Comment by ethbr0
3 years ago
Pressure hull >> ballast control >> thrusters >> everything else
I'm not sure why everyone is taking potshots at a company for trying something crazy with willing passengers.
Everyone involved knew what they were getting into.
Kudos to them for trying, even if they're dead.
> See: the fact that they lost their diving vehicle.
That's an awful lot of keyboard engineering, given nobody knows what happened yet.
> That's an awful lot of keyboard engineering, given nobody knows what happened yet.
Unless I'm mistaken, the subject article starts with the words "Submarine missing". The fact that the whole thing was jury rigged and double checked by nobody with certifications is enough to start pointing fingers at the engineers.
This isn't the company's first trip either. They've taken multiple trips down and have almost lost the submarine multiple times. This time they actually managed to lose it for good.
The reason people are mad at the company is because their negligence killed 4 people for no good reason.
I'm also annoyed at the company for all the public emergency resources being forced to help rescue this contraption.
I thought about this, and came to the conclusion that the coastguard and especially military see it as a good opportunity to test their equipment and procedures for real.
And seafarers have a strong code of ethics about helping other seafarers.
As long as they aren't brown.
Budgets are unfortunately a zero sum game, and I have to wonder if there are much more obvious ways to save lives more efficiently with the amount of money it’s costing the US government to undertake a massive and technically complex search for 5 people.
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Whilst I agree, and I hope the vessel had adequate insurance for such an eventuality, it's a excellent "training" exercise.
Real world scenarios which don't involve any enemy combatants are invaluable to keep everyone at peak readiness
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Yes. "Missing"
Assuming it sunk, it'll be order of week before it's found. It'll be order of month before it's raised, if it can be. And then after analysis we might know why it sunk.
+60 hours after lost contact, while there are possibly still people alive inside the vehicle, seems premature and crass to be casting accusations for internet points.
They claim the vehicle has consumables to last 4 days, so while it’s a little premature at 3 days in to declare it’s over, if you have an injured person that requires an EMT and the ambulance won’t get there until the situation devolves…
In these situations you don’t do everything you can because it will change the outcome. You do everything you can so that someday soon you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror while you brush your teeth. So you can sleep at night.
I haven’t been in this bad of a situation, but I’ve been in plenty where people second guessed themselves or someone else for years even decades after. Everyone has to get to “enough” on their own terms or it festers.
So we are letting a bunch of people figure it out. If a miracle happens, awesome. But unless they’re all trance meditating down there and have Wim Hoff hypothermia training it’s not good.
The fact that they can’t even find it is in part because they didn’t outfit it with any capability to send a distress signal. They lost it multiple times but never added a radio beacon or anything.
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>Everyone involved knew what they were getting into.
Not necessarily. For extreme sports like skydiving, bungee jumping, hang-gliding scuba and the like customers still expect a high level of adherence to safety and quality products and certifications exist. Would you want to parachute off an uncertified plane with an un-licensed pilot and inexperienced jumper?
Well, I am carrying a parachute and getting out halfway, so if they can land is not my concern…
If they said they were, and I did, presumably.
So, “no”
> Everyone involved knew what they were getting into.
I'm sure everyone involved was expert on industrial design and were clued into what exact costs were cut /s
"Everyone involved knew what they were getting into."
Did they? I might have missed that part.
>> OceanGate says it is an experimental vessel, and when CBS travelled onboard the correspondent had to sign a waiver accepting that it "has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65960217
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=29co_Hksk6o
When I go scuba diving I also need to sign a waiver and acknowledge the inherent risk of the activity.
It doesn't mean that the regulator provided by the dive center is McGivered with duct tape and chewing gum. Which seems like the equivalent of the construction and the components quality of that vessel.
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When you get right down to it, the people who boarded this submersible on Sunday probably didn’t want to die. No matter what waiver they signed.
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I'm pretty sure you can't have people sign away your reasonable duty of care, only inherent risks.
> Everyone involved knew what they were getting into.
Did they?
my guess is no. purely speculation on my part, but my suspicion is that the dangers were downplayed and the sales/marketing people paid the bare minimum attention to how close this was to a backyard project.
“we wouldn’t charge you $250,000 if we weren’t serious.”
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Those situations are really not comparable. Jumping off a cliff has a near 100% death rate. This sub on the other hand has done this before.
A better comparison might be climbing mount everest in the 80s.
Okay maybe betteer to compare diving in a janky sub to jumping oit of a plane with a tablecloth for parachute