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… 🤦🏻♂️
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