The sub went missing while carrying five people to the wreckage of the Titanic.
Since I heard about this whole fiasco I’m more and more dumbfounded.
There was this guy, who invented a way to dive for cheap (he listens to the carbon, and if there is a suspicious sound then he quickly comes back to the surface), complaining about the regulations which were holding submarines back. He fired the whistleblower who made reports about the danger of the equipment. He was fired and escorted outside.
Make him a meme, let’s call him the “I told you so” guy. Surely he will be invited in TV shows about this whole affair.
The equipment, a game console controller? Seriously? Gaming equipment is simple: It’s about 3% return policy. Depends on the brand. The people who swear that game controllers are safe are among the 97% who never had a return. They are the people who answers “mine works” on a forum when someone ask why his controller failed. If your game controller is broken, the service is : we send you a new one under 48 hours.
--> This service policy doesn’t work at 3800m under the water, folks! This is not the right equipment. What kind of person bets the life of 4 people on gaming equipment?? We all know why he did it, because he hates regulations and he hates paying a premium on redundant equipment. He is in for the money, nothing else. So let’s cut the costs on the hardware, let’s not listen to anyone and let’s not purchase the product of the engineers who designed equipment specially with these constraints in mind.
From time to time there is always a guy who pops-up and believes that regulations are made by people with too much free time in their hands.
Everyone is focusing on the controller, which I don’t think was the issue here. Also they had spare controllers.
The issue is the hull was made out of fucking fiberglass and titanium. This was the first dive since it had gone through a repair. Some tiny imperfection in that fiberglass, under thousands of pounds of pressure, and you’re fucked.
This is why real submarines are made out of steel.
On the plus side, it was probably a very quick death.
The game controller thing gets meme’d to death, but I don’t think people focus on the right thing.
Xbox controllers are also used by the US Navy, among other branches of the military.
These are GOOD pieces of engineering, and they’re tested by millions of users under pretty strenuous conditions. However, the controller the Oceangate was using was some shitty-ass third-party controller that you can get for peanuts off Amazon.
THAT, IMO, is the issue that this piece of equipment illustrates. A solid Xbox Series S controller is $60 on Amazon, and you’re telling me you had to go for cheaper?
The navy uses wired controllers to operate periscopes, not wireless ones, and not for anything mission critical. Although I think I remember reading some military drones are or were at one point using controllers because they’re easy to train people on, but those are unmanned.
Also, backups: the controller doesn’t bother me that much UNLESS they had no redundancies for it failing plus checklists. I.E. controller battery dies, use second controller, use wired controller, use control screen, etc. And backup mechanical linkages for critical stuff. I don’t know the details but if they lacked these things, then they are (were) definitely morons.
For what it’s worth, in one of the old videos the CEO did, he mentioned that they kept two or three of the controllers on board. I think the stuff about game controllers and RV gear is overblown and almost certainly not what caused the problem. The bigger issue to me is the fact that they picked “exotic” materials for the pressure vessel (which while strong, are more brittle and fail more dramatically than steel), didn’t get them properly tested or certified, and if they somehow had been found adrift, put no engineering effort into escape or communication in an emergency.
Though thinking about it, I guess the game controller thing is relevant, at least to the extent it points at a pennywise and pound-foolish operation trying to value-engineer a business to go to the bottom of the god-damn ocean. Carbon fiber and tungsten sound amazing, until you realize that a big part of using them was to create a vessel big enough for 5 that was also small and light enough that it could be toted aboard any ship they could rent, and would then be set free from its launch sled by dudes undoing bungee cords.
The military uses them for autonomous vehicles. There is no risk of loss of life involved if they fail. They also aren’t the only control mechanism.
I don’t think the fact that the controller was wireless gets highlighted enough. Bluetooth devices have a hard time working above sea level and you’re expecting it to work 3800m below the surface. Delusional.
Does higher air pressure affect Bluetooth signals?
Also, buy better Bluetooth devices, I haven’t had to deal with disconnections with quality modern gear outside of battery issues. My first run steam controller hasn’t given me any issues with wireless connections while playing, and all of my headphones stay connected to the proper device even when I’m stupid far away (like, I left my phone in the car and I didn’t notice any drop in quality until after I entered the store).
BT devices got problems only when water is in between anetna1 and antena2. It does not matter at what altitude the devices are, just what is inbetween them.
