Tourist submersible missing on visit to Titanic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea why people feel compelled to explore life at the extremes like deep sea and space when we have an absolute miracle in front of us right here in the middle of the curve where humans are uniquely adapted to live.

That’s certainly one way to think of it, but I’m sure you enjoy air travel, driving a car, led lights, relatively inexpensive gasoline etc - all things that were made possible by crazed people pushing the limits and not taking no for an answer. I’m pretty risk averse, but I think that, along with intelligence, curiosity, opposable thumbs, and reliance on social communities, a certain amount of risk taking enabled humans to live in that “middle of the curve” that most of us enjoy.

And honestly, we are not actually “uniquely adapted” to live there. Take away our technology, our clothes, our electricity, our plumbing, our transportation and most of us would probably starve or die of exposure. We took risks, invented power grids, furnaces, air conditioning, Apple Watches, and here we are.

I think you mean here (?) and yes we are. We are uniquely adapted to live on Earth. Sure, not in extreme temperature regions and such, but we've been able to innovate and survive for ages because we're uniquely adapted (and belong) here.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Everyone dies. At least vaporizing yourself in an experimental carbon fiber tube is a pretty unique and interesting way to go.

Vaporizing?

That implies heat. This sub was 10000 ft underwater in near freezing temperatures. Good luck vaporizing anything.

You must’ve studied science at trump university.

The immense pressure of water entering the capsule would pulverize any living matter in the sub. We are talking surface of the sun temps. Gone. Nothing left. Literally E=mC^2

Maybe a little PV=nRT too.

A lot of T

Exponentially increasing V = exponentially increasing T

Typo:
Exponentially increasing P = exponentially increasing T

Followed by...
decreasing V = decreasing T

It’s gruesome, but the Byford dolphin incident is as close as I can think of known outcome in somewhat similar circumstances. It was a decompressive, rather than a compressive incident, and it was from 9 atm to 1 atm. Other vessels have imploded, like the uss thresher, but no one survived and there is a lot of uncertainty about what really happened. Don’t read about Byford dolphin if you are at all squeamish. The titan sub imploded with an external pressure of 500 atm to 1 atm. It’s hard to wrap your mind around a reaction that happens magnitudes faster than human reaction.

My God. How did you come to know about this incident?

I took an ethics in engineering course as part of my mech engineering curriculum for undergrad. I posted earlier (like 30 pages ago) that we studied classic engineering mistakes. The Byford dolphin was not one that we spent a lot of time on, but was mentioned because it was just so awful. The design for the chambers was bad, prone to human error. The titan sub will definitely make the list of unethical engineering mistakes that cost lives.

Really fascinating. Would love to know what institution this was but realize it may be too close to identifying. Thanks for the knowledge!

DP. In my engineering curriculum these types of failure were covered during a risk analysis course.

That makes total sense. It’s the presentation of it in an ethics class that has me wondering about the institution.

Many schools offer it.

You can even take it yourself:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/esd-932-engineering-ethics-spring-2006/

Aside, but the more I think about it, the more I am wondering what that specific course presented as the ethical issue(s) in the Byford Dolphin case. Based on the description here (and the little bit of reading I did) it sounds like a workplace safety incident--such that the issues would include the drilling company's culpability.

Was that the case or was there more to it?

The ethical issue is usually the balance between safety, cost, and complexity. Reasonably complex systems cannot be made safe. Even if you could make a system perfectly safe, the cost and requirements would be extremely high and likely impractical. Safety systems must strike a balance between cost and usability or they will never be installed or bypassed/ignored by the human operator.

[Anonymous]

I’m just struck by the similarity to the Titanic itself. In both cases, safety was disregarded because of hubris and greed.

[Anonymous]

I can’t stop thinking that the kid was likely afraid right at the end. It seems there were warnings in the tube that indicated they were descending too fast, and that’s why the pilot was releasing ballast in an attempt to ascend.

That damn tube was tiny, so everyone in there would’ve known there was trouble, right?

So scary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stop thinking that the kid was likely afraid right at the end. It seems there were warnings in the tube that indicated they were descending too fast, and that’s why the pilot was releasing ballast in an attempt to ascend.

That damn tube was tiny, so everyone in there would’ve known there was trouble, right?

So scary.

I doubt the CEO was discreet about the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stop thinking that the kid was likely afraid right at the end. It seems there were warnings in the tube that indicated they were descending too fast, and that’s why the pilot was releasing ballast in an attempt to ascend.

That damn tube was tiny, so everyone in there would’ve known there was trouble, right?

So scary.

His aunt said that he was afraid to go on it before hand. He only did so because he wanted to please his father.

[Anonymous]

Rush told a passenger on a previous trip that he bought the carbon fiber used to make the hull from Boeing at a discount because it had exceeded its airplane shelf life. Boeing denies having sold the carbon to *him*.

[Anonymous]

Was Rush an engineer? As an engineer myself I cannot understand what he was thinking or why the laws of physics and principles of engineering don’t apply to him

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was Rush an engineer? As an engineer myself I cannot understand what he was thinking or why the laws of physics and principles of engineering don’t apply to him

He was an aerospace engineer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was Rush an engineer? As an engineer myself I cannot understand what he was thinking or why the laws of physics and principles of engineering don’t apply to him

He was an aerospace engineer.

The ones I have known already know everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stop thinking that the kid was likely afraid right at the end. It seems there were warnings in the tube that indicated they were descending too fast, and that’s why the pilot was releasing ballast in an attempt to ascend.

That damn tube was tiny, so everyone in there would’ve known there was trouble, right?

So scary.

I doubt the CEO was discreet about the situation.

I’d think the CEO would try to pretend all is well. Seems he wouldn’t want people to ever think his submersible is unsafe or problematic.

“Oh, that noise? It’s just your standard ballast release to slow us down. No biggie. Well, you know….let’s just haul ass back up to the surface…..Emergency? No, not at all.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stop thinking that the kid was likely afraid right at the end. It seems there were warnings in the tube that indicated they were descending too fast, and that’s why the pilot was releasing ballast in an attempt to ascend.

That damn tube was tiny, so everyone in there would’ve known there was trouble, right?

So scary.

I doubt the CEO was discreet about the situation.

Since it had never happened before, I doubt they truly believed it was going to.

They probably thought it was turning into another aborted descent, which was fairly common.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rush told a passenger on a previous trip that he bought the carbon fiber used to make the hull from Boeing at a discount because it had exceeded its airplane shelf life. Boeing denies having sold the carbon to *him*.

Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stop thinking that the kid was likely afraid right at the end. It seems there were warnings in the tube that indicated they were descending too fast, and that’s why the pilot was releasing ballast in an attempt to ascend.

That damn tube was tiny, so everyone in there would’ve known there was trouble, right?

So scary.

I doubt the CEO was discreet about the situation.

Since it had never happened before, I doubt they truly believed it was going to.

They probably thought it was turning into another aborted descent, which was fairly common.

That’s a really good point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were their bodies essentially pulverized?

Yes. The human body has air voids that would have been immediately pressed flat, they suffocated instantly but more to the point the temperature spike associated with the pressure breach at that depth incinerated them instantly.