
| only is it necessary to check after production, but also
| after regular short intervals of use, because a mere scratch
| in the carbon can be fatal.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I wonder if the NTSB will do a report on this.
| jvm___ wrote:
| It's also the only planned trip for the company this year due
| to weather. So the sub has sat for a period of time before
| being put in use.
|
| Do you think they do extensive trial runs first at the
| beginning of each season? Like send it to the bottom un-
| manned just to double check?
|
| As my former boss liked to say "Things that aren't tested
| don't work."
| aredox wrote:
| Even if that is the case, the ethos of the company was to
| dismiss safety concerns, use inappropriate hardware, stonewall
| and then fire the only person who cared.
|
| People died. I do hope the CEO isn't one of them, because he
| needs to be thrown in front of a court. Same with the other
| senior executives and HR.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| no one died yet...
| CydeWeys wrote:
| They could all easily already be dead. We simply don't
| know.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| If indeed that viewport collapsed at 4000m as the article
| suggests, they probably didn't even have time to realize
| they were dying.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| The article says they were going for 4000m, but it was
| only rated for 1300m.
|
| That would imply a collapsing somewhere between the two.
|
| Also, would the body, being mostly made of water itself,
| really get crushed instantly? I would certainly expect
| the pressure to squeeze all the air out of your lungs.
|
| I know nothing about how the body behaves under high
| pressure.
| kadoban wrote:
| I looked up a depth to pressure calculator, at even
| 1300m, the pressure is 1892.67 psi.
|
| "psi" is pounds per square inch, and a human has ballpark
| 3000 square inches of surface area.
|
| So to get a (very) rough approximation, picture what
| would happen if you squeezed a human with 3000*1892
| pounds of force. Or try not to picture it, because I
| imagine it being pretty gross.
| flangola7 wrote:
| MythBusters did this with a realistic (pig?) manikin.
| Pretty gross, yes.
| [deleted]
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'm Hollywooding it here, but I bet it develops crack
| lines before collapsing. Most things in nature fail
| slowly, then all at once - think of standing on an iced-
| over puddle or pulling tree limbs.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I think 400 atmospheres of pressure change the dynamics a
| lot here.
|
| Perhaps there might be a hairline crack that makes a
| window shatter when it's hit with a hammer. Except the
| hammer impact is constant. I don't think there would have
| been a lot of time.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't mean that it had a crack in it, but that it
| developed one as a precursor to total failure. My
| experience of physical materials is that they almost
| never just atomize, rather there's a weakpoint from which
| the failure cascades. I'm envisioning a process that
| might only last a few seconds, or be measurable in
| milliseconds.
| Ruthalas wrote:
| This is likely less the case when the pressure
| differential is ~480 bar.
|
| Failure is going to occur on the order of fractions of a
| second at those huge pressures. (Fortunately?)
|
| Here's a pressure vessel failing at only 1 bar:
|
| https://youtu.be/Zz95_VvTxZM
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Agreed on the likely short timescale. I am imagining
| having just enough time to think 'something's not
| right...' Musicians are sensitive to latencies on the
| order of 10-20 milliseconds; I doubt there was time for a
| conversation about it.
| euroderf wrote:
| Relatively, exceedingly merciful.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| How long would it take to get down to 4000m though, didnt
| they lose contact like 1 hour in?
| methodical wrote:
| The ascent and descent to Titanic is about 2 hours one-
| way. The exact time they say they lost contact was after
| around 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was likely at or close
| to at the depth of Titanic.
| c00lio wrote:
| Oxygen is just about running out in the next few hours,
| they don't seem to have had any sonar contact, no cable or
| underwater phone. Getting something like a DSRV (which
| wouldn't really help if they are at ground level there,
| because it cannot dive that deep) there will take at least
| a day. Even if they are still alive, their chances of
| rescue are nonexistent.
| jacurtis wrote:
| Yeah at this point, it seems that catastrophe struck 90
| mins or so into the dive. That is when contact was lost.
|
| They were early enough into the dive that they would have
| abandoned the dive after losing contact, they would have
| only been about halfway to the bottom, and they still
| would need communication to even find the titanic. So if
| they lost contact, the mission would have been aborted
| inside the sub, because they wouldn't have any hope of
| completing the mission without the aid of the surface
| vessel.
|
| There are several emergency surfacing options available
| on the sub in addition to the primary propulsion method.
| If the sub lost contact, it would have surfaced. That is
| what happened in several other missions this company has
| made where communication was lost.
|
| So the fact that communication was lost and no attempt to
| surface was made, suggests that there was a catastrophic
| failure. At the pressure they were at, the smallest leak
| would lead to immediate implosion. The most likely
| scenario is that they experienced a crack or defect in
| the hull that lead to implosion. It was likely over
| before anyone onboard even was aware of a problem (or
| within seconds of it).
| TimothyBJacobs wrote:
| > Oxygen is just about running out in the next few hours,
|
| Official reports have been saying 40 hours a few hours
| ago.
| jacurtis wrote:
| Yes there were oxygen scrubbers on-board that had an
| estimated endurance to provide clean air for about 5 days
| for 5 people.
