More than the game controller and light bar, the bigger issue with this thing seems to be that it has no means of egress if lost but floating, and that the pressure vessel seems to be from titanium and carbon-fiber which, while strong and light, are brittle and therefore are more likely fail catastrophically. Navy subs creak and flex as they descend because the steel adjusts to the increased pressure. Steel will flex elastically along a good strength curve, and when it does fail, you have a little bit of wiggle room where it starts crushing like a can but might not split or pull away from the bolts.
Steel is heavy though, and this thing was mean to be carted from ship to ship and unhooked with store-bought bungee cords. The whole thing is scary AF and if that price tag still left them at a point where they were feeling like they needed to use consumer-grade parts, then maybe there just wasn’t a viable business there.
Frankly the biggest safety issue is that they have no transponder. So even if something goes wrong and they have to surface, rescuers are stuck looking for a drifting needle in a 41 million square mile haystack.
If they’re not making a profit as it is charging rich rubberneckers 250K a trip and cutting corners on their builds, I can’t imagine they’ll ever be able to do it.
More than the game controller and light bar, the bigger issue with this thing seems to be that it has no means of egress if lost but floating, and that the pressure vessel seems to be from titanium and carbon-fiber which, while strong and light, are brittle and therefore are more likely fail catastrophically. Navy subs creak and flex as they descend because the steel adjusts to the increased pressure. Steel will flex elastically along a good strength curve, and when it does fail, you have a little bit of wiggle room where it starts crushing like a can but might not split or pull away from the bolts.
Steel is heavy though, and this thing was mean to be carted from ship to ship and unhooked with store-bought bungee cords. The whole thing is scary AF and if that price tag still left them at a point where they were feeling like they needed to use consumer-grade parts, then maybe there just wasn’t a viable business there.
Frankly the biggest safety issue is that they have no transponder. So even if something goes wrong and they have to surface, rescuers are stuck looking for a drifting needle in a 41 million square mile haystack.
Honestly, I’m shocked by this. I would have thought that they’d at least be not-stupid enough to have something like that.
Yeah you’d think they’d at least have an EPIRB or something along those lines?
Fair point, especially with all the other shortcuts taken.
And the view window was only rated for 1300 meters, while they’ve been going down to 4000 meters. https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-faced-lawsuit-depths-safely-travel-oceangate
Yeah, I saw that since I wrote that post. Crazy. Whole thing seems like a tragic shitshow.
I thought I read somewhere that they’re not making a profit yet. I mean just the fuel costs alone have to be astronomical
If they’re not making a profit as it is charging rich rubberneckers 250K a trip and cutting corners on their builds, I can’t imagine they’ll ever be able to do it.