Posted on 06/22/2023 6:39:42 AM PDT by Red Badger
Stockton Rush, who is one of five people aboard his own company’s lost and likely doomed submersible which lost contact with the surface while diving to see the Titanic, said in 2022 that “safety just is pure waste.”
Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, spoke with CBS News reporter David Pogue on his podcast “Unsung Science” about a prospective trip to see the legendary shipwreck some 12,500 feet below the Atlantic surface off of Newfoundland.
“My whole life I wanted to be an astronaut,” Rush stated. “I went and got an aerospace engineering degree. I wanted to be a fighter pilot but my eyesight wasn’t good enough for that. That was when I had this epiphany that it wasn’t about going into space; it was about exploring. It was about finding new life forms.”
“I realized that the ocean is the universe,” he continued. “That is where life is, and it fit very well. It turns out that an aerospace engineering degree actually has helped me do things in the submersible world that people who don’t understand compressible fluid flow didn’t quite figure out.”
“Once you’re certain it’s not gonna collapse on everybody, everything else can fail. It doesn’t matter. Your thrusters can go; your lights can go; all these things can fail, you’re still gonna be safe,” he said. “You just have to be very careful that the life-support systems, the sub itself, the oxygen system, carbon dioxide scrubbing, all that stuff, that needs to be buttoned down.”
Rush spoke of the dangers involved in his work, saying, “There’s a limit. At some point, safety just is pure waste. If you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get into your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re gonna take some risk and it really is a risk-reward question. … I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”
He said what worried him was not going underwater with the submersible but the trip on the ship getting to the area of the dive, saying, “What worries us is not once you’re underwater; what worries me is when I’m getting you there.”
“What I worry about most are things that will stop me from being able to get to the surface,” he said. “Overhangs, fish nets, entanglement hazards. And, that’s just a technique, piloting technique. It’s pretty clear — if it’s an overhang, don’t go under it. If there’s a net, don’t go near it. So, you can avoid those if you are just slow and steady.”
Pogue wound up staying on the mothership while another team submerged but didn’t find the Titanic, ultimately surfacing but never losing contact with the surface.
Hung on his own petard.
His last video, found in the sub was, ‘Roseglub!’
The above is a very sensible statement. Taking "safety just is pure waste" out of context is a disservice to every reader and Rush.
The US taxpayer gets to gleefully foot the bill for the rank stupidity of this commercial company.
And Canadians and French, et al............
The good news is this CEO jerk-wad will no longer purposely endanger the lives of others by ignoring established submarine safety standards.
The bad news is this a$$ took four others with him. Rich people or stupid people or not, these folks did not deserve this fate.
I simply do not have any sympathy at all for this clown that thinks 50 year old white guys that are experts in submarine technology are a pure waste. May the worms down below enjoy their feast on Stockton Rush’s remains. May this or similar happen to all the other elite wokesters wrecking western society.
“Taking “safety just is pure waste” out of context is a disservice to every reader and Rush.”
For the media and establishment, everything is about advancing a narrative.
“The above is a very sensible statement. “
No, it is not. The rues were written in blood and exist to prevent more bloodshed. It is a retarded statement by someone who will get himself and others killed, and he did.
I’ll bet that this Rush character has sung a different tune now, sad to say. I still pray for the families of those who are in this submersible, and who, according to those in the know have probably run out of oxygen.
Guessing the game controller did not get new batteries before the trip. Too bad Rusk can’t be charged with murder. Or the sub imploded. Stupid flippant narcissist. Safety rules just bit him and sadly 5 others who trusted him with their lives.
The father and son’s business interests were to get away from fossil fuels yet it’s fossils fuels that searching for them.
When you’re dumb, you gotta be tough.
Back in the day Stockton Rush would have gone over Niagara Falls in a potato bag
Safety was not considered. The vessel was badly designed. The burden of responsibility falls on the company.
Going 2.5 miles below the surface of the ocean is serious business. The pressure on the sub is enormous. Too many things can go wrong and for some, there is no way to recover.
Hoping they are on the surface waiting to be let out - the stupid design of the thing means that it cannot be opened from the inside.
I would not have set foot into that vehicle for any incentive in the world. Unmanned vehicles give you the same view, but not the ability to say “I was there.”
“Taking “safety just is pure waste” out of context is a disservice to every reader and Rush.”
The context is that he fired a whistleblower who told him how dangerous the enterprise was.
He was not smart enough to be able to figure out when “safety just is pure waste”.
A great many rules are based on opinion and speculation.
Example: Short barreled rifles require a $200 tax stamp, fingerprints, and months worth of rules to acquire.
Pistols and rifles do not.
The rules about short barreled rifles were passed out of sheer ignorance, stupidity, and bureaucratic empire building.
I have seen this guy before, I worked with ones like him and for ones like him but not for very long. When they start talking about breaking down barriers, innovation, throwing away the rule book and other crap like that I find some other project to work on.
I have dealt with people who just had to change things and were blind or scornful of the way things are done without knowing why they are done a certain way.
I suppose there is a certain recklessness to innovative and real and useful change but only if you don’t think of consequences or others or they are of the same willing bent to risk it all.
Never knew it had a name. I only observed that people should not change things before they understand why they are there or done in a certain way in the first place but they do too often. Some dude gave this a name in 1929.
New people wanting to be movers and shakers, new generations ignorant of much, all seem bent on changing things without understanding why they exist in the first place. There can be an erroneous arrogance in assuming anybody before did things because they were not as smart. We seem to be getting a whole lot of that these days with the new generations in charge of the world we live in. Energetic enthusiasm, perhaps youthful as well, can be quite a good thing when planned though.
It is not that change is not good so long as it makes things better. Improvement may be better than change though.
Chesterton’s Fence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPGbl2gxGqI
What if they died of hypothermia? Still a tough way to go out.
The above is a very sensible statement. Taking “safety just is pure waste” out of context is a disservice to every reader and Rush.
I generally concur that it is taken out of context but this is the quote he will be remembered for in history and if it were just him on the sub it would be no different than the person who goes over Niagra Falls in a barrel.
He chose to make a business out of his “risk” and other persons lives were gambled on his experimental craft and now the lawyers will circle like buzzards.
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