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Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

bbc.com

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Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#71
post #6

I wonder if U.S. agencies (e.g. the Navy) had picked up the sound of the implosion days ago, back when the Titan was said to have lost communication, and knew all this time that the Titan had likely already been destroyed. But there's no incentive for them to publicly say anything, as it would hint to their underwater surveillance capabilities. And the "rescue effort" is good practice for their crews. I watched most…

I thought that loss of communication was an expected part of the trip due to the depth.

[deleted]

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#72
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It imploded right away" explains everything. "It imploded later" requires at least two failures, first of power/comms, and THEN of the structure itself. Occam's Razor

> Occam's Razor is only good as a heuristic for finding which hypothesis to test first. It's basically a scientist's "where there's smoke there's fire".

Or in this case, where there's a debris field...

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do submarines commonly fail? Is the assumption of a violent implosion warranted? I would think another failure mode could be water rushing in without the overall structure catastrophically failing, which would actually relieve pressure on the structure as it happened and be much less energetic.

Just note that the body was experimental: while the hull indeed have a thick titanium body, it was mixed with (don't know exactly how and where though) carbon fibers, which are known to catastrophically break under pressure if there's even a microscopic impurity or damage. At least that's what the experts say. Carbon fibers is great for lightweight things that need to bend, terrible for things to be relied under pres…

A cylinder is much less resistant to pressure than a sphere.

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't boldly going where nobody has gone before. Getting that deep safely has been a solved problem for decades.

I agree but not at 250k a head. It should be safer, but everything is done to a price point and I'm sure those on board recognised the risk of such an expedition.

I seriously doubt the victims knew how risky this trip was, even though they signed the waivers. Why would you bring along your 19-year-old son if you thought the chance of death was 1/100 or even 1/1000. The CEO, who obviously overestimated the safety of his cost-cutting design, had raised $20M in venture capital, it's not as if he had a death wish either.

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya but even so they could have sent rescue ships there because "we think it could be here" - nothing given up.

I could imagine a cost-benefit analysis making sense here. - Pro: increased chance of saving a few people's lives - Con: risk of leaking info about U.S. sonar sensitivity I.e., the decision would depend on the magnitude of the "pro" and "con" probabilities.

If it imploded the chance of survival is zero.

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or succumbing to paranoia that others might murder you to survive themselves.

ya but if they murder someone, the victim will decompose - prob not good to breathe that stuff in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_risks_from_dead_bodies

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#77
post #6

I wonder if U.S. agencies (e.g. the Navy) had picked up the sound of the implosion days ago, back when the Titan was said to have lost communication, and knew all this time that the Titan had likely already been destroyed. But there's no incentive for them to publicly say anything, as it would hint to their underwater surveillance capabilities. And the "rescue effort" is good practice for their crews. I watched most…

I thought that loss of communication was an expected part of the trip due to the depth.

I wonder if typical deep sea exploration use relay all along the descent, to ensure comms and raise rescue capabilities.

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#78

RIP to these guys, yes it was a risky trip. But it was into international waters and they were AFAIC explorers. Stuff like this can not be done without risk. Hopefully future subs will have more safety features.

>Hopefully future subs will have more safety features.

From an engineering standpoint, Titan didn't have any safety features at all. What any sane engineer would recommend as a last-ditch backup system Oceangate relied on as a single-point-of-failure.

No phone. No beacon. Budget bluetooth controller and touchscreens. Electronics you'd expect to find in an RV. All from a CEO who flaunted his corner-cutting and apathy towards safety.

We should never do this again.

After this, anyone boarding a future tourist sub to the Abyssal Zone or deeper is asking for it.

Re: Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya but even so they could have sent rescue ships there because "we think it could be here" - nothing given up.

I could imagine a cost-benefit analysis making sense here. - Pro: increased chance of saving a few people's lives - Con: risk of leaking info about U.S. sonar sensitivity I.e., the decision would depend on the magnitude of the "pro" and "con" probabilities.

If they detected an implosion there's no chance of saving anyone's lives. It would increase the chance of maybe finding bodies, though.
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