|
| It has come out that it is wildly untested and optimistic
| estimate. The longest mission they had conducted onboard
| was 12 hours. So the theoretical limit may not be
| realistic. If there was panic onboard, that would
| increase oxygen usage dramatically, which could cut as
| much as 25% off the estimate (which is nearly a day in
| this case).
|
| In other words... it is grim.
| jvm___ wrote:
| The best 'find things on the bottom of the ocean' gear is
| usually on a ship somewhere, but just happens to be in-
| between ships, but is on the Jersey islands in the
| English Channel. Except it still needs a military cargo
| plane to retrieve it, deliver it to Newfoundland and be
| moved by ship on location.
|
| Time isn't on their side.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Well, it's schrodinger's submersible at this point.
| civilitty wrote:
| Talk about a collapsing wave function! (Or don't)
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| If the viewing window collapsed then they would have been
| pretty much instantly compressed to a paste.
| jacurtis wrote:
| Yeah, everyone calculating oxygen rates is a nice
| optimistic view on the situation.
|
| I think occams razor suggests that they experienced a
| breach or defect in the viewing window (or possibly the
| hull).
|
| At the pressures they were at, it would have been over
| for them, before they ever even knew there was a problem.
| The pressures are so great, that they would have
| assimilated into the water instantly.
|
| For what its worth, as sad as that sounds, it is possibly
| a better fate than the alternative of suffocating to
| death for 4 days in complete darkness (which is exactly
| what happened to 23 crew members aboard the Kursk russian
| sub back in 2000 [1])
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster
| eterm wrote:
| That may be true but it still speaks to the company culture.
| cpleppert wrote:
| They don't advertise any of their "new submersibles" on the
| website and the specifications they claim for Titan don't match
| any of their new submersibles; Titan is rated to go to the
| Titanic and not any lower. Titan isn't a previous version
| either. Unless they shelved the first Titan they probably just
| added some strengthening and called it a day.
|
| I'm blown away that for a sub of that size and shape they used
| carbon fiber. The sub is positively gigantic and a cylinder is
| very susceptible to failure after repeated cycles. I'm pretty
| sure the claims they made about working with NASA and having a
| system to monitor the structural integrity of the sub are just
| BS.
| idop wrote:
| This doesn't tell us whether new submersibles were ever built.
| disillusioned wrote:
| They lost contact right around 1:30-1:45 into the dive, which
| takes about 2 hours to reach final depth... while it's possible
| they lost power or controls, the idea that we're going to find
| them bobbing around somewhere instead of basically right next to
| the Titanic wreck itself on the seafloor seems laughable. It
| feels like the most likely failure mode has to do with the
| viewport, considering some earlier duty cycle trepidation and the
| linked concerns about the viewport's certifiable depths.
|
| Would love to be wrong, but I think we're going to find a
| crushed/mangled carbon fiber tin can sitting alongside the wreck
| when we finally get an unmanned submersible down there that can
| look for them.
| bambax wrote:
| > _the idea that we 're going to find them bobbing around
| somewhere_
|
| It wouldn't actually make any difference, because the only way
| out of that thing is to unscrew 17 heavy duty bolts _from the
| outside_.
|
| If they're floating around somewhere that doesn't make them
| safe; they're just suffocating at the surface instead of on the
| sea floor.
|
| Also, the claimed 96 hours of "life support" was never properly
| tested, and there's no evidence the vessel was able to properly
| extract toxic gasses from its atmosphere, etc.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" Lochridge, who claimed he was discharged in retaliation for
| being a whistleblower, made his filing after OceanGate sued him
| in federal court in Seattle that June. OceanGate has accused him
| of sharing confidential information with two individuals, as well
| as with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
| (OSHA)."_
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/20/a-whistleblower-raised-saf...
|
| I didn't know "sharing confidential information with OSHA" could
| be a valid (?) cause of action.
| stevecalifornia wrote:
| Does this thing have a tether to the surface or not? I would be
| blown away if it didn't have a tether, but that seems to be the
| case.
| Max-q wrote:
| It doesn't have a tether.
| cududa wrote:
| They're going 4,000 meters/ 2.5 miles under the sea. Roughly
| 400 atmospheres of pressure. A quick google shows the longest
| commercial tether is 1,100 meters and is meant for undersea
| drones for power/ data.
|
| Aside from the massive tether and engine that would need to
| pull it, I'd imagine it would rip the submersible to shreds at
| those depths
| interroboink wrote:
| Just as another data point, the Nereus[1] explored the
| Mariana Trench at nearly 11km depth, and had a comms tether
| (very thin optical fiber). According to the wiki, its tether
| was 40km in length total. So, it's not out of the question, I
| don't think.
|
| No good for pulling it to the surface, of course, but
| reliable communication alone would be a great benefit.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nereus_(underwater_vehicle)
| esprehn wrote:
| The tether is not connected directly, it's connected to a TMS
| that then has a smaller cable connected to the submersible.
|
| Ex.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-image-of-a-
| wor...
|
| https://f-e-t.com/subsea/vehicles/tether-management-systems/
|
| There's also this one which looks like it can get to the
| depths of the Titanic:
|
| https://nautiluslive.org/tech/rov-argus
|
| So it was certainly possible to do this with a tether, but it
| would have been much more expensive.
