(That's about as close to explaining the joke as I'm willing to go.)
Source: https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1670835763536183297
Some how that makes it even worse.
Someone is doing something legal and that doesn't impact you in any way at all, why even care? IMHO, you should be better than that.
Well I mean _someone_ has to run the startup we all want to do.
> <title>Fuck 'em</title>
> <a href="mailto:[email protected]">hit us up.</a>
What if people pay for that exactly because it's risky and potentially fatal?
One thing the military does/did to communicate with subs is use low-bandwidth text-only very low frequency radio, but you need colossal transmitters and there's no way the mother ship carries one. Hydrophones are also an option, and IIRC NATO even has a working sound-based modem to transmit digital signals to subs, but not sure if that has spread in the civilian market.
Or fire a torpedo and detonate it.
Probably much lower range vertically.
e.g. every 2 hours, send up a transmitter that sends an "A-OK" on X Khz for at least Y minutes. If you get a bunch at once, or don't get any for a while, or get the "Something wrong" on Y Khz transmitter, you know something's gone awry.
They're potentially opening themselves up to charges for killing these people. They knowingly or recklessly put them on a boat when it isn't capable of reaching the depth safely and now they are dead.
This sounds like the engineering process going right.
(I work in NDT(non destructive testing) but on the software stack not the probes/scanners. So I'm not sure if my last point is still true these days! )
Would the fact they almost certainly got the people to sign a fairly extensive release before they took them into international waters be relevant? I don't know how much of the "anything goes on the sea" thing is a myth.
I wonder if future engineers will look back at these carbon decades and shake their heads.
Composite properties can be fairly accurately measured and tested, just like any other material including plate steel or aluminium.
If a structural failure has occurred, it's related to a design, manufacture or maintenance issue. For example, not enough layers, or a weakness around a joint or fitting.
Metals are uniform and thus predictable. Composites vary cure to cure. We simply don’t have the deep engineering tables that let you know how a material will behave without destructive testing.
I’m by no means a structural engineer, but with bike parts — in steel or aluminum, if you get a tiny 1mm chip in the material, you can more-or-less just treat it as if the steel is 1mm thinner. With engineering tolerances it is irrelevant.
But in a carbon fiber, that 1mm chip could be totally unnoticed for months, while slowly causing an invisible hairline crack, until the entire component suddenly explodes with no warning.
Maybe someone can verify if that is possible at a larger scale, but I feel like it must be to some extent.. especially if there is an invisible manufacturing imperfection due to the higher precision required in carbon fiber
The BOAC Comet failures (cracks propagating from squared-off window corners) is a notorious example, with multiple total hull losses in flight.
I've experienced somewhat less significant failures of bicycle components (though they could easily have proved far worse). It's a good idea to replace components after a wreck or even hard-cornering of a crankset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjnG74DDno
The cracks actually started on the top of the plane, at cutouts for radio antennas. The windows always had rounded corners (although they made them even rounder later, which may have led to the confusion.)
Thanks!
I'm sure the story around composites will improve in due time.
That's not true at all: metals have a grain structure, and how those grains are oriented can change the metal's properties in different directions.
>Composites vary cure to cure.
Metal castings can vary from cast to cast.
These folks, among others, make a lot of them. You are also incorrect about forging being used to introduce uniformity into the grain, it is typically (though not always, as some forging operations may just be for establishing shape) to stretch the grains such that they are oriented along the load path, resulting in higher allowable stresses. Look up highly loaded aircraft parts like landing gear, they are typically forged to establish the grain direction and then machined to final dimension. Nothing stops you from heat treating metal after it has been cast, either. Some heat treatments are also expressly to produce nonuniform conditions in the metal, case hardening for example.
But now that i think about it, I have no clue about performance or even feasibility of testing carbon composites. I'll have to ask around, but I'm pretty sure we have clients that use our hardware for Carbon! :)
But sometimes they are! We have a few scanners specifically for pipelines and even robots for wind blades, yet even then the probe usually uses the same detection technology (ultrasounds, eddy currents, etc). The magic happens on the signal processing side when it comes to the difference between the scanners, and the trend is towards multipurpose all in ones. Our most recent industrial scanner has an FPGA that is explicitly there to allow for extensibility so that it fits most applications. FPGAs have been used quite often in the field but usually merely to implement some specific signal processing, not to be extensible!
