this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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For those who are unaware: A couple billionaires, a pilot, and one of the billionaires' son are currently stuck inside an extremely tiny sub a couple thousand meters under the sea (inside of the sub with the guys above).

They were supposed to dive down to the titanic, but lost connection about halfway down. They've been missing for the past 48 hours, and have 2 days until the oxygen in the sub runs out. Do you think they'll make it?

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The 5 submariners chances of being rescued are very slim at this point but much much higher than the 500 migrants still missing off the coast of Greece who took to the waters not for a joy ride but to escape war and seek a better life.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (19 children)

No, nor do I think they should be. There will be millions of wasted taxpayer dollars wasted on trying to recover rich people's dead bodies. They signed a waiver and knew what they were getting into. There's nothing to be learned from whatever happened, since the company was clearly negligent. Let them rest on the ocean floor beside the other rich assholes.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At least this method of winning the darwin award is going full circle.

'Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12215003/OceanGate-REFUSED-independent-inspection-missing-sub-fired-worker-raised-safety-concerns.html

He hired a guy specifically to work on the safety of the sub and fired him when he raised too many concerns like the viewport not being rated for that depth.

'Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to the experimental design of the viewport supplied by OceanGate, which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy ('PVHO') standards.

'OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Exactly, there's enough evidence that they're just willfully negligent. Fuck them. The victims should have done even 5 mins of research on the company before getting in the sub.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's kinda poetic for them to go down next to the titanic, itself a story of complacency and excess/opulance.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I suspect they imploded.

These super deep subs are traditionally not reused very long, because the stress of the water pressing and then releasing weakens them. The more compression-decompression cycles they take the faster they degrade.

From all the reports, they got a lot of reports of issues that they ignored. I read that one of the reporters who saw it found it to be very jury rigged together. Apparently it was not certified in any way.

Even if they did survive and the ballast worked correctly, they would surface quickly (decompression sickness?) and cannot open the hatch from the inside. The thing doesn't float above the water, so its going to be a pain to find. Also they didn't paint it bright orange with blinking lights, its white, gray, and blue.

Overall, a lot of poor decisions and ignoring advice lead to disaster.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of all the various ways to provide emergency rescue assistance, it appears that they've included almost nothing which would help them in the event of an underwater failure that prevented surfacing (i.e. emergency ballast release failing).

Apparently it was not certified in any way

My understanding of this is limited to the two paragraphs on CNN, but there is a process for "classing" vessels. The owners decided not to do so as the process only certified that the vessel itself is safe for use, and does not verify the procedures for operation or the training of the crew. Their logic for not classing was that most ocean failures are the result of poor procedures or poor crew decisions, ignoring entirely that the reason most failures fall into those to cases is because the vessels themselves are vetted (via the classing process) to eliminate the hardware as a failure mode. It's almost poetic that the man in charge of that decision is on the craft.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Even if they did survive and the ballast worked correctly, they would surface quickly (decompression sickness?)

Decompression sickness is a concern only if they suffered compression. But the main problem, as I see it, is that the sub was made from materials that are famously brittle and tend to degrade over many cycles of pressure and release (resin, carbon fiber, etc). So the likely failure mode is catastrophic failure of the sub under pressure.

There's a reason most deep sea stuff is made out of steel: it's somewhat ductile and recovers from compression with minimal change in properties.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Just imagine, these idiots spend 250k to sit in a iron tube controlled by a cheap offbrand playstation controller but won't spend any of their money to improve the world. Only satisfying their own ego and greed. I can't feel sorry for them, best I can do is hope that they imploded so they didn't have to suffer too long.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

To be fair, there's nothing wrong with using a controller to control things, off-brand or otherwise.

Both industry and the military use off-the-shelf game controllers for things, because they're easy to obtain, ergonomic and relatively intuitive.

Although using a wireless one that was infamous for having dropout issues, without some backup mechanism that could also be used to control the submersible was probably something of a mistake. At minimum, you'd expect that they would use one that was wired, just in case someone forgot to charge the batteries before hand, and/or didn't bring a spare.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not going to diss on Logitech, they make some good reliable controllers. I would place them bottom on the list of things that probably broke.

That being said. I can understand why someone from the outside sees a plastic controller and wonder why they didn't go with the more expensive plastic controller. But in the end, they both have the same parts. I would also find it VERY strange that there wouldn't be a backup controller.

Though it is hard to take pity on the situation when one has to consider. That 250k a ticket is more then 20 single mothers working 2 jobs, so they can feed their kids, so this dude can go see the titanic..... in person.... Because video documentaries of every angle of the titanic in 4k resolution don't exist in 2023 apparently.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (16 children)
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Sadly I don't think so. This incident was absolutely preventable. Someone warned them about this and they got fired. A makeshift vessel that wasn't inspected/certified, immersed to almost 3 times the rated depth, controlled by a wireless Logitech gamepad from 2010 with no redundancy and only 96 hours of oxygen. I really really hope for a last minute miracle though...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think that this is the right question for this community, but I'm not optimistic on their rescue.

Even under ideal conditions, the ocean is enormous, and even with all things going well, finding a properly-equipped submarine that wants to be found, can be a bit like a needle in a haystack, at least according to people with more naval experience than I.

I hope that they would be rescued, since suffocating to death in a metal tube that's sealed from the outside seems like rather a horrid way to go, but at the same time, the submersible that is lost was not particularly well equipped. The control system was a wireless game controller which was infamous for having dropout issues. Using controllers is fine and all, since they're often used in commercial and military applications due to their intuitiveness and better ergonomics (plus the manufacturer doesn't have to design and build a new one from scratch), but using one that was infamous for having connection problems was rather tempting fate.