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| The Jason ROV has a six mile tether:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_(ROV)
|
| And the Titanic was discovered by camera sled being towed by
| a ship.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(ROV)
|
| So your search might have been a bit too quick. It certainly
| is possible possible to build a tethered crewed submersible,
| though this vehicle wasn't.
|
| Credit to js2 from this comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36396161
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It did not.
| pezdeath wrote:
| How big of a ship would you need to even hold that tether?
|
| At 4000m under the ocean, you'd need like 10000m of cabling at
| a minimum I'd assume? And then you'd need the tether + winch to
| be capable of supporting and lifting the sub at that depth.
|
| I'd be amazed if any country let alone company has that
| capability outside of maybe the US military.
| SirMaster wrote:
| How do they control the unmanned subs that they use to survey
| the Titanic then?
|
| They are not tethered?
| cududa wrote:
| A data link tether and one capable of pulling up a giant
| heavy craft are very very different
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| The vehicle that discovered the titanic was a sled pulled
| behind a ship on a tether. A thick steel cable can take a
| lot of load. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(ROV)
|
| Also, subs operate at close to neutral buoyancy. A tether
| does not need to support the weight of the vehicle, it
| only needs to resist the force of drag that the water
| exerts on the vehicle moving at whatever the max tow /
| lift speed is.
|
| The vehicle that
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Even without a tether, I'm mystified it didn't have an
| attachment that was designed to return to the surface and act
| as a beacon if anything went drastically wrong. Since all it
| would need would be a few sensors, a battery, and an antenna
| one imagines it would be somewhat easier to design than the
| main vessel.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| > Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Depths It
| Could Safely Travel To
|
| I was always told never to end a sentence with a preposition. Is
| that still considered correct grammar? If I was the editor I
| would have rewritten the title to:
|
| > Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Depths To
| Which It Could Safely Travel
|
| Better or worse?
|
| Maybe this one:
|
| > Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Traveling
| To Unsafe Depths
| rcme wrote:
| Ending sentences with prepositions is perfectly fine English.
| According to this source [0], the original idea behind avoiding
| ending sentences with prepositions was conceived by people who
| wanted to align English grammar more closely with Latin
| grammar. Obviously, that's not an attractive selling point to
| many English speakers and sentences frequently end in
| prepositions today.
|
| 0: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-
| play/prepositions-e...
| ghaff wrote:
| Your last example may or may not be accurate. Did it actually
| ever travel to that depth?
|
| "to which" is technically EDIT: better formal English. For a
| headline in mainstream news? I might well give it a pass.
| fn-mote wrote:
| Your last one is close but might imply something slightly
| different.
|
| My suggestion:
|
| Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Safe Travel
| Depth
| rcoveson wrote:
| That's pretty good, but keep in mind that it's a headline.
| Most style guides stipulate alliteration, even at the expense
| of accuracy and specificity. For example:
|
| Sunk Submarine Sued: Design Deadly During Designated Dives
| AlbertCory wrote:
| +1 to that.
|
| Not because of the (non-existent) rule, but because "depth"
| is a stronger word than "to." It's almost always better for
| the last word to have some punch.
| [deleted]
| wizofaus wrote:
| Obligatory Churchill quote ..."This is the type of errant
| pedantry up with which I will not put".
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| But prepositions are not words to end sentences with!
| mkl wrote:
| Not Churchill:
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-
| prepositi...
|
| You likely mean "arrant", too.
| wizofaus wrote:
| I knew as soon as I posted that someone would find proof it
| wasn't Churchill...
| mcpackieh wrote:
| _" Very rarely is a Churchill quote actually a Churchill
| quote."_ - Churchill
| [deleted]
| vlod wrote:
| Not exactly the point you're asking, but pg made a point [0]
| about spelling that I think about:
|
| pg: "11 yo asked why he had to learn spellings. I told him
| honestly that although spelling may not really matter, if he
| couldn't spell, people would think he was stupid. And that was
| sufficiently motivating."
|
| Can I End a Sentence with a Preposition? [1]
|
| Generally you can (as others and the article points out), but I
| would suggest you use it in a very limited manner. I still hear
| my high school teachers frightening chastising voice and it
| stops me doing it. :)
|
| When people realize they can do it (or hear others doing it)
| they tend to overuse it for everything and it can drive those
| around you mad. That's when you get in the territory that pg
| describes IMHO.
|
| One things that makes my skin crawl, is when I hear people
| speaking (loudly) into their mobile (which for some reason
| always seems to be in speaker mode) "Hello? Where you at?".
| /shiver
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1307987891658858502
|
| [1] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/end-sentence-preposition/
| mjhay wrote:
| > That's according to legal documents obtained by The New
| Republic. According to the court documents, in a 2018 case,
| OceanGate employee David Lochridge, a submersible pilot, voiced
| concerns about the safety of the sub. According to a press
| release, Lochridge was director of marine operations at the time,
| "responsible for the safety of all crew and clients."
|
| In this case, being fired was an ideal outcome.