I'm rambling here but my point is that some devices can be used for pretty much any application (the Omniscan for example), process specific devices are more for large scale industrial workflows! The probes can be the only thing you need to change to use the same scanner to do stuff as varied as hydrogen poisoning analysis on steel to composite flaw detection on windblades!
Here is an example, again with the Omniscan :
https://www.olympus-ims.com/en/scanners/aerospace-wind-blade...
FPGAs are super powerful for applications like these, I see them used in plenty of sensors where flexibility and being future proof is a must so that you don't need to redesign the entire sensor for every variation on the theme.
Carbon fibre composites are also significantly lighter and more rigid than equivalent steel structures. As with all engineering it is about choosing materials with properties that suit your application.
If the mother ship can not find the sub the occupants could be trapped bobbing just below the surface until their air runs out.
It's like designing a spacecraft but with different constraints.
Assuming they're out there near the surface bouncing around in 6' waves and whitecaps, what they need isn't a door they can open and drown themselves with. Seems like what they need is a more effective location broadcast.
We don't actually know that they don't have good ways of being found. If they do, it makes it all the more likely that the sub is on the bottom :-(
Doesn’t seem like a good trade off against bobbing around the surface and slowly dying sealed inside a capsule to me.
But as somebody else already pointed out: even if you get out in the middle of the ocean you're in real trouble, which makes the hatch issue kind of moot.
If some brilliant improvement occurred to you in the first 5 seconds of hearing about some technical solution chances are this thought visited others in the past 100 years working on the problem for a living.
I also don’t even understand why that vessel needs to be manned at all. With today’s high def cameras and displays, including VR, they could outfit an unmanned vessel with high def cameras everywhere, a fiber optic tether to the surface to carry the high def signal (or even wireless to some degree if they could make that work), and the operator could sit in a control station either on the boat at the surface or streamed over the internet from home, controlling the vessel however he wants, with high def screens to simulate the viewing experience of being in the vessel. I’ll bet it would get you 99% of the way there without having to risk your life. It’s not like anyone is getting out of the thing to swim around the titanic in scuba gear anyway.
This is a recreational dive, there's absolutely no need for it as for most recreational activities.
As for what the probable cause is: we don't know, we may never know. But with a device that was apparently designed by another party who declared it unfit for purpose anything goes.
(although he was recently-probably-exonerated in that case).
FWIW, while NASA may had thrown him under the bus, his comrades in the astronaut corps believed him. Wally Schirra on Sigma 7, refused to blow the door until the capsule was on the Kearsarge. When he climbed out, he showed the bruise on his hand — the same bruise every one got when they pushed the escape button. The same bruise Grissom did not have.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019254674/gus-grissom-libert...
Or maybe a jackhammer to just hammer through whatever glass is there for observation purposes.
I'm now wondering if a jackhammer applies more force than the ocean at titanic depths. I suppose less uniform force at least.
A shaped charge might be a more sensible solution, but it's still within incredibly dangerous territory.
just beneath the surface
I'll just leave that there.
Source: https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1670826522138091521?s=20
Wtf is anyone thinking getting in this thing?
Not saying we should replace every bespoke interface with a game controller, but using a game controller isn’t necessarily bad either.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...
They are made for living rooms and not salt water marine environments.
I saw a video where he said they used the controllers' built-in bluetooth. Bluetooth is anything but mission-critical. Imagine a disconnect when you're trying to decelerate.
It's always possible to spend more money to further reduce the risks, but naturally with diminishing returns. At some point, you have to decide to accept (very small) risks in order to avoid (very large) additional costs.
If the actual risk are close to BASE jumping then you’ve failed.
The myriad BASE jumping businesses would probably like a word. Risk tolerance varies.
What I did find is that BASE jumping is apparently often illegal (but definitely not everywhere per se), that everyone who did it can claim a “number”, and that 2000 numbers total have been claimed since 1981.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I know next to nothing about BASE jumping. I’m curious what companies offer it commercially as an activity, and if that’s really widespread.
I just remember watching a documentary once, saying how crazy and uncommon it is.
The only place I know of where it's specifically illegal is US national parks (only national parks — you're fine in Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service territories).
Of course, if you have to trespass to make the jump, that's itself illegal, but that has nothing to do with BASE jumping.
Anyway, although fewer than 1000 people summit Everest each year, 500 people per day reach Everest Base Camp, so there's plenty of room for profits.
If your business model is running a cruise ship where a few people take extreme risks and 98% are doing a normal holiday then sure that’s reasonable. Building a business on 3k customers/ year worldwide might survive but it’s lucky to make the same money as a single decent restaurant location.
