Just leaving this one here ...

I'm not going to express an opinion one way or the other on this article and the way of the world we currently live in. I'm just going to sit here in my deckchair with a sixpack and a large box of popcorn and watch.

[COLOR=var(--primary-text)]You all probably know what happened (or is currently happening) behind this picture of a submarine. [ Update: They’re confirmed to be dead. Debris from the wreckage has been found. ]

It dived to depths of more than 12,500 feet under the sea with several wealthy businessmen inside. It's now lost in the vast expanse of the ocean and presumed to have also lost any oxygen for the passengers to use.

What makes this even more unfortunate is that the CEO, Stockton Rush (who is also the pilot of the submarine) was already warned, advised, and criticized, about his decision to not have subject-matter experts on board and has subsequently failed to listen to their warnings.

When he was building the company, he wanted so bad to hire young people all because he didn't want his company to be filled by 50-year-old white guys with naval/military backgrounds - he wanted his company to be young and "inspirational".

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TRUE ENOUGH, this event has inspired us even more to trust 50-year-old white guys (point: men who are experts in their field with years of experience) instead of trusting young noobs and building a business to "inspire" instead of productivity and profit.

Diversity hires are terrible at any given field or industry. (except for Netflix)

When you compromise on skill and experience because you don't like

a. people who have more experience than the rest
b. white people
c. men
d. (all of the above, aka the western image of "Patriarchy")

you are going to lose all the time - in this case, lose your lives.

If your industry is filled with 50-year-old-white guys, it doesn't matter if that they're 50, white, or males, what matters is that these people are more suitable to work within your kind of business because they're actually good at it.

With no oxygen left, they have all probably died, drifting into an abyss of darkness, confused, scared, and doomed in their last moments. With no assurance that the vessel could ever be found.

(UPDATE: Since the debris of the wreckage has been found, it is assumed that the submarine imploded (not exploded) which means they were crushed outside in so fast, faster than their nerve impulse, even before they could know what happened to them.
(Nerve impulse or information travelling to the brain maximum speed: 432 km/h - while the pressure of a hull breach at that depth would be 3,702 km/h)

The pressure at the levels of the sunk Titanic ship is around 6,000 psi. To compare, sea level pressure is at 14 psi. Their bodies reduced to pulp, would be unrecognizable, a very instant, but brutal death.)

This is just an unfortunate event that could have been avoided if instead of the idea of a "young, inspiring, and diverse" company, they just used common sense.


Imperator

I dont get it? are you blaming diversity hire for this tragedy?

sounds like something an old white guy would say....


Also not sure why you couldn't just put "submarine tragedy thoughts" as the topic title rather then the complete guessing game of "just leaving this here"

There are people dying in genuinely tragic circumstances all over the world. Why the focus on these five? I feel for the youngest who was persuaded to join his father as a bonding experience. He didn’t want to go.

This story took our interest for so many reasons. The mention of the Titanic guaranteed that. We've probably all seen the movies. I doubt there would be much of a mention had they been descending toward some less well-known wreck. The various references and pictures of the vessel from the fact that passengers were bolted inside and seemingly had no seating to the crafts control system – a video game controller – took our attention. The wealth of the passengers probably added to that. Are wealthy people more important than refugees drowning when their boat capsizes? Apparently so.

In another forum I visit there have been jokes about the event. Some of them are in bad taste. There doesn’t appear to be universal sympathy for the deaths with references to stupidity. However, I've seen a great deal of interest in what went wrong.

According to one commentator the body (tube) of the sub was constructed of carbon fibre. Whilst a tough material the commentator suggested it is better in tension than compression. Not a good property for a sub. Also, had the tube been constructed with a cross-hatch pattern during the manufacture of the tube it may have been stronger, but it wasn’t. There was also a comment made that the ends had been glued onto the tube and that the glue may have failed.

Yes, it’s a sad thing, but there are worse things. I have more sympathy for the people of Ukraine than for the loss of those people.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man [George Bernard Shaw’s (1903) Maxims for Revolutionists].

If we stop diversifying due to accidents or deaths we will stagnate and then go the way of the dinosaurs. The people that diversify grow and those that don't slowly die out if not helped. The deaths were regrettable mainly to the families, the rest of the world ....not so much. I'm sure there will be other attempts to make a safer machine.

Bitter much?

Speaking as an old white guy, I don't have any problems finding or keeping jobs. In fact, I started a new position in November last year.

I average between three and four enquiries a month from recruitment agents and it's not like I've left detail of my working life off my resume (and on LinkedIn). It's there for all to see. Any fool can do the math and work out my approximate age.

That said, I've got an up to date set of marketable skills that I have maintained and expanded on over my working life.

Just gonna leave that there...

I came across this while looking for other stuff. Honest!

