this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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[–] Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 73 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Tragic?

Try "predictable"

Please watch the Netflix documentary if you havent.

The sub was never meant for that depth and they knew it.

They could literally hear the carbon fibers snapping every dive.

They had to retire an entire chassis because it failed at similar depths.

Nahh, the tragedy is rich people think they are better than physics itself.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The tragedy is that more of these rich people don't test that belief against reality.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

At least two billionaires keep firing rockets into space as a hobby. It's only a matter of time.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

But they put other people on those rockets, not themselves.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There was a tragedy. One billionaire forcing their child to die

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Trying to do extreme engineering on the cheap.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

it was DIY from start o finish on the craft. as opposed to spending 5-10mil on a spherical TITATANIUM sub. instead he used carbon fiber which was defective airplane parts.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

So his goal was to make a deep sea taxi of sorts. Rich guy affordable and capable of carrying more than 1 or 2 people at a time. Based on what I've read and seen he had two main reasons for the design:

  1. Titanium/steel would've been too heavy and required a different design.
  2. A sphere has too little volume to carry the number of passengers he wanted so he used a cylinder.

His use of CF was not only mostly untested but where it had been tried it was found lacking. It is strong in one direction but not others. The manufacturing process was very difficult and fraught with issues. Making such a large component that thick meant many many wrappings that had to be precisely done. For instance, they would get bulges that had to be reduced immediately or they'd amplify with more wrappings. So they would grind down those spots and wrap over them. The problem here is now you've broken the fibers and created end points and fracture initiation points. Things like the junction between the metal end caps and the CF tube were also an issue.

He was very cocky about how often you could reuse the vessel and tried to be cheap on testing which would involve sacrificing vessels. At 5,600 PSI small things that you could ignore in, say, an airplane structure, become wildly amplified.

Personally I didn't see the point of the whole trip except for bragging rights. You'd be watching most things on a monitor anyway and your porthole was this little, very thick, acrylic hole. You might as well send a robot down and watch on a screen on the ship.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

being a cylinder there was also greater surface area for pressure points too. i read the articles after it imploded, he reused the sub, after it already has been too deep.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

It is also inherently weak. With a sphere it is all compression. With a cylinder you get compression and tension.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago

How many atmospheres can this ship withstand?

Well it's a ~~spaceship~~ airplane, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one."

[–] architect@thelemmy.club 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think it’s more like what are the chances it fails while we’re in it? Fuck it.

[–] BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Considering that is basically the only time it could fail, I would say the chances were pretty high.

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The main issue with the Titan wasn't as much the depth as it was cyclic loading

[–] Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

No, it was entirely the depth. They tested it in the lab and saw many failures but never changed the design.