That’s a tiny market, and yes companies do get involved but it’s not the sole source of income for any significant business.
Some "experience" operators:
Plenty of "course" operators too:
https://www.snakeriverbase.com
https://www.moabbaseassociation.us/insurance
https://www.globalrescue.com/common/blog/detail/is-base-jump... — "You’re certainly welcome to go BASE jumping under a Global Rescue travel protection membership as we have no altitude or activity restrictions."
I can understand the attraction of e.g. wingsuits, because the idea of flying like a bird is compelling, even if I would never risk my own life to do it. Although there’s definitely more than a few wingsuit jumpers who are doing it specifically to dice with Death e.g. proximity flying.
https://youtu.be/TTICP6m-FyY?t=594
^ THAT is why I do it. Also I spent about 2 years in initial training and continue to train every time I dive. Our goal is to drive the risk to 0 which isn't reality but I feel less safe driving to some of the caves than I do diving them.
That said, it does require a lot of training and certification, and people need to maintain that training and their gear. It not so much that kicking up a little dirt will kill you (it generally won't), but that a combination of complacency, stress and panic will kill you. In that it is again similar to driving in that in generally it is not the car or even the highway speeds that kills people, but rather complacency and a lack of attention to the road and traffic. Random tire explosion on the highway is a real risk, but even that is usually a lack of attention to maintenance.
Adventure trips like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and these OceanGate tours are passive experiences. Exhilarating, but you're not really expected to have any skill or do anything. I think a better analogy would be African Safaris - exotic, exclusive, and extremely expensive "adventures" for the wealthy. There's a powerful illusion of danger, but no one buying a package actually thinks there's a real chance they won't come home.
If these ultra-expensive, high-tech space and deep-sea adventures don't turn out to be as safe as, say, theme park rides, I wonder if there will be enough wealthy, risk-seeking adrenaline junkies to keep them in business.
If a tour to the Titanic could be sold in a holiday package deal you're going to get people who don't understand the risks.
You do see it in holiday scuba diving destinations, where people are led to believe it is perfectly safe, and it's marketed to everyone. The reality of a dive is that you are just a couple of mistakes away from fatal consequences and the dive masters must know that as they strap a bottle onto a newbie and send 8 of them down at once.
People take extreme risks every day riding in cars; high stake, low odds.
But yeah, if the TAM of Titanic tourism is anything close to BASE jumping, that’s a gold mine. Tens of thousands of people a year? Good business.
But I short-circuit trying to figure which is more stupid, visiting Everest or Titanic.
People want an "adventure" and to learn useful things about themselves? Okay train to run a marathon. Now train to run it faster.
I can kind of see the appeal of Everest from a mountain climbing point of view, but I think I'd go and do one of the peaks without rush hour queues. So what if it's the 2nd/3rd/4th highest.
Swimming is a bit better if one want to a lower-risk sport.
Also, when Branson was aboard, they had a failure during launch that put them off-course and violated their flight plan (yes, they had a flight plan, and yes, this matters - the route is kept clear of everyone else.) They should have aborted the launch, but the Big Guy was on board, so full speed ahead.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-red-warning-lig...
The billionaire version of "I turn now, good luck everybody else!"
The FAA initially banned VG from further flights and then once the news cycle had moved on - less than a month later - quietly "cleared" VG.
So you have all these I assume twenty-somethings working on VMS Eve, the prototype aircraft that takes the Spaceship craft to their launching point 30,000 feet up or whatever it is... Eve is basically two airplanes riveted together by their wings, and it's been why Virgin Galactic is years behind schedule on starting commercial operations. It's still probably going to be a maintenance nightmare, and if it decides to split in-air, they're certainly going bankrupt.
It’s experimental in the same way commercial airplanes could be considered experimental until accidents went down to “basically zero”. Flying commercial was kind of risky until the ~70s.
"OceanGate will take advantage of lessons learned during the construction of its carbon-hulled Titan submersible, which was originally built for Titanic journeys. Rush said tests that were conducted at the Deep Ocean Test Facility in Annapolis, Md., revealed that the Titan’s hull “showed signs of cyclic fatigue.” As a result, the hull’s depth rating was reduced to 3,000 meters.
“Not enough to get to the Titanic,” Rush said."
Source: https://www.geekwire.com/2020/oceangate-raises-18m-build-big...