Experts inside and outside the company warned of potential dangers and urged the company to undergo a certification process.
Innovation sometimes means risking your life. I’m grateful there are people willing to do that to advance our capabilities, because I am not. However, I’m not convinced that eccentric billionaires paying a quarter of a million dollars for a vanity trip to a maritime graveyard, qualifies as innovation. Nor do I believe that it deserves a multi-million dollar international rescue effort. All five of these people knew and happily accepted the dangers and risks and should have to live (or die) with the consequences of their decision.
I have tons of sympathy for their families, but in my opinion, this is no different than climbers who go missing in Everest’s Death Zone. Those people don’t expect a rescue because they know it is near impossible and puts others at risk. Extreme deep sea expeditions should be treated the same way. To be fair, I don’t know that the five missing would have expected or even wanted this kind of rescue effort, but it’s something countries will have to discuss in the future as extreme tourism seems to be on the rise.
It’s not even all that innovative. carbon fiber hulls have been used for deep sea hulls for ages. you want to see innovative? look at Triton Subs.
Agreed. There are so many examples of people who invented things nobody believed were possible and changed everything, i.e., the first diving suit, first airplane. A cobbled together submersible, designed to milk profits so billionaires can scratch one off their bucket list, doesn’t quite fit my definition of innovation.
Great. Another “genius” CEO who thinks he’s smarter than the experts and that his product is so innovative that regulations would just be a burden.
In the documents, Mr. Lochridge reported learning that the viewport that lets passengers see outside the craft was only certified to work in depths of up to 1,300 meters.
This sort of incompetence feels criminal.
What are we going to call the scandal? OceanGateGate?