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| He was "responsible for safety of all crew and clients". So, he
| voiced that the sub wasn't safe. He was doing his job. If he
| hadn't been fired maybe he would've been able to enact changes
| to prevent a disaster, so I disagree that being fired was an
| ideal outcome. Being fired is only an ideal outcome if you
| believe that Lochridge wasn't trying to enact change but only
| to avoid liability. I don't see a reason to such cynical view.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Lochridge was also a submersible pilot.
|
| Being fired was an ideal outcome _for Lochridge_ , because
| Lochridge was therefore not piloting the sub this week.
| renewiltord wrote:
| The _ideal_ outcome for Lochridge, I 'm sure would have
| been the sub being modified so that these problems did not
| occur.
|
| I'm pretty sure he does not set the utility of other
| peoples' lives at 0, so their surviving along with him
| would definitely be better.
|
| So this has to be the second-best outcome at best.
| margalabargala wrote:
| That's true.
|
| What outcome is ideal depends on the priors, I suppose.
|
| If the company not listening to Lochridge is a given,
| then being fired is better than not, and having to go
| down on the sub.
|
| The company listening to Lochridge is better than the
| company not listening to Lochridge.
|
| The company putting safety first and engineering
| something that met Lochridge's standards from the outset
| is better than the company listening to Lochridge when he
| brought up problems. And so on.
| EA wrote:
| ...for risk adverse leaders in the company who wanted to
| utilize the system.
|
| This worker likely blew the whistle on the safety assessment of
| the system.
|
| Sometimes, external forces see product to market despite risks:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This is like 20th case of employee warning about fraud and\or
| impeding disaster, and being punished as a result. And employee
| being 100% correct.
|
| See theranos and others. We really need to address this
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Maybe "Safety officer" should not be a position that can be
| let go at any time for any reason, and they should have
| actual, legal authority to do their job.
|
| Otherwise they are more like a safety consultant.
| salawat wrote:
| Safety/Quality Assurance in the U.S. is like legal ablative
| armor for companies. Especially if you're considered a
| C-Level voice at the table; because all that'll happen is
| engineers running to the CTO to override that mean old
| Safety/Quality guy to get override authority.
| euroderf wrote:
| Didn't you get the memo? See: "RE: No Good Deed Goes
| Unpunished".
| [deleted]
| londons_explore wrote:
| Problem is there are far far far more cases of an employee
| reporting irrelevant 'safety' problems just to try to win a
| settlement from a company.
|
| How do you separate the legit concerns from someone
| complaining that they can't go to work because their yellow
| safety vest is slightly dirty and therefore not safe anymore?
| californical wrote:
| Do you have a bunch of examples of employees filing
| concerns with OSHA that ended up being completely false? I
| feel like I've never heard of this
| alach11 wrote:
| To be fair, there's a huge sampling bias issue here.
| We're talking about the submarine whistleblower because
| it made the news headlines. An employee raising concerns
| with OSHA and getting proven false doesn't make the front
| page.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Mature companies definitely go to big lengths to address
| this, usually above and beyond what regulators prescribe as a
| baseline.
|
| All proper engineering companies have integrity and
| compliance processes, whistleblower systems, confidante
| contacts, etc.
|
| It's good business to do this. Fucking up kills people, and
| liability kills companies.
| flangola7 wrote:
| > Mature companies definitely go to big lengths to address
| this, usually above and beyond what regulators prescribe as
| a baseline.
|
| Mature companies develop code to intentionally dodge
| regulations. They're not trustworthy regardless of
| "maturity".
| kingTug wrote:
| > _Lochridge discovered the viewing window on front of sub "was
| only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although
| OceanGate intended to take passengers...to...4,000
| meters...OceanGate refused to pay...to build a viewport that
| would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters."_
|
| Previously unseen levels of "I told you man, I warned you" here.
| coldcode wrote:
| Well built or not (clearly not) you could not pay me enough to
| be bolted into a carbon cylinder going down 4000 meters.
|
| Given the whistle blower this company has no hope of surviving
| any lawsuits, even if the victims (passengers) signed away
| their rights.
| jacurtis wrote:
| The carbon fiber tube is also sealed from the outside by 10
| inch long bolts. There is no way to open it from the inside
| (not that it really matters at 13,000 ft deep), just to add
| to the terror.
|
| Yeah, I'm happy to enjoy the views of Titanic wreckage from
| 4k video footage taken by robot subs, while viewing it in my
| underwear in front of a 70" OLED tv. In a few years I will
| probably be able to don a VR headset and swim around the
| titanic in VR. I'm satisfied with that alternative.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I don't know what a lawsuit would hope to gain - given that
| the CEO and the company's main asset are gone, I doubt
| there's much of a company left to sue.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Thing is... The CEO is aboard the missing submersible. That
| same CEO who presumably wouldn't pay for a proper window...
|
| This wasn't only a case of a CEO putting other lives at risk
| for profits... This was a case of a CEO putting his _own_ life
| on the line for profits he will likely never see...
| pipnonsense wrote:
| I may be wrong here, but I think there is a regulation that
| prevents the owner of an airline from piloting the planes of
| their own airline. It might create a conflict of interest
| between saving money and being cautious.
