Debris found came from missing Titan sub, says friend of passengers • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by tailspin2019 » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #187

It is notable how much news-coverage this received (for understandable reasons [1]) relative to the almost simultaneous disaster in the Mediterranean [2], where a shipwreck killed hundreds of people. [1] What springs to mind: Dramatic search action well suited for live blog coverage; psychological impact of the idea of people stranded in a submarine for days; And of course the average person here is probably a lot cl…

I reflected on this too. I think the key differentiator is the context of the submarine situation unfolding in realtime, with action which could still be taken, and an unknown future outcome, as opposed to an event which was reported on retrospectively, after the disaster had happened.

But the contrast is still striking between both the situations and media reporting of 5 rich men vs 700 of some of the world’s poorest and most desperate people.

Both are unbelievably tragic.

The reporting on the Mediterranean disaster seems to have gone a lot quieter than I would have expected given what we now know about how the Greek authorities story simply does not match up with what actually seems to have happened. (It seems like there may have been an opportunity to prevent that disaster).

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

#222

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

aurizon wrote: post #115

The most likely first failure is the window. At that instant a rapid turbulent fill event would occur. The outside pressure and the hole diameter will provide a calculable interval for the internal volume to fill. At 12,000 feet = 800 atmospheres, this would be on the order of 1/20th of a second, with intense crush/shear forces = instant death as perceived. That interval can be related to the speed of sound and wavel…

> 800 atmospheres

A bit under 400 atmospheres at the depth of the Titanic. But I don't think that meaningfully changes your conclusion. It's instant.

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

#223

Post by AH4oFVbPT4f8 » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #185

seattle_anon wrote: post #166

Stockton Rush (OceanGate's CEO) was known in the Seattle tech community [0] My understanding (very much not first hand) is that he was seen as an expert in the specific engineering disciplines necessary to safely build and operate deep sea submersibles like Titan. He was also apparently a father to members of the Seattle tech community, who are no doubt grieving at the moment. Please remember that, for some members o…

He was not recognized as an expert by other deep-sea submerisble experts. He was repeatedly warned about safety issue with this design. These events are tragic, but they were predictable and avoidable and that makes it frustrating.

Specifically warned 5 years ago by his own employee and fired him as a thank you to boot. "OceanGate fired employee David Lochridge in 2018 after he expressed concern about the submersible's safety"

source https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submarine-oceangate-hul...

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

#224

Post by codetrotter » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #187

It is notable how much news-coverage this received (for understandable reasons [1]) relative to the almost simultaneous disaster in the Mediterranean [2], where a shipwreck killed hundreds of people. [1] What springs to mind: Dramatic search action well suited for live blog coverage; psychological impact of the idea of people stranded in a submarine for days; And of course the average person here is probably a lot cl…

> the average person here is probably a lot closer to taking a holiday trip in a submersible than to taking a refugee boat across the Mediterranean

There is no way in hell I would pay $250k to board a janky-ass sub going deep into the ocean.

For $250k, I could buy a nice house for me, my girlfriend and our future family.

And even that is not possible yet. Because I don’t have that kind of money.

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

#225

Post by sigstoat » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

SirMaster wrote: post #171

What I don't understand is, if it imploded, why didn't the boat hear the implosion? Surely that would be really loud. Louder than the 15 min audio ping that the boat is normally listening for.

oceangate seems like a clown show, were there hydrophones on site, in the first ~24 hours, that were not operated by them?

at this point i expect it had imploded before the coast guard or anyone who knew what they were doing was on-site.

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

#226

Post by worewood » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

fuzzbazz wrote: post #12

danso wrote: 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…

Would the implosion have been loud enough? I mean the thing was a tiny 7x3m cylinder located 700Km from the nearest coast...

Like evryone else I have no idea but I do know implosions tend to be pretty impressive events and can easily be supersonic generating a shockwave, so pretty loud!

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

#227

Post by kitd » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #187

It is notable how much news-coverage this received (for understandable reasons [1]) relative to the almost simultaneous disaster in the Mediterranean [2], where a shipwreck killed hundreds of people. [1] What springs to mind: Dramatic search action well suited for live blog coverage; psychological impact of the idea of people stranded in a submarine for days; And of course the average person here is probably a lot cl…

I think the idea of being trapped in a confined space kilometers under the sea has a visceral effect on the imagination that a boat voyage on the surface doesn't, regardless of how tragic the outcome is in both events. It pokes and prods many of our deep phobias.

Similar stories like the Thai boys trapped in the cave, or the Chilean miners, had a similar effect.

A bit like "Snakes on a plane". Again, trapped with your phobias.

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

#228

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

SirMaster wrote: post #190

EA-3167 wrote: 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

How does it explain why the support boat heard no implosion while listening for the 15 min pings? Wouldn't an implosion be really loud?

[deleted]

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

#229

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

civilitty wrote: post #105

agumonkey wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The three main methods are: acoustic using SONAR to receive data, tether or umbilical cord, and buoy based where the DSV releases a buoy that ascends to the top. Relays don't really work because you'd need a LOT of them and they'd all have to keep themselves positioned within like 30 meters of each other which is very hard with ocean currents. That's with very low bandwidth VLF radio.

dumb question, are there positioning system for sea exploration ? I assume GPS dies off quickly but maybe something else ?

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

#230

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #199

Certhas wrote: post #187

It is notable how much news-coverage this received (for understandable reasons [1]) relative to the almost simultaneous disaster in the Mediterranean [2], where a shipwreck killed hundreds of people. [1] What springs to mind: Dramatic search action well suited for live blog coverage; psychological impact of the idea of people stranded in a submarine for days; And of course the average person here is probably a lot cl…

Something about tragedies, and something about statistics... But there's also the concern of frequency, [2] occurs more frequent than [1], people generally don't care about the people at [2] because they are "unimportant", and not prominent in any way. They are background characters on the other side of the world for many, they are not well dressed, they do not perform functions with significant influence on the broa…

The comparison between these two stories is being made (elsewhere on the Internet) because humans were literally still being found and fished out of the Mediterranean, alive, while entire nation states mobilized to try to rescue a few wreckless rich guys who were likely already dead.

The point being made is about misallocation of resources, not news coverage. (Novel stories will always grab more attention.)