Titanic Sight Seeing Sub...

fischersd

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Yeah. Even if the company somehow avoids legal peril, and another adventure sub is manufactured, who's going to be lining up to give it a whirl as it descends 2 1/2 miles below the ocean surface? There might be a few, but enough to make it a business? That would be a tough sell.
Umm...all of the social networking millionaires? (with their Onlyfans and tictok accounts) There will always be a market for Darwin Award contenders. :)
 

fischersd

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From the link that @Yoused posted:

"It is bad news. It points to the scenario experts had feared right from the outset - that the Titan had experienced a catastrophic failure of its pressure vessel and imploded."

The implosion was likely very quick. They shouldn't have suffered.
 

mollyc

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Screenshot 2023-06-22 at 2.51.58 PM.jpg


read on the NYT
 

mollyc

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they found the tail cone, indicating an implosion.

i can't believe people are asking if they are going to recover bodies.
 

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GermanSuplex

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This is a bizarre story all the way around. I don’t want to criticize the deceased, there’s certainly value to people who are somewhat fearless and risk-takers. It seems strange this was legal to begin with, but hey, I’m ok with people being free to do these kinds of things if they are aware of the dangers up front.

It all just seems a bit senseless. Although I’d much rather go due to implosion than to float around the depths of the northern Atlantic, touring my grave and contemplating my impending death. That’s a little too Titanic-like for my tastes.
 

Nycturne

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Yeah- the window not being rated for the depth seems like a major problem. I’m not sure about the construction, I have been traveling and not paying much attention to the news but I heard carbon fiber… which I suppose is fine, but I’d imagine like other machines you have to have thorough durability testing and a verified inspection process. Much like an airplane I would think your hull would have a limited number of pressurization cycles so to speak. I’m not sure why you’d go with a novel material when materials like steel are tried and tested.

As someone who pays some attention to bike engineering, I’ve seen things that would make me worried about using carbon fiber for a pressure vessel. Carbon fiber in bikes has two undesirable properties. First, it tends to hide stress fractures and is generally difficult to assay its condition. Second, when it does fail, it’s catastrophic. It shatters and explodes because of the stress the shaped composite material is always under. The general rule I’ve seen with composites and bikes is that if you do have the frame fail, you will eat dirt when it happens, and you won’t get any warning when it does.

Meanwhile, James Cameron seems to be highly critical during an interview today. While I was aware of his Deepsea Challenger work, and that he had visited the Titanic, I wasn’t aware he made over 30 dives to the Titanic.

 

shadow puppet

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Meanwhile, James Cameron seems to be highly critical during an interview today. While I was aware of his Deepsea Challenger work, and that he had visited the Titanic, I wasn’t aware he made over 30 dives to the Titanic.
Towards the end of production, Cameron's company farmed out some final shots in order to get the film completed. IIRC, it was originally slated for a Summer release but ended up being just before Christmas of that year. We shot the stern of the ship, after it broke off, in a computerized tank at 20th Century Fox. Principal photography shot in Rosarito. Anyway, in the main photography production office, juxtaposed with oversized storyboard renderings, were photos of some of Cameron's dives to see the Titanic. They were haunting and utterly beautiful in their own way.
 
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Nycturne

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Anyway, in the main photography production office, juxtaposed with oversized storyboard renderings, were photos of some of Cameron's dives to see the Titanic. They were haunting and utterly beautiful in their own way.

And apparently he’s on record saying that he made the movie more to be able to visit the wreck than any desire to make the movie itself. And I’ve known he’s the type to really dig into things when doing work on a production. I just never realized that he was this active in underwater exploration in general.

But yeah, if one of the few pilots to see the depths of the Marianas Trench (and knowing him, I would be surprised if he would climb in without knowing quite a bit about the thing he was going to be piloting) says what I’m doing is a mistake, I sure would hope that I’d listen.
 

shadow puppet

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Re: Cameron

I'm just glad I didn't have any direct interaction with him. I heard so many nightmare stories from his crew detailing what he was like to work with.

We prepped out of his Digital Domain office in Venice, CA. All the VIP staff would have video meetings with him in the office conference room via a satellite link-up. James was editing out of his home in Malibu. You could hear him screaming at them if you walked past the conference room. Everyone would come out of the meeting white as sheets.

But the Rosarito crew that joined us on our shoot at 20th Century Fox, were wonderful. I still remember one of the key art/prop guys introducing himself to me saying "I'm so & so and I've been working 36 days straight so I'm psychotic". 🤡
 
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