The lost submersible also didn't have anything like an emergency beacon that could be used to locate them, and it was sealed from outside. Even if they managed to resurface, anyone aboard would still be trapped within the tube, unable to get out.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

These billionaires just bought themselves something money can't buy, a footnote on a Wikipedia page somewhere that their deaths were loosely related to the Titanic.

Given that every billionaire has blood and suffering on their hands in at least ab abstract fashion and it's hard to feel sorry for them too.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (15 children)

I'm a bit confused that this is receiving so much attention. What's so special about this case compared to all the other cases of people being lost at sea every year, besides them being rich?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly, this case is somewhat extraordinary, in a deeply disturbing way.

First there was this amazing quote from the CEO who is missing on the craft right now

"You know, at some point, safety is just pure waste," Rush told CBS' David Pogue during an episode of his "Unsung Science" podcast. "I mean, if you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed, don't get in your car, don't do anything. At some point, you're going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question."

Second, aside from being made from questionable experimental materials, the sub was being controlled by an old, off brand xbox controller. There were numerous design and safety issues that were known at the time of departure. They kinda just did whatever in the F they wanted to. It's a millionaire game of Fuck Around and Find Out and they're not used to finding out.

Third, the damage waiver

The disclaimer, read out by CBS correspondent David Pogue, read: “This experimental submersible vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death.”

A nervous-looking Pogue makes a face and says, “Where do I sign?” in the footage recorded when he went on the $250,000 (£195,000) trip to see the Titanic at the end of last year.

I get that it's just some rich idiots (and one of their kids) crossing the river styx, but it's not very often you see such amazing disregard for basic safety.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't get why the Logitech controller is so focused on. I get that it's probably not the right controller due to it's age and wireless only nature but COTS parts are often more reliable than in-house ones. The lack of certification as you mentioned is a much larger issue.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Any game controller, would be insufficient to put 5 peoples lives in danger.

If you were going to use a game controller to do so anyway, you'd use one that can be easily replaced, maybe something manufactured in the past decade. That F710 is old (2011) and honestly didn't rate all that well compared to other controllers of it's time. It's wireless, adding needless risk.

The certification is all part of it. The control systems need to have backups. The gamepad aspect is interesting because it's blatantly spitting in the face of safety which seemed to be the CEO's style anyway.

Would it have been better than a new xbox controller? I'm not sure, perhaps not if it the new one was at least wired.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It really depends on how they went. Sudden implosion of the hull, quick and easy.

Floating around for days until your air runs out, wondering if someone will find you... Not so much.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

unlikely. sub rescues are hardly successful. Their sub could have imploded, fast way to die. Had a power failure wich would takes days to die either from a lack of o2 or possibly the cold. Or it reached the surface and they got to look out at thet ocean until about noon their time tomorrow unable to open the hatch and slowly die from a lack of air.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Seeing the construction of the submersible, I would not have ridden it... As soon as the inventer said "I got these from, uh, camper world.." I would be scurrying the hell out of that thing...

Apparently the acrylic viewing window was not rated for that depth, and the body of the submersible is constructed from carbon fiber... That whole rig seems sketchy as hell to me...

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Highly doubt it. I've been watching coverage and it seems pretty unlikely they will be found before their oxygen runs out (assuming they are even still alive and haven't died as a result of an implosion).

What irks me with all the coverage, however, is that no one is pointing out the potential harm to all the people involved in trying to rescue these people. The Coast Guard and other outfits undertaking the rescue attempts are put in danger the whole time they are out there. And of course there's the cost involved as well.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do you mean imploding? Because if they didn’t implode, being stuck in a sub for days, slowly waiting to suffocate, ist fucking horrible.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Probably not the worst way to go all things considered.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

A couple things are potentially different from how op laid them out. (From my understanding)

The vessel was designed to automatically begin resurfacing after a set period of time underwater, even without pilot input, so it might not be very deep at all. The problem is it doesn't sit very high in the water and is very hard to see.

They don't necessarily have 2 days of oxygen left, those were calculated values, and there may be other gaseous build ups that impair the totally oxygen supplies.

I hope it was over quickly for them, I don't know how you could resurface that type of vessel without breaking it. I hope we will find evidence and be able to piece together what happened, but I suspect it'll just be lost at sea. I don't think there's any conspiracy up keep evidence away from the public, I think most people underestimate how difficult it is to find 4 cubic meters inside a 10 cubic kilometer area, hell that would be hard without that area being covered in water.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Unlikely. Even if they could find the sub, safely raising it or somehow docking with it would take too long. They’re almost out of oxygen, so that thing is a sarcophagus at this point.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I don't like millionaires/billionaires but I wouldn't wish that kind of harrowing ordeal on anyone. I hope they survive somehow.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Normally I wouldn't sympathize with billionaires, but what a horrible way to die! Sadly I don't think they'll be rescued.

Certainly it is possible that they surfaced once they lost connection though... Even so, the search areas are huge

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I told my wife last night that I was glad to be broke for once in my life, lol

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My understanding is that chances are slim to none. I understand that whatever malfunction happened that cut the contact, has some likelihood to have been a much greater malfunction than just radio, and that they’ve quite possibly already been dead a while.

And even if not, my understanding is that they’re scanning a massive swath of sea and it’s very much a needle-in-a-haystack situation. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason such an unlikely operation is taking place, is because the people involved can afford it.

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