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Reddit is about to get a little less accessible (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 year ago by ardi60@lemmy.ml to c/technology

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[–] quaddo@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Last year, CBS correspondent David Pogue commented on the sub’s “jerry-rigged” design before

A shame that this keeps getting brought up. Yeah, some of the stuff was super-basic. But the absolutely key component, ie, the pressure vessel itself, was anything but jerry-rigged.

That said, I'm really curious how the pressure vessel failed. My random guess is that the viewport glass (which may not have been glass at all) cracked and then ruptured. I know that one of the vessels that has been down to the Mariana Trench experienced glass cracking; that was definitely a sweaty palms moment for the crew.

Also, given that the hatch had to be bolted shut from the outside, I've been wondering whether they need to be set to specific torque values each time. Meaning, what would happen if they were unevenly torqued down? My bet is you'd get uneven warping where the hatch mates to the vessel cylinder. Even if the warping is microscopic at sea level, the stress differential would get magnified at depth.

It's also got to be pretty rattling to folks like David Pogue who have already been passengers. I've heard David himself say he's still trying to process it all. But there's got to be an ample heaping dose of "holy shit, that could have been me if the dice had fallen differently". It's already started to bother me that he keeps getting pulled into interviews; the first one was fine, but to keep pressing him with "what are your thoughts/feelings"… I'd rather buy him a beer and talk about literally anything else, so he can have a breather.

[–] bamboo 32 points 1 year ago

idk if /c/LostLemmies exists, but this fits

[–] Los 17 points 1 year ago

Your comment has been posted in the wrong thread as I'm sure you're aware by now. FWIW, this is a known Lemmy bug.

[–] brownpaperbag@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why are you posting about the Titan sub in a thread about a Reddit community of transcribers that will be closing?

[–] salarua@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

it's a known bug in Lemmy. sometimes comments get sent to the wrong thread

[–] Jo@readit.buzz 5 points 1 year ago

Your post has appeared in the wrong sub but the pressure vessel absolutely was jerry-rigged and the viewport wasn't up to the job: A whistleblower raised safety concerns about OceanGate’s submersible in 2018. Then he was fired.

The report detailed “numerous issues that posed serious safety concerns,” according to the filing. These included Lochridge’s worry that “visible flaws” in the carbon fiber supplied to OceanGate raised the risk of small flaws expanding into larger tears during “pressure cycling.” These are the huge pressure changes that the submersible would experience as it made its way and from the deep ocean floor. He noted that a previously tested scale model of the hull had “prevalent flaws.”
...
A day after filing his report, Lochridge was summoned to a meeting with Rush and company’s human resources, engineering and operations directors. There, the filing states, he was also informed that the manufacturer of the Titan’s forward viewport would only certify it to a depth of 1,300 meters due to OceanGate’s experimental design. The filing states that OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the Titan’s intended depth of 4,000 meters. The Titanic lies about 3,800 meters below the surface.

[–] athos77@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Well, first off, you're in the wrong thread. Your points are valid: the viewport glass was technically rated for the depth, but the viewport company said that they wouldn't actually stand behind it because OceanGate was using a different hull. The viewport company suggested a different viewport but it was more expensive and OceanGate refused.

The torque on the bolts wasn't something that had occurred to me and is interesting.

My theory is that the carbon fiber hull collapsed, due to the strain of pressure cycling. It's something the whistleblower was concerned about, and apparently they accepted visibly flawed carbon fiber for the hull. You can read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/20/a-whistleblower-raised-safety-concerns-about-oceangates-submersible-in-2018-then-he-was-fired/