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Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

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121–130 of 204 posts

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#121
post #5

Does this mean the passengers had an instantaneous death?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N17tEW_WEU&t=166s This is what a controlled vacuum implosion of a liquid tank looks like at 1 atmosphere of pressure, including cameras showing the inside of the tank. The depth of the Titanic wreck is 3800m; down there the vessel would be subjected to 380 times that pressure. So...probably.

How exactly can we compare these? The controlled vacuum implosion is 1 atmosphere outside and “a vacuum” inside, which would approach 0 atmospheres. The Titan is 380 atmospheres outside and 1 atmosphere inside. 380/1 is easy to calculate, but how do you calculate 1/~0?

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#122
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Probably a mixture of declassification procedures, no imminent danger to the public and a desire to confirm the incident visually before giving up hope.

Don’t forget bureaucracy!

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#123
post #6

I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

It is almost like they needed the news to be distracted for some reason.... hmmm

Sometimes, on a planet with 8 billion people, more than one newsworthy event happen concurrently without coordination or conspiracy.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres an avid discussion on the other thread about this, but the short answer is likely yes. They were probably crushed, incinerated and then bludgeoned to death in less than 3ms, and probably unconscious before they were aware of any of the rest of it.

Damn, why don't we execute people that way (if we're still executing people, that is)?

[deleted]

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N17tEW_WEU&t=166s This is what a controlled vacuum implosion of a liquid tank looks like at 1 atmosphere of pressure, including cameras showing the inside of the tank. The depth of the Titanic wreck is 3800m; down there the vessel would be subjected to 380 times that pressure. So...probably.

How exactly can we compare these? The controlled vacuum implosion is 1 atmosphere outside and “a vacuum” inside, which would approach 0 atmospheres. The Titan is 380 atmospheres outside and 1 atmosphere inside. 380/1 is easy to calculate, but how do you calculate 1/~0?

It's not 380/1, it's 380-1. 379bar of dp vs 1bar dp. So 379 times worse, ish.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#126
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't matter, dude. This is all set up on an ICS model. They're highly coordinated. Turn on your news sometime and one guy, a fire chief, a sheriff, or maybe rarely a military guy will be speaking and it won't be because they rock-paper-scissored for it. I'm the last person to deny the massive frustrating bureaucracy that is the US military, but in this kind of thing, that's not an issue. Former O-4 17 alpha.…

Wouldn't it be possible, if the Navy program were too secret, that they had no counterpart in the Coast Guard cleared for it?

Of course it's possible, but this isn't one of those things. Certain aspects of the systems are breathtakingly reported as "top secret" in the press, but the existence of sonar systems good at hearing and sifting noise to recognize that kind of sound is widely known. We know Coca Cola exists. Hell we know the ingredients, but we don't know the recipe.

One of the first things I imagine an incident commander would do would be to ask if anyone has anything like that. Any ships in the area, military or civilian or foreign hear/see anything that they know of. Sounds like he got that information soon. Does that mean the whole thing was a waste of time?

Without knowing more about exactly what they did or didn't do, I can't say. And whether they should have done all of this is besides the point. They decided to do a search. And until they could connect that sound with the vessel, they needed to keep looking.

This is why stupid people doing stupid shit isn't just a Darwin Award situation. Search and rescue types don't want to stop until they succeed and you're putting them at risk too. They leave bodies on Everest, I would hope this was only ever just to confirm they were dead and no one was going down there but who knows.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#127
post #66
post #31

Those who are familiar with US submarine operations would assume this from the start. For an excellent account of the development of US submarine capabilities (including listening and detection), I wholeheartedly recommend the book "Blind Man's Bluff".[0] How that book hasn't been made into a mini-series is beyond me. The stories and characters are incredible. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Esp…

I work at a Department of Energy facility as a contractor. Our DOE facility rep was a Navy Nuke, and gave me a copy of this book. I agree that it is fantastic. And it’s written in a gripping narrative style, so it reads more like a novel and less like conventional non-fiction.

The novelesque style of writing was a real turn-off for me and I returned the book. The authors attempted to dramatise every event as if they were there on the bridge at the time, even for events 60 years previous.

I've been trying to find a less breathless, more academic treatment of the subject but haven't had any success.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#128
post #82

Well heck I just argued with a bunch of people, who said the USN knew but would never tell anyone and me saying it's a baseless claim. I guess we were both wrong.

The USN might also say they knew, without actually knowing, just to exaggerate the claims of their capabilities. I take everything any country says about stuff like this with massive grains of salt - if they're not providing the information in real-time and then it later turns out to be true then coming back later and saying "oh we knew that all along" is kinda hard to take seriously.

That's a good point actually.

Similarly they claim the implosion was detected and triangulated but the banging went undetected until sonar buoys were deployed.

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#129
Calculation and modeling only takes you so far.

As materials engineers you should strive to intimately know the materials you are working with.

It's in our DNA to gauge and get a feel for materials, like a cat balancing on a thin branch, or a dog finding good spots to crunch a bone.

How does a carbon fibre tube behave when slightly overloaded with external pressure?

Re: Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

#130
post #6

I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

> to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed

If I am ever in a situation like this or under a fallen building or whatever I hope the rescue team will continue until death is 100% sure like starving or what and not because of some events happened.

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