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Doug

I am assuming that your primary concern and reason for posting this thread has little to do with the failure of the Titan sub, or the immense media coverage of people with more money than sense or even our infatuation with the antics of the famous and wealthy. These are all separate phenomena and possibly worthy of discussion in another thread. However, I see your main concern being the rejection of people as they age as potential employees and why this, if it is true, is the case.

Of course, we can all find exceptions to this situation and that does not mean the supposition is untrue but more a case of "the exception proving the rule," to quote a hackneyed phrase. The case for not employing older people is that they are not able to work as hard as a younger person particularly if physical labour is involved. They are less likely to accept direction, which is because they may not be so dependent on the job (ie: no mortgage, no car on loan, no family still at home so no real commitments). Older people can be cranky and arguably less likely to accede to stupidity. If the job requires new training the benefit to the employer may not last as long. The older person's enthusiasm may have waned. Their imagination may have diminished. They may have become jaded and disillusioned.

The younger employee may be the opposite of all these things, but most importantly he/she can be moulded and is likely very dependent on the job. The bonus is that he/she may be able to bring inspiration: A little lateral thinking if you like.

So the next question is how true is this situation? For a period of about six months in 2003 I was unemployed. I finally signed up at Centre link, where they admonished me for not have registered sooner. I went through the hoops with the case person, who was younger than my youngest child, but quite a good person. He said that normally they would ask somebody to apply for a minimum of two jobs per week, but in my situation, because I was in a rural area and primarily because of my age (53 at the time) it was an unreasonable expectation and I would only be asked to apply for one job per month.

Their perspective was that a middle aged white man was close to unemployable.

In the general community this may be the case, but in specialised fields those skills may well be desireable well past middle age and I suspect this is where you are coming from with this thread.

Regards
Paul

PS: I am still employed on a part time (job share) basis at 72.

My millennial son's comment on the tragedy, "Did they do a dummy run first?"
From the mouths of babes.

I guess the dummy run was the last one. But I gather it was the 3rd descent, with the previous two obviously being successful.

I think, in our desire to know what happened and to imagine exactly how the Titan disaster occurred we may have missed what caused it. If, like me, your understanding is that the hull of the deep sea submersible failed we should be asking ourselves why it failed.

Well, the first aspect is that, according to the former executive who was taken to court at one stage and then everything was settled out of court, the vessel was only "certified" down to 2800m. The Titantic sits at around 4000m (round figures). The company maintained that it was safe at that depth and, to be fair, the CEO backed up that claim by being inside the vessel himself. However, why did the vessel fail? Was it as simple as the hull crushed under the extreme pressure? Was the carbon fibre not up to the task? Was there a systems failure before the vessel descended to an unsustainable depth. I would have thought, but don't know, that there would ordinarily have been early warning signs of stress both audible and through technology.

Suppose the control systems had a failure: The first thing that would have happened is they would be in the dark, completely, and then they begin to be extremely cold. Without control of the vessel's systems they would be unable to control the descent and unable to jettison ballast to halt the dive.

The reason I am raising these questions is that I called in on a neighbour and I knew her son spends long periods in deep sea dives in some sort of bathysphere or bathyscape. Without looking it up, I am not too sure of the difference, but I would suggest they do not have their own motive power other than up or down compared to the Titan. His comments were that if power had been lost, they had no hope. If the sub had not imploded they probably would have frozen to death first anyway. I can't help feeling that they would have known that their chances of survival were rapidly diminishing, but the final end would have been, as Doug said in the first post, in a microsecond.

Unfortunately, this is all supposition, as it looks likely that the Titanic and the Titan will be sharing the same bed for a long time.

So, where does that leave us on the philosophical question on what piques our interest in this type of venture? Is it the adventure and the sense of nobody has been there before (and come back)? Is it that the wealthy can indulge in this type of caper. A similar venture was the commercial space flights. All this type of thing has huge risk. Are these people nutters?

Regards
Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I would have thought, but don't know, that there would ordinarily have been early warning signs of stress both audible and through technology.

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By my (admittedly arm-chair) understanding, metal pressure vessels may give audible cues but that's not true for carbon fibre. Failure is... rapid. Basically, one millisecond you're biology, the next you're physics. Those sort of pressures scare me. :-

As with any unwitnessed history, all we can do is speculate. Physical evidence may direct the speculation, but I doubt we'll ever truly know the real story.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

By my (admittedly arm-chair) understanding, metal pressure vessels may give audible cues but that's not true for carbon fibre. Failure is... rapid. Basically, one millisecond you're biology, the next you're physics. Those sort of pressures scare me. :-

As with any unwitnessed history, all we can do is speculate. Physical evidence may direct the speculation, but I doubt we'll ever truly know the real story.

---

Skew

You may well be right about the creaks and groans: I have probably watched too many war movies with conventional subs and mega movies starts sweating copious quantities of water like excretions from their perfectly chiseled faces.

