this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
84 points (100.0% liked)
World News
22063 readers
38 users here now
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Honestly, it's almost certainly possible to make a deep sea tour sub like this that's reasonably safe, if even more expensive (though given the only clientele for this kind of tourism is so incredibly rich I'm not sure this really matters). Consider that subs capable of operating at this depth have existed for a long time, for example, the Alvin , which was built in the 60s, can go to the wreck of the Titanic and even deeper, and yet still gets used today.
Yeah, James Cameron has been to the Titanic and back 33 times. And to the Mariana Trench, and who knows where else. It's not impossible to do it safely, but that requires spending money on the correct materials, listening to your engineers, cross checking with third party engineers, and not rushing things. Carbon fiber is a stupid material for a sub hull, using different materials with different expansion and contraction rates for your pressure vessel is a stupid decision, not having a way for the passengers to self-rescue is stupid, using a wireless controller without (multiple) hardwired backups is stupid.
The entire thing reeks of a CEO who doesn't want to take the time to do things properly in fear of investors losing interest. And I get that fear, I work for a small company as well (not building submarines) and you do have to move quickly with a lot of things. But you DON'T rush things when human safety is a factor.
That sub should have been remotely operated dozens of times and gone through multiple iterations before they ever let a living creature inside it. It should have been x-rayed between every dive to find microfractures in the brittle carbon fiber hull. Multiple prototypes should have been built and extensively tested to find flaws in the design or assembly process.
Wow apparently that Alvin was built by General Mills! (Electronic division.) Like the cereal company. Also it say:
That's a good idea. I wonder if they just are not allowed to go on the alvin no matter how much they pay, and thats why they chose other option?
I wasn't suggesting that they actually use that sub for their tour, the Alvin does have actual work it does (has made some pretty important contributions to science to my knowledge, for instance in visiting thermal vents) so I doubt they'd be allowed to just rent it out for sightseeing. Rather, I was more trying to point out using it as an example that building a reasonably safe and reliable sub for this kind of depth is not only possible, it has been for quite some time now. It reflects extremely poorly on the design and operators of the Titan that it could not.