|
| This is not only a theoretical risk. It happened. A Brazilian
| soccer team, Chapecoense, hired a private airliner to get
| them from Bolivia to Colombia. Due to some bad luck, airport
| closing hours and whatnot, the flight plan had to be changed
| and the plane was fueled below what the regulations required.
| They were getting close to the destination airport when they
| got a low fuel warning. More bad luck and in the airport of
| the destination the flight control asked their flight to wait
| while another plane had priority in landing.
|
| There were alternatives to redirect the flight or request
| priority to land, which they only requested when it was too
| late and the plane crashed due to fuel exhaustion. 71 of 77
| people in the plane died in the crash, including the pilot.
|
| The pilot was also the co-owner of the airline, so there is
| room to speculate that he didn't want to promptly admit to be
| low on fuel and require priority to land, or divert to
| another airport when the low-fuel warning appeared, because
| he would have to admit that he fueled below what the
| regulations asked. He could face the consequences, like a
| fine or losing his license.
|
| I might forgot or misunderstood something, but more details
| here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMia_Flight_2933
| RektBoy wrote:
| Too bad Google or Meta doesn't make subs too.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| CEOs sniff their own abysmally stupid farts all the time.
| When trying to sell something, the first person you have to
| trick is yourself, but that does NOT indemnify them for
| harming others. Getting people killed because you are too
| stupid to understand basic risk concepts shouldn't be
| acceptable.
|
| Power should come with responsibility and accountability
| ESPECIALLY if you are not responsible or accountable.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| It seems like the CEO here did pay the ultimate price of
| responsibility and accountability.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| There's gotta be a middle ground between doing whatever
| with no repercussions and literally dying by your own
| stupidity.
| ornornor wrote:
| > This was a case of a CEO putting his own life on the line
| for profits he will likely never see...
|
| At least he put his money where his mouth was. Or rather
| didn't put his money, but you know what I mean.
| c00lio wrote:
| You mean: He put his ass where his mouth was...?
| jvm___ wrote:
| He put his ass where his money wasn't.
| euroderf wrote:
| I suppose that to be a CEO in that kind of business you
| have to have a faulty understanding of risk.
| aredox wrote:
| He still killed other people, and fired the only guy who
| got it right, denying him revenue and pension and health
| insurance.
| ornornor wrote:
| I didn't mean to say he's a good guy, just that it's one
| step up from others who make others take the risks at no
| cost to themselves. You know, face I win tails you lose
| kind of thing. But yeah, still reckless and
| irresponsible.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Revenues are modest in the submarine sinking business
| [deleted]
| johndhi wrote:
| I'm usually the first to look at how to defend engineers'
| decisions when building something that failed... But it's very
| hard for me to imagine how this can be OK.
|
| had they tested it at lower depths before?
| pbourke wrote:
| It had made several dives to the Titanic in 2022
| hindsightbias wrote:
| It should be left wherever it is as a memorial to hubris, as
| apparenlty the Titanic is not enough for some people.
| bambax wrote:
| Not only is the Titanic not enough, but that thing was named
| after it! It was called "Titan"!
|
| They must have thought Titanic was a diminutive, if they only
| kept the Titan part then they would actually be invincible.
|
| But it wasn't enough to fool fate.
| RajT88 wrote:
| What's wild is there was a book written 14 years before,
| featuring the same basic scenario with almost the same name
| as the ship, the Titan:
|
| https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/novel-predicted-titanic-
| di...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Titan:_Or,_F
| u...
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of ...
| sho_hn wrote:
| To be fair, this is all extremely cynical while we don't
| actually know what happened.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| You're right ... I had to stop myself from asking when
| the movie will be released ... * forgive me, Lord *
| Ambroos wrote:
| Is there any way for this to end (other than sabotage and
| other outlandish options) in which this was not caused by
| a company trying to make money in an extremely unsafe
| way?
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| I'd rather listen to expert opinions on the matter rather
| than software engineers who think they know all. People
| dunk on then using off the shelf equipment but that is
| rather common even for the military.
| sho_hn wrote:
| You may be right in a colloquial sense, but it's an
| engineering forum, you know? If someone dies while
| skydiving you could argue they were doing something
| risky-unsafe and unnecessary and had it coming, too, but
| as an engineer I'd still want to know why the chute
| didn't release, whether it was actually predictable, and
| how to fix it.
|
| This may absolutely make a great tale about hubris one
| day, if we ever find out.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Conversely, if we can't find out (eg the wreck isn't
| located, or is so damaged we can't be sure) then a
| probabilistic assessment is the best we can do. Refusing
| to speculate at all essentially gives a pass to
| predictable failures.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Sure. I wasn't advocating we shouldn't speculate, but
| gloating seems a bit early.
| rurp wrote:
| If it turned out that the failed parachute had a history
| of using and misusing a number of cheap parts that
| weren't up to spec, I'm not sure there would be much of
| interest left to speculate about.
|
| In this case, OceanGate has a well documented history of
| making poor and reckless engineering decisions. The fact
| that things went horribly wrong is probably related to
| one of the many corners they cut.