Something I should add, but I am not sure exactly of the relevance, is that the depth of the Titanic at 4000m is not even close to the maximum depths reached by man. Victor Vescovo has achieved the big five dives including the Mariana Trench at almost 11000m!! That is not to detract from the Titan experiment as it was a more conventional vessel, providing you exclude the hull material. Was that the fatal flaw?

Regards
Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

By my (admittedly arm-chair) understanding, metal pressure vessels may give audible cues but that's not true for carbon fibre.

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The engineers of the vessel were not of the same opinion.

Quote:

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The company’s engineer responded by saying it was using an in-house developed acoustic monitoring system instead. This involves putting sensitive microphones on the hull – like a stethoscope – to listen for telltale signs of the carbon fibres tearing. This would provide “early warning detection for the pilot with enough time to arrest the descent and safely return to the surface,”

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https://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...c414843af848b6

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

So, where does that leave us on the philosophical question on what piques our interest in this type of venture? Is it the adventure and the sense of nobody has been there before (and come back)? Is it that the wealthy can indulge in this type of caper. A similar venture was the commercial space flights. All this type of thing has huge risk. Are these people nutters?

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To my mind, diving to visit the wreck of the Titanic is a akin to summitting Mt Everest. It's there, it's well known, it's on the edge of what is possible for a human.
Yes, like travel into space, or to its edge, is only affordable for the wealthy. But so is climbing Mt Everest -- last time I looked, the cost to climb Mt Everest was in excess of USD $70,000.

Interestingly, nearly all subsea research at depths below about 500m is done with unmanned submersibles -- certifying crewed vessels to go much deeper is not worth the effort involved given that looking at a TV monitor provides the same information.


From what I have read on the topic, it appears that the Titan's carbon fibre tube may have failed. I understand that the tube may have been fitted with strain gauges, but although a strain gauge will give you some warning of incipient failure, at the depth the submersible was at the time of the implosion (about 3500m), the strain gauge warning would have been mere milliseconds before the catastrophic event itself. There may not have been time for the overstress warning to register with the crew before the implosion itself.

There's no doubt that attempting these records, while always involving an element of risk, advance our knowledge and/or provide benefits for humanity generally. However, to ignore the knowledge that has been gained from previous attempts is reckless and can endanger others. When Dick Smith and his mates climbed Ball's Pyramid, and when he did his round the world helicopter flight, they researched it well first. When the Wright brothers build their first aircraft, they built on their own knowledge of lightweight structures (bicycles) and the work of others on aerofoils and control surfaces. The guy who free solo climbed El Capitain knew it was risky, but had spent years researching it and systematically training to climb it, before his actual attempt.

I believe the '50 year old white men' comment came from the former executive mentioned by Bushmiller, who was dismissed because the company chose to disregard his knowledge because they were 'innovative'. In so doing, they ignored existing knowledge about the failure modes of composites. To my mind, this is comletely irresponsible.

"The Irresponsible." A much better name than Titan.

Smart people take risks too. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of your work. This example has nothing to do with submarines but is an example of people disregarding their own safety and that of others. There’s no doubt the scientists working with radiation on the Manhattan Project were clever people, but boy did they do some dumb things. Louis Slotin was one.

The designer of the sub should have tested it thoroughly. Should have done a lot of things, but sometimes people just get caught up in their own excitement. That's not an excuse. It just happens.

The photo and description are from wiki: Louis Slotin - Wikipedia

Louis Slotin died for his job; his passion. That's him in the left photo. The right shows what he was doing that led to his death - shoving a screwdriver into somewhere it shouldn't be. Though, I have to wonder what all that tape is meant to be doing on the bomb. Really, not a good look. That has to be science at its worst.

Attachment 527873


Slotin grasped the upper 228.6 mm (9-inch) beryllium hemisphere with his left hand through a thumb hole at the top while he maintained the separation of the half-spheres using the blade of a screwdriver with his right hand, having removed the shims normally used. Using a screwdriver was not a normal part of the experimental protocol.

At 3:20 p.m., the screwdriver slipped and the upper beryllium hemisphere fell, causing a "prompt critical" reaction and a burst of hard radiation. At the time, the scientists in the room observed the blue glow of air ionization and felt a heat wave. Slotin experienced a sour taste in his mouth and an intense burning sensation in his left hand. He jerked his left hand upward, lifting the upper beryllium hemisphere, and dropped it to the floor, ending the reaction. He had already been exposed to a lethal dose of neutron radiation.

