Posted on 06/22/2023 9:41:36 AM PDT by xxqqzz
As a massive search continues for a missing tourist submersible with five people on board near the Titanic wreck, US journalist Michael Guillen recounts his harrowing experience of being trapped in a similar vessel during a dive in the same spot back in 2000.
"I was the first correspondent ever to report from the wreck of the Titanic. So, naturally, I was excited," Dr Guillen, who at the time was science editor at America's ABC network, told BBC Radio 4.
He recollects that - together with diving partner Brian and Russian pilot Viktor - they went down in a small Russian submersible lowered from the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh research ship.
After touring Titanic's bow where "everything had gone well", the crew decided to head to the stern area some distance away.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
From what I read, it sounded like a jury-rigged contraption.
” I don’t think Ocean Gate was building to military or NASA standards.”
I’m not sure there were any standards at all.
The interior lighting was purchased at Camper World according to the CEO of the company.
*jerry-rigeged
Speaking of OceanGate, I don’t think they’ll be building anything anytime soon. In fact, I expect their demise as a company soon.
Why would Russians even be interested in the Titanic, I wonder?
There was a video of the construction showing black carbon fiber being wound around something in a tube shape. And then metal end caps being dropped into and glued to the tube body. Im no engineer but it seemed incompatible with what you’d want to overengineer if you were building a submersible to go that deep. Why not use proven, thick, thick metal in mostly one piece with equally thick port windows as well instead? Doesn’t make sense yet at least.
I wonder, was this one craft the only one in existence? were there previous failed models they tested or spares built also?
I’ve become rather claustrophobic in my later years. I dread MRI’s.But today I’m enjoying the beautiful weather at 4,500ft, observing the mighty Sierra Nevadas. You can have those enclosed environments.
when lives are in the balance, over engineering is par for the course.
but what do i know.. i’m an old, grey haired, white guy
Carbon composites were used to lower the weight so it would self-surface when the ballast was dropped.
The way the layered the carbon and bonded it to titanium that expands and contracts at a vastly different rate was beyond stupid.
I remember the "old" machines and equipment designed and used at General Electric I've seen from the 40's and 50's and 60's. The lathes weighed tons, even the old metal desks probably could withstand 20 tons on top of them.
The Titan Tragedy
https://youtu.be/4dka29FSZac
That doesn’t sound very inspirational (cheap)
Curiosity is common among humans.
That sort of engineering is the kind of thing those 50-year-old white guys would insist on, and they’re insufficiently inspiring...
Maybe so, but I understand it was controlled by the best joystick $10 can buy
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-17060355
On 23 January 1960, two explorers, US navy lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard, became the first people to dive 11km (seven miles) to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. (sophisticated version of a diving bell)
No, the USSR and the French have not had the ability to dive to that depth “for 40 years”.
https://search.brave.com/search?q=deepest+diving+submarines
Summarizer
The deepest diving submarines are the Soviet K-278 Komsomolets and the Deepsea Challenger. The Soviet K-278 Komsomolets was a nuclear-powered submarine specially designed to make trips as far down as 1300 meters (4265 feet) below sea level, while the Deepsea Challenger was a 7.3-meter deep-diving submersible designed to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on Earth. The Trieste submarine, designed by the Swiss but built by the Italians, established the deepest military submarine dive at roughly 10,911 meters (35,797 in feet) during the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench. The TRITON 36000/2, designed to glide vertically through the water column, can reach the deepest point in the ocean in approximately three hours and is the only submersible ever to be certified to unlimited depth.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Ballard-American-oceanographer
Robert Ballard, in full Robert Duane Ballard, (born June 30, 1942, Wichita, Kansas, U.S.), American oceanographer and marine geologist... In 1967 he was assigned to the Woods Hole (Massachusetts) Oceanographic Research Institution... In the early 1970s Ballard helped develop Alvin, a three-person submersible equipped with a mechanical arm. In 1973–75 he dived 9,000 feet (2,750 metres) in Alvin and in a French submersible to explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain chain in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1977 and 1979 he was part of an expedition that uncovered thermal vents in the Galapagos Rift... To test the Argo, he searched for the Titanic, which had sunk in 1912 and remained undiscovered despite numerous attempts to locate it... On September 1, 1985, the first images of the ocean liner were recorded as its giant boilers were discovered. Later video revealed that the Titanic was lying in two pieces, with the hull upright and largely intact. Ballard returned to the site in 1986, traveling to the underwater wreckage in the submersible Alvin... Ballard continued to search for shipwrecks, and his notable discoveries included ancient vessels and World War II ships, including the Bismarck (sunk 1941) and John F. Kennedy’s U.S. Navy torpedo boat, PT-109 (sunk 1943).
From dictionary.com:
Jury-rigged means something was assembled quickly with the materials on hand. Jerry-built means it was cheaply or poorly built. Jerry-rigged is a variant of jury-rigged, and it may have been influenced by jerry-built. While some people consider it to be an incorrect version of jury-rigged, it’s widely used, especially in everyday speech.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/jury-rigged-vs-jerry-rigged/
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