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… 🤦🏻♂️
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.