This set me thinking of (Sir) Clive Sinclair back in the old country. A very clever and innovative inventor, creator of the first digital watches (OK, you had to press a button on the side to make the LED display light up...), and of course the ZX-80 and ZX-81 personal computers - I remember assembling one from a kit as a kid. Lauded by the press as a genius who could do no wrong, unfortunately he started to believe his own publicity........then set his mind to inventing a personal electric transport vehicle. Now, anyone else would have looked at the available battery and motor technology of the day, done a few quick sums on the back of a napkin, and concluded that it wasn't a good idea. Sir Clive, however, wasn't about to let the laws of physics get in his way, the result of which was

Sinclair C5 - Wikipedia

Doomed from the start, and the beginning of a slippery slope from which he never really recovered. In the case of Titan submersible, all the wisdom from other experts was that carbon fibre wasn't a good idea if it was going to be subjected to massive external pressures, never mind the material mismatches between carbon fibre and titanium end caps. I'm not a materials scientist, but even I can see the issues with using a rigid composite layered material in this application. The fact that he had a system of integrated sensors to detect cracking or delamination within the carbon fibre, and believed that this would give sufficient warning of a problem to allow time to surface, just beggars belief. I'm old enough to remember some of the very early applications of the new wonder material, carbon fibre, and also some of the spectacular early failures (yacht masts, rudders) that resulted from a lack of understanding of the material properties.

I recall Sinclair electronics, but I'd never heard of the C5. Having the handlebar under the knees sounds awkward. I had to laugh at the article when it mentioned someone had put a jet engine into one. Quite an elegant-looking thing, for the day.

A more amusing take on the Sinclair C5. History doesn't record how many people were squashed by trucks while using these on public roads !

https://www.theautopian.com/you-can-...oring-failure/

I was quite keen on his early computers, but don't remember ever lusting after a C5.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

A more amusing take on the Sinclair C5. History doesn't record how many people were squashed by trucks while using these on public roads !

https://www.theautopian.com/you-can-...oring-failure/

I was quite keen on his early computers, but don't remember ever lusting after a C5.

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Quite clearly he was just before his time (again). The C5 looks very much like something you might see on the road today. There are a host of small personal transports today, Segways, motorised skateboards, scooters, ebikes, and this would fit right in there.

I see in the news that the submarine, or parts of it, have been recovered. It will be interesting to hear what investigators discover.

A little over 80 years ago a sub went down off the English coast during its maiden voyage. The HMS Thetis. It had been undergoing tests before being put into service. One of the torpedo tube doors was opened and water flooded inside and the sub sank. Most of the crew died.

Investigators later discovered the reason for the sinking. The torpedo tubes have an inner and outer door. The sinking was the result of an inner door being opened before the outer door had been closed. A very basic mistake but some of the responsibility rests with the shipbuilder.

For each tube, there was a pressure gauge. If a tube happened to be filled with water the gauge would register the water pressure, and if the tube had no water inside the gauge would show zero. The pressure was an indicator of whether the outer door was open or not. During the build of the sub, this particular gauge had been fitted upside down. Of all the tubes in the sub only one tube had its gauge positioned upside down. The tube door that had been opened was the one with the incorrectly fitted pressure gauge. Had the crew member been aware of this situation he might have read the pressure on the gauge and understood that there was water inside. It had been assumed by investigators that it was likely he glanced at all the pressure gauges, saw the indicator needles were all pointing in the same direction and assumed they were all safe to open.

The designers included a crude safety device on the inner tube doors. A small hole was drilled through the doors. It was there to provide an indicator of the situation as to whether there was water in the tube or not in the event that the pressure gauge failed. If there was water in the tube with the outer door closed, water would dribble from the hole, but if the outer door was open the added pressure would cause water to spray from the hole. However, on this particular door, there was no hole. When the door had been painted some paint had gone into the hole and dried effectively sealing it.

The Trieste was the first deep-diving vessel to reach the depth of some 10,900m in the Mariana Trench in 1960.
It was designed by Auguste Piccard, as Swiss scientist, and built in Italy. Auguste Piccard's son, Jacques, manned the vessel together with a US Navy lieutenant, Don Walch, in this record dive.

There is an interesting YouTube video telling the story: Rolex presents: The Trieste's Deepest Dive (Extended) - YouTube.

Cheers
Yvan

I had the doubtful pleasure of driving a Sinclair C5 when my local bike shop had one for display. Despite being given the option of taking it on the road, I opted to stay in the shopping centre. I found it underpowered - it didn't have the acceleration or speed of the bike, and was only marginally more comfortable. Worst of all was the lack of visibility to other road users.

Alex - that was the scary thing, the idea that these were road legal and could be taken out to mix it with cars and trucks. Clive's solution to that was a range of little flags and warning reflectors to go on the back of your C5.....

Attachment 527937

Apologies for turning this into a Sinclair C5 thread - I initially posted as an example of what happens when an inventor, however apparently brilliant, takes it on himself to ignore the limits of the known technology. It's just a great pity in the case of Titan that others had to pay the price too.:(

Came across this on another forum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LcGrLnzYuU