|
| It will be interesting if/when we get more solid
| information but until then most of the speculation seems
| pretty on point to me.
| Ambroos wrote:
| I agree, but the whole set-up seems to have so many
| massive safety issues that it seems like they were
| relying on pure dumb luck more than anything else.
|
| This feels more like someone went skydiving with a
| homemade parachute in strong winds above an active
| volcano.
| [deleted]
| tpm wrote:
| If neither Titanic nor Titan were invincible, the mighty
| Tit surely will be.
| napsterbr wrote:
| I'll be on board of T!
| [deleted]
| euroderf wrote:
| Big Underwater Monument to Capitalistic Hubris and Small
| Underwater Monument to Capitalistic Hubris
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| What good is it at the sea floor?
|
| It needs to be raised, and placed on Wall Street for all to
| see.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Looks like Hollywood and Clive Cussler beat you to that one
| too
| appleflaxen wrote:
| Can't we seems wall street to them?
| Rapzid wrote:
| 2030 Titanic tours:
|
| Add Titan visit for just 20% more!
| [deleted]
| comeonbro wrote:
| Sub Brief just released his first video on the matter an hour
| ago:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dka29FSZac
| bambax wrote:
| Very informative, thanks!!
| EA-3167 wrote:
| He's one of the best things to come out of the War Zone imo,
| his videos are always informative and to the point.
| [deleted]
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| """ OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a
| viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters.
|
| For reference, the Titanic is estimated to sit on the ocean floor
| at a depth of nearly 13,000 feet. """
|
| I really want to reduce their grade for mixing units. It's
| particular egregious to use different units in a "for reference!"
| rwmj wrote:
| There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw
|
| and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the
| steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this,
| at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic,
| the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to
| compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and made it
| back, but I can see how things could have gone a lot more wrong.
| idop wrote:
| So apparently this OceanGate company is a VC-funded startup or
| some such founded "to make underwater exploration cheaper and
| accessible to private citizens" (Wikipedia quote). Tells me
| everything I need to know about how this all came to be.
| euroderf wrote:
| The next test dive to max depth is reserved for the board of
| directors.
| bleepblop wrote:
| Ah yes, the life insurance scheme.
| klabb3 wrote:
| I don't think this is (was) a money maker at all. There's a
| clip on YouTube where they invited a CBS journalist to join.
| The CEO, to me, seems like a passionate dreamer who
| definitely 100% ate his own dog food (ie took huge personal
| risk). He was onboard this likely final voyage. They didn't
| make any profit, at least back then. It's obviously
| incredibly expensive and near-impossible to scale such an
| operation.
|
| Look, I despise VCs as much as the next guy, but this doesn't
| smell like a typical cynical VC money grab, like at all. To
| me it smells like an ultra-extreme sport. To ordinary people,
| it's extraordinarily stupid, they're certainly in over their
| heads, but nobody casually signs up to go to 4000m depth
| without being well aware of the risks.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| VCs are all about finding someone with a genuine passion
| and pushing enormous expectations of profit onto them.
| klabb3 wrote:
| The enormous profiteering of deep ocean exploration is
| certainly an interesting angle, but I highly doubt it. If
| you want money from that, I think you'd want to be a
| military contractor instead, or consult for offshore oil.
| A $250k "leisure" trip to titanic would be an... unusual
| anniversary gift.
| mysterydip wrote:
| "move fast and break things" may not be the best mantra for
| such an operation.
| soumyadeb wrote:
| "BBC iPlayer only works in the UK. Sorry, it's due to rights
| issues".
| rwmj wrote:
| Yeah I'm sorry about that. Maybe someone could download it
| and host it somewhere (which would be contrary to the
| license, but possibly in the public interest in this case).
| plugin-baby wrote:
| US is no longer part of UK.
| soumyadeb wrote:
| Ha, udpated the comment.
|
| My point was, why would this content be gated.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| lol
| [deleted]
| dekhn wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/licencefee
| lentil_soup wrote:
| Yeah, BBC iPlayer is UK only since it's funded by UK
| residents
| phantom784 wrote:
| Looks like it's licensed to "BBC Select" in the US.
| https://www.bbcselect.com/watch/take-me-to-titanic/
| martin_ wrote:
| Note that the BBC is funded primarily by what's known as a
| "TV License"[0] in the UK - I think it's entirely possible
| they could probably increase ads or something for
| international viewers but understand why it isn't their area
| of focus
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/licencefee
| TillE wrote:
| People - including politicians - have said for many years
| that the BBC should sell iPlayer subscriptions to
| international viewers, but they just...don't. They also
| have a massive archive of beloved content, enough to be a
| first-class streaming platform, but that stuff's not
| available even to UK residents.
| PokemonNoGo wrote:
| Probably because with their current scheme they liscens
| the material for other markets and thus would be in
| violation of these kind of deals? As well as their co-
| funding/producing of foreign material. The question I
| would as as a liscense payer is what they earn through
| this.
|
| Not saying it's not possible but why it is quite the hard
| thing to get out of, and not spend liscens money while
| doing so, makes sense. I would guess someone has made
| these calculations once or twice too.
