Private enterprise sub, taking people down for “visits” to the wreck site. Costs around $250K each. One of the people on board is a billionaire who also paid to go into space…
The whole thing sounds dodgy as fuck, from the way it was built, to how it operates, to how passengers are literally sealed in from the outside, this meaning that if the stupid thing surfaces, unless the mothership picks them up in time, they still die…
It’s such a comedy of errors, it’s the kind of shit that only the very rich, and the very naïve, could have allowed to happen…
Anyway, fuck knows, I hope they turn up alive and well, but damn… Next time someone proposes an extreme deep sea sub held together with parts from Walmart (quite literally), steered by a video game controller, and which apparently cannot communicate with the outside world while deep-submerged, and wants to charge $250K to go gawk at Titanic, maybe society should think twice..?
I mean, come on… 🤦🏻♂️
I haven't seen anything on the craft itself. Are you saying it wasn't manufactured by a submersible company that sells these things as its primary business?
Oh, you definitely should look up the apogee (CBS) article on it…
It’s a jerry-rig. Like, pretty much, shiny bells and whistles, and otherwise cheap parts to keep cost down…
So I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but no, this is… DIY rich-man tech, essentially…
Worse, they sell this as an "experimental" thing implying its something no one has done before. But manned subs that go to these depths do exist and have a ton of thoroughly tested safety features. (see: Alvin). how can someone pay 250k for a tour in this coffin without doing any due diligence is beyond me.
I'll look into it. No sarcasm intended. I just assumed that all these science vessels with submersibles bought them from one or two companies that specialized in their construction.
I definitely wouldn't board some asshole's homemade sub and descend to the depths the Titanic is at.
Little historical aside:
One of the first deep sea vessels was made by General Mills because they had their own machining and fabrication operation to build I don't know, threshers or corn flakes rollers or whatever the fuck General Mills uses to make products.
None of the usual heavy industry manufacturers would go near it because an admiral (rickover?) thought exploration was a waste of money and everyone wanted in on naval contracts
You may be thinking about Aluminaut, made by by Reynolds Metals Company.
LMFAO!!!
Goddamn that's a hilarious sentence and I'm not sure why--maybe "corn flakes rollers" HAW!
For that depth there really aren't COTS solutions. There are companies that make ROVs for that depth, but anything manned is going to be a custom built with WHOI and FNRS having the most experience at it.
As a side note, the Alvin is now 100% ship of theseus; nothing on it remains from the original 1964 build.
Oddly, though, the Peter Madsen/Kim Wall affair suggests that this is not the first time some “mad genius” has created a fully workable DIY sub, with funding, and then… Let’s say “done things” with it…
(Obviously Cousteau also invented one, but thankfully he didn’t kill anyone…)
It just takes idiots to throw money at it.
What is unusual is how blatantly shitty the build quality of this one is, at least internally, and the fact that it is going down further than almost any sub before it…
Your mention of DIY makes me wonder if the Colombians are still using cocaine-smuggling subs.
Evidently they're still in use and confounding the navy and coast guard: "According to Robert J. Bunker, senior fellow with Small Wars Journal El Centro, 'Hundreds of these vessels have been built over the last three decades with likely dozens of narco subs operating at any one time. Hundreds of tons of cocaine is transported from Latin America up to Central America and Mexico each year using this method.'"
My archive thing will not save this fascinating article so here's the title from the NY Post: "How drug runners use ‘narco submarines’ to traffic cocaine, money & more"
By Michael Kaplan March 12, 2022