Carbon fiber is a non-contiguous material, unlike steel or titanium, which are the typical materials. It is a laminate and therefore subject to delamination. Carbon fiber is great in tension, but can get weird in different types compression, especially external hoop stress. It is very brittle and also highly subject to fatigue failure. Joining carbon fiber to metal in a pressure vessel is difficult, to say the least. There were acoustic sensors to “hear” any incipient delamination, which could conceivably give a few seconds warning, but many were skeptical of their utility.
Because it is not ductile, one small failure leads to fracture and implosion. Six thousand psi crushes and kills instantly.
The hubris is off-the-charts stunning. That people were hoodwinked enough to hand over $250k to effectively kill themselves says a lot about the lure of this kind of hyper-adventure grift.
Completely agree with this. I just can’t imagine a scenario where one would do that. I can see the Titanic good enough from my phone, computer or television. I just wouldn’t feel good about putting my life in the hands of an experimental submarine that is controlled by what looks like a video game controller. Also, evidently the people who made the clear dome rated it to 1300 meters. They went down 4000 meters. Just a horrible deal all around.
The most disturbing of the personal stories of the ones I have read is about the 19-year old. The much older billionaires can kill themselves if they choose adventure over prudence; they have lived full and creature-comfortable lives. The kid, though, was terrified with the mere thought of this “adventure,” but he boarded the vessel only because he adored his dad, who was a Titanic devotee, and it was Fathers Day weekend. He lost his not-yet-lived life because he did not want to disappoint his dad.
It’s as if everyone told Daedalus that his wings were poorly designed and certain to fail and Icarus put them on anyway because he wanted to please his father.
I am not going to be cynical about his decision either or going to denigrate the kid’s love for his dad. It went way beyond wanting to please, imo. He wanted to BE WITH his dad on Fathers Day, which is a sentiment I completely understand. He knew of and feared the risk, of course, but he trusted his dad’s judgment and was able to deal with his fear. This is incredibly sad to me.
I too find that aspect particularly sad. But I also find the whole thing tragic, as it was preventable. I know there is a lot of “they brought it upon themselves”, and that’s true, but that doesn’t mean we can’t sympathize. Everyone has probably heard the expression “character is doing the right thing even when no one is watching”. My dad always said something similar: “sometimes you have to help people even when they don’t deserve it. Maybe especially then.” My father’s ability to forgo the schadenfreude and lend a hand to people in need, especially when they didn’t “earn it” from him is one of his many traits I admire. Someday when I grow up I hope to be like him.
I was thinking about it this morning, and for all the crap we’ve learned about the sub and the company this week, I don’t know that I would’ve refused the trip if someone offered it to me for free. I can see myself thinking “the owner’s going down too, they’ve done this a bunch of times before, it’ll be fine.”
I didn’t realize how mature this field of exploration is and how much is known about the construction problems and solutions of deep sea submersibles, which is a great deal. And the people that built and operated this doomed craft apparently ignored or dismissed quite a bit of the better part of fifty years of accrued technical knowledge. And, as the Twitter thread Waldo posted explains, they were insanely cavalier with respect to safety redundancies. Getting in this thing and submerging to any depth beyond scuba range is the equivalent of going flying with Lawnchair Larry.
This is so true. This vessel was “experimental” in the sense that no one had ever tried to accomplish the feat in such a hackneyed manner, not that it was breaking new ground. When I was about 9, my friend Tony convinced me that a garbage bag would act just like a parachute when jumping off the roof of the garage (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). But this is the equivalent of thinking it could work jumping out of a C-130.