|
| Pretty sure it's not that they "just don't" though.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _liscens the material for other markets and thus would be
| in violation of these kind of deals?_
|
| Except that the BBC does it all the time.
|
| You can watch lots of BBC content - even current stuff -
| in other countries.
|
| ABC in Australia, and Acorn streaming or PBS OTA in the
| US.
| majjam wrote:
| I believe the bbc provides its shows internationally via
| other channels, for e.g.
| https://www.bbcselect.com/watch/take-me-to-titanic/
| smcin wrote:
| BBC Select is only in US and Canada, not in rest of
| world.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Select_(streaming_servi
| ce)
| OJFord wrote:
| > Note that the BBC is funded primarily by what's known as
| a "TV License"[0] in the UK
|
| Well, as 'TV _Licence_ ', since that's the spelling of the
| noun outside the US ;)
| mkl95 wrote:
| iPlayer is usually VPN-friendly.
| elzbardico wrote:
| If we consider that the deepest submersibles in the US Navy
| "only" went 1.5 km deep (not talking about experimental craft,
| only deployed, actively deployed equipment), I'd be really
| cautious before embarking on this ship.
|
| This was a guy in a Marina nonchalantly going where the fucking
| US Navy, the most powerful navy in the whole history of the world
| doesn't dare to tread.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The US Navy has no need or desire to go deep like that. I'm
| sure they would figure out how to do it if they needed to, but
| it probably would be a ROV and not a little capsule you stuff
| some humans into.
| sho_hn wrote:
| So was this dude:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepsea_Challenger
| JimmyAustin wrote:
| I'd say it's more "doesn't bother to tread" rather than
| "doesn't dare to tread". There probably is not a lot below
| 1.5km that would be of much interest to the US Navy.
| progbits wrote:
| There is a big difference between "doesn't dare to" and "it's
| not practical/useful for warfare".
|
| There have been plenty of submersibles that went much deeper.
| People went down 10km in the 1960s. There is no excuse for the
| incompetence and stupidity of this titanic crew.
| mandevil wrote:
| Okay, so I'm confused. The bathyscape Trieste, paid for by the
| USN, went to the deepest spot in the entire ocean- the
| Challengers Deep of the Mariana's Trench- back in 1960 (it is
| on display at the US Navy Museum in Washington DC). The DSV
| Alvin, also paid for by the USN, visited the Titanic back in
| the 1980's (it is still operational, operated by Woods Hole
| Oceanographic Research Institute under contract for the USN).
| So what kind of distinction are you trying to make with
| "deployed, actively deployed equipment"?
|
| 1.5km far exceeds any realistic estimate of crush depth for a
| USN warship submarine- generally open source estimates are
| around 600m for them, so I am really not sure where you got
| your number from. It is much deeper than the typical big
| nuclear submarine would be able to do, but not nearly as deep
| as the research vehicles the Navy has.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The US navy is not attempting to solve the problem space of
| "Tourist trip to deep ocean locations". Privately owned
| submersibles have long out-depthed US navy crafts, because US
| navy doesn't need a small craft to go that deep.
| nostromo wrote:
| Good point, but keep in mind the DoD by default does not
| disclose its capabilities.
| ak_111 wrote:
| What is extraordinary is the marketing line "You will go where
| the US navy dare not tread" will _draw_ in some customers
| kens wrote:
| The Navy's Trieste II went to 20,000 feet (6.1 km) in the
| 1960s. It dove to the wreckage of the Thresher, among other
| things and was in service until 1980. It was replaced by Alvin-
| class of deep-submergence vehicles.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trieste_II_(Bathyscaphe)
| Rapzid wrote:
| AFAICT, if that vessel is still intact under water, their only
| hope is the power fails and the weights release.
|
| There is not enough oxygen left for the amount of time rescue
| would take at this point.
| jmyeet wrote:
| There's a surprising amount of corner cutting that goes on with
| large engineering projects. Examples:
|
| - A water slide had basic design flaws. That water slide would
| later go on to decapitate the son of a Congressman [1];
|
| - The Millenium Tower in San Francisco was allowed to be built
| without the piles going down to bedrock [2];
|
| - A borrowed system from an earlier rocket was never tested on
| the Ariane 5. An integer overflow basically caused the Ariane 5
| to blow up on launch [3];
|
| - Famously, the Challenger disaster came down to some O rings
| becoming brittle in the cold launch conditions and the launch was
| approved regardless [4];
|
| - To counter the competition of the Airbus A320neo, Boeing
| decided against a full redesign of the 737 and instead just
| updated the aging 737 design by putting more powerful engines on
| it and moving them forward. This could lead to stalls if the
| plane angled up too much. To counter this, Boeing added the (now
| famous) MCAS to keep the 737 type rating [5] and didn't really
| tell airlines and pilots about it. But the worst part was the
| system had no redundancy. It relies on a single sensor. Normally
| for safety-critical sensors there is triple-redundancy. So for
| something like this you'd have 3 sensors (minimum) and there'd
| need to be agreement between at least two. That was an _optional
| upgrade_.
|
| [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/us/waterslide-boy-
| decapit...
|
| [2]: https://practical.engineering/blog/2021/11/10/what-really-
| ha...
|
| [3]: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150505-the-numbers-
| that...
|
| [4]: https://www.simscale.com/blog/space-shuttle-challenger-
| disas...
|
| [5]: https://medium.com/the-systems-engineering-
| scholar/inadequat...
