A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic. Canadian officials say the five-person submersible was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John's, Newfoundland and that the search is being led by the U.S....
Built with shit from Home Depot, controlled with a literal Logitech game controller, construction pipes as ballast... holy fuck, why would anybody agree to go 3.7km below the surface of the ocean in that deathtrap?
Everything cracks under pressure, I'm not exactly sure what the above commenter is getting at. If the sub was steel the walls would be thinner. With titanium the walls are thicker. Without knowing the dimensions of the material we can't know whether it was built to high enough standards.
I mean, anything will crack under pressure. The biggest issue I see is uneven compression of the two materials coupled with different fatigue behaviors. I'd feel a lot safer if the whole submarine was titanium, honestly. Barring that, a couple inches of solid steel would be just as comforting.
Also, I’ve seen so many Scientific deepwater vehicles that are thethered to the ship in some form. Why isn’t this thing hooked up to a cran yhat can get it back up if someone fails? I’d think passenger vessels should pass more rigurous safety standards than that.
Are they liable btw or is the “international waters” situation doing them any favor?
I seem to recall a point in that CBS video where they had to sign a waiver stating among other things that they acknowledged it was an experimental vessel that is not certified by or approved any regulatory agency, so, yeah. I don't know that I'd count on there being rigorous safely standards in that case
They're playing a really long game if so. Submarines like this weren't even conceived of yet when the Titanic went down, it'd take tremendous foresight to have set this up.
An easily disproved one too, as the sister ships weren’t actually identical. Also the recent scan on the ship revealed the hull number 401 on one of the propellers putting another nail in the coffin of the idea the ship is actually the Olympic.