Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering • Hacker News Board

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#411

Post by ethbr0 » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC

dmonitor wrote: post #265

ethbr0 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pressure hull >> ballast control >> thrusters >> everything else I'm not sure why everyone is taking potshots at a company for trying something crazy with willing passengers . Everyone involved knew what they were getting into. Kudos to them for trying, even if they're dead. > See: the fact that they lost their diving vehicle. That's an awful lot of keyboard engineering, given nobody knows what happened yet.

> That's an awful lot of keyboard engineering, given nobody knows what happened yet. Unless I'm mistaken, the subject article starts with the words "Submarine missing". The fact that the whole thing was jury rigged and double checked by nobody with certifications is enough to start pointing fingers at the engineers. This isn't the company's first trip either. They've taken multiple trips down and have almost lost the…

Yes. "Missing"

Assuming it sunk, it'll be order of week before it's found. It'll be order of month before it's raised, if it can be. And then after analysis we might know why it sunk.

+60 hours after lost contact, while there are possibly still people alive inside the vehicle, seems premature and crass to be casting accusations for internet points.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#412

Post by WhereIsTheTruth » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC

Dork1234 wrote: post #386

WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The top end joysticks used in video game tournaments for maximum reliability are easily $200+. Not the $30 Logitech controller, ever heard of joystick drift? plastic is plastic, imagine you in a mission, and your joystick starts to drift

or you are feet away from 50 foot section of the rusted Titanic and you drift into causing it to crash on top of your sub, or worst cracking the front window barely rated for 1/4 of the depth you are at.

as he pilots the missile guided nuclear warhead with his $30 joystick, Sgt James's controller's joystick drifts and hit New York by accident!.. the city is gone.. he could have avoided this issue, but unfortunately, the buttons were stuck because it's raining and the controller is not water proof, it's unfortunate to loose the WW3 due to this $30 mistake!

- fiction, obviously

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#413

Post by xwdv » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC

windowshopping wrote: post #402

xwdv wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sea is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. The only thing bigger is space.

Sorry but this doesn't really answer my question. I know the sea is vast. Yet we are able to navigate it consistently. Why is this vessel unable to stay in contact with its parent and relay its relative location?

You know the communication equipment failed right? I’m not sure what you expect. You know radio signals don’t travel through water?

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#414

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:33 AM UTC

proggy wrote: post #200

rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

The lack of emergency beacon is the real WTF. Not even an inflatable buoy. Using a game pad is probably OK. But no emergency method to mark their last location or even surface?

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#415

Post by fasthands9 » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

brutusborn wrote: post #404

reaperman wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference between Jacques Cousteau building a janky submarine rig for himself vs. Creating a business model of selling tickets to random strangers on that janky submarine.

There is definitely a difference, but it doesn’t really matter philosophically speaking. If people want to take huge risks, then so be it. Whether they build the sub themselves or pay and give that responsibility to a proxy, it is still up to them to make their own risk assessment.

This is not really how the government operates. If this was operating at scale the government would absolutely be involved. You can't just run cruise ship operations and advertising without government involvement.

I dont see how this is any different. Perhaps you personally have a "so be it" libertarian view but thats not the view the government takes.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#416

Post by mcpherrinm » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

hunson_abadeer wrote: post #341

rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

Maybe so, but it's easy to say this after the fact. When kludges like this work, we admire "scrappy" and "ingenious" engineers who are finding ways to launch rockets or build submarines or medical devices or whatever for fraction the price. It's only when it blows up that it turns from "ingenuity" into "amateur hour". People who participated in this knew the risks. They fucked up. None of us would have designed a bet…

I am not a mechanical engineer, so you're right, I wouldn't design a better submarine.

Peers in the industry though have expressed concerns, such as in this 2018 letter:

> This letter is sent on behalf of our industry members who have collectively expressed unanimous concern regarding the development of TITAN and the planned Titanic Expedition. Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/marine-technology-soc...

Or when they fired and sued their director of marine operations who raised safety concerns:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23854184-oceangate-v...

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#417

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

proggy wrote: post #200

rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

> it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to.

The pressure vessel was a titanium hemisphere bonded to a carbon fiber cylinder. It was destined to fail with such a fundamentally compromised design like that.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#418

Post by silisili » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:36 AM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #217

vlod wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my previous comment [0]: "that would release some sort of buoy, that would float to the surface and start transmitting with gps etc." That should work if it's floating I would think? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36409802

I wonder what the drift would be like if you released a buoy 2 miles below the surface. You could theoretically have the last estimated location of the sub, but even then that's largely an estimate as its not like the sub actually has a GPS fix its all dead reckoning. They already know about where the sub should be, somewhere around the Titanic wreck. If an untethered buoy pops up a few miles away, does it really do…

I tried to research, but it's not clear. It says the gulf stream can reach 5mph, but also that that is near the surface, and it's slower the deeper you go.

A buoy ascends at 2.8 m/s. 3000m would yield, meaning about 18 minutes of rise time.

If we assume that water is at max speed the whole way through, we'd be talking about 1-2 miles.

Realistically, because most of its rise is in deep sea conditions, I imagine it'd be less than 1 mile.

But, if it made contact as soon as it reached surface with a GPS location, I'm sure some scientist could calculate about how far it drifted from the water conditions. I'd imagine they could get it down to a few hundred foot radius?

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#419

Post by svnt » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:38 AM UTC

kevinpet wrote: post #388

Aeolun wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of us would have designed a better submarine I dunno. I would never go with wireless over cabled, certainly not as my primary steering method, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the only method onboard to control the thing. Maybe it’s better if these things are build by paranoid instead of adventurous people?

You can have safety, or you can have a submarine tourism startup. You can't have a submarine tourism startup staffed by cautious risk averse people.

How many people should we sacrifice to get a submarine tourism startup?

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#420

Post by mocana » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 1:38 AM UTC

I think the game console controller is getting undue attention. Those things are super-durable and reliable! If it can handle years of Donkey Kong, Galaga and Frogger at the hands of obnoxious teenagers it can handle a mini-submarine at the hands of adults.