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| I mean, yes, there are a lot of designs that fail, but the vast
| majority of infrastructure operates reliably for decades. Most
| waterslides don't decapitate people, and skyscraper collapses
| are exceedingly rare. Launch vehicles fail more frequently but
| they're phenomenally complicated machines that are produced in
| low volumes and flown infrequently.
| bambax wrote:
| The concept of "cutting corners" is difficult to define.
|
| Good engineering is not about pouring as much concrete as
| possible into the largest hole ever made by mankind, for every
| bridge pillar.
|
| It's the opposite! Good engineering is finding the _minimum_
| amount of concrete that will hold the bridge under all possible
| foreseeable circumstances.
|
| Yes, sometimes the minimum proves too short, and in those times
| the failures are often catastrophic. But we're still looking
| for that minimum. We're never looking for "maximum safety with
| no regard for anything else". That would be impossible.
| salawat wrote:
| And when we push that too far, or allow economics to overrule
| the fact we're putting squishy humans at the center of forces
| thhe vast majority of them have difficulty comprehending,
| people die.
|
| I'd prefer people stop couching engineering as "the quest for
| the cheapest we can make it", and more "lets not make an
| industrial scale coffin".
|
| None of which is possible without someone who can rein in
| risk comfortable execs with a hard, unoverridable no.
| perihelions wrote:
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7506826/oceangate-inc-v... (
| _" OceanGate Inc v. Lochridge, 2:18-cv-01083, (W.D. Wash.)"_)
| TwistMyArmature wrote:
| The submersible craft industry is especially niche. and that
| comes will all the facets of niche industry. There is no
| enforcement body, you can operate with great freedom. Most of the
| members lay at the intersection of wealth and liberty. Sometimes
| science.
|
| for reference; Ive been born and raised in this field. This is
| roughly my viewpoint when interpreting this news
| jeffbee wrote:
| Why would carbon fiber be a suitable material for this
| application? I get why people want it to be lightweight and
| resist environmental corrosion, but it just seems like the wrong
| choice under hydrostatic pressure. I found some recent academic
| articles analyzing composite cylinders for submersible
| applications and in those papers they buckled at a fraction of
| the pressure equivalent to 4000m of seawater. The fact that they
| advertise their suite of strain gauges seems to indicate that
| they under-designed the thing and intended to just see what
| happened in practice.
| perihelions wrote:
| Also pointing in that direction (?),
|
| - _" Lochridge's recommendation was that non-destructive
| testing of the Titan's hull was necessary to ensure a "solid
| and safe product." The filing states that Lochridge was told
| that such testing was impossible, and that OceanGate would
| instead rely on its much touted acoustic monitoring system."_
|
| - _" The company claims this technology, developed in-house,
| uses acoustic sensors to listen for the tell-tale sounds of
| carbon fibers in the hull deteriorating to provide "early
| warning detection for the pilot with enough time to arrest the
| descent and safely return to surface.""_
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/20/a-whistleblower-raised-saf...
| mcpackieh wrote:
| From this comment in the other thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36394421
|
| > _OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush says the company had been
| evaluating the potential of using a carbon fiber composite hull
| since 2010, primarily because it permits creation of a pressure
| vessel that is naturally buoyant and, therefore, would enable
| OceanGate to forgo the use -- and the significant expense -- of
| syntactic foam on its exterior._
|
| https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/composite-submersib...
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'd just want to make the whole thing out of a massive steel
| pipe with welded end caps.
|
| Make the thing 200 mm thick, and a 2m diameter cylinder should
| be good down to 8 kilometers (so 4 kilometers with a 2x safety
| margin).
|
| Steel is expensive when it's 200 millimeters thick... But when
| you're done with the sub, you can melt it down and get most of
| the value back again!
|
| A window is probably the hardest part - acrylic would need to
| be nearly a yard thick! Glass could do it, but casting huge
| bits of glass is really hard.
|
| The craft is super heavy and impossible to transport by land -
| but it ends up being nearly neutrally buoyant, so you just tow
| it in the ocean to wherever it is needed.
| euroderf wrote:
| This might be overkill, while failing to take advantage of
| (very) prior art. FWIW, Finland's biggest (AFAIK) tangle with
| COCOM export controls (against the USSR) was about deep-
| diving submersibles.
|
| In Finnish: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(sukellusalus)
|
| English summary: https://www.inventingeurope.eu/story/cold-
| war-hot-water-the-...
| aredox wrote:
| There were lots of wrong choices and execution in the design of
| this submarine (no, using a joypad isn't one of them. There are
| far more worse details).
| bambax wrote:
| Using a joypad isn't a big problem in itself, but using a
| _wireless_ one is extremely careless. What if the connection
| is lost? What if batteries die? Or leak? Etc.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-06-20 23:02 UTC)