# Bad News: 30 years for Titanic to rust away to a shapless blob
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 12, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519 "2012-04-12T01:15:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/21 "2012-04-12T11:15:21Z")
Why, will that cause all the stories to disappear from the newspapers and blogs and morning radio and news sites I do read? If not, what’s your point?
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/22 "2012-04-12T11:37:29Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> **Bad News: 30 years for Titanic to rust away to a shapless blob**
>
> Surely there is something we could do? I have some ideas:
>
> 1/ Pump oxygen down there, should speed up oxidation, right?
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> Why, will that cause all the stories to disappear from the newspapers and blogs and morning radio and news sites I do read? If not, what’s your point?
I think I can safely say that spending huge amounts of money to pump oxygen down there to deliberately destroy it would not decrease news coverage of the subject. Rather the opposite; _not_ a recommended plan.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/23 "2012-04-12T11:40:06Z")
You’re right. OK then, but my other ideas are practical, just and workable, I’m sure you agree?
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/24 "2012-04-12T12:24:39Z")
One of the things about the finding of the Titanic that I absolutely _LOVE_ is the way they completely got this wrong.
For years, people had been telling us that the _Titanic_, when it was finally found, would be found virtually perfectly preserved, and it would be all in one piece. This was the whole point behind things like the _Ghost from the Grand Banks_ chapter from Arthur C. Clarke’s novel _Imperial Earth_\* (and the later book of that title), and for Clive Cussler’s breakout bestseller **Raise the Titanic** (Later made into the first Dirk Pitt movie). The extreme cold and lack of oxygen, we were told, would keep the ship in pristine condition. We could possibly re-float i!
Then they find the actual wreck, and send up pictures. It’s in tweo large pieces, and it’s covered in “rusticles” (rust icicles). Despite the fact that eyewitnesses reported and even drew pictures of a busted-in-half Titanic before it went down (as depicted in the Cameron film), no one apparently wanted to believe it, and this detail was conspicuously absent from fiction and films about the sinking prior to the discovery. But even worse was the total failure of the prediction of the ship’s lack of decay.
Whether the media is biased or not, it does have one annoying feature – it never admits that it is wrong, or that it doesn’t know something. If the virtually unanimous statements made on various media outlets are proven incorrect, they won’t tell you about it, but will blithely proceed as if they were right all the time. I can recall no _mea culpas_ about getting the state of the Titanic wrong.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/25 "2012-04-12T12:28:50Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> Surely there is something we could do? I have some ideas:
>
> 1/ Pump oxygen down there, should speed up oxidation, right?
>
> 2/ Invite everyone who blathers on about the damn thing to go for a dive down there and collect souvenirs. Sufficient oxygen for them to return to the surface would be a waste, in my view.
>
> 3/ Pay for all the Titanic obsessed to go out on old ready-for-scrapping cruise ships to the location of the sinking and re-enact it, hopefully causing their sinking ships to fall on and crush the Titanic into unrecognisable scrap.
>
> Any other ideas?
Wait a couple of weeks until the 100th anniversary is past and the media attention moves on to something else?
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### Author:  [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/26 "2012-04-12T12:48:12Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> Putting “Titanic” into google news gives 29 results for the _last 24 hours_.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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### Author:  [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/27 "2012-04-12T13:19:53Z")
Man, thats just cold.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/28 "2012-04-12T13:24:14Z")
Yeah…kind of gives a sinking feeling.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/29 "2012-04-12T14:08:52Z")
Yes, it does, but my heart will go on.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/30 "2012-04-12T14:21:19Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> Yes, it does, but my heart will go on.
>
> Regards,
> Shodan
I prefer _this_ version:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISujjBWWPcM)
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/31 "2012-04-12T14:30:52Z")
Wait–it _sank?!_
[Tosses flowers into trash can, walks sadly away from Pier 54]
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### Author:  [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/32 "2012-04-12T14:55:36Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> You have got to be kidding me. Climb out from under that rock. Putting “Titanic” into google news gives 29 results for the _last 24 hours_.
One of the hits being this thread. Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/33 "2012-04-12T15:39:30Z")
> [@Eve](#):
>
> Wait–it _sank?!_
>
> [Tosses flowers into trash can, walks sadly away from Pier 54]
Go to the Chelsea Hotel. That’s where the survivors are staying.
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### Author:  [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/34 "2012-04-12T15:44:24Z")
What people on this message board get overheated and pissy about astounds me. The 100th anniversary of the sinking is coming up, of course there’s going to be stories about it. Read something else. Go outside and talk a walk. Have a juicebox and a nap.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/35 "2012-04-12T16:05:33Z")
> [@PlainJain](#):
>
> One of the hits being this thread. Thanks.
I must be doing it wrong, because I get 44,200 hits for the last 24 hours.
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### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/36 "2012-04-12T16:15:30Z")
Why don’t we have a sappy love movie based upon the Andrea Doria? That would be more interesting…or maybe the recent Costa Line accident.
There would be more time for Jack and rose to get it on.
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/37 "2012-04-12T16:32:41Z")
> [@Kolga](#):
>
> The 100th anniversary of the sinking is coming up, of course there’s going to be stories about it.
Yes, but there have been almost 30 stories about it across the internet in the last 24 hours! Sure, there have been about 30,000 stories about other crap during that same timeframe, but 30 whole stories around the 100th anniversary of the most talked about maritime accident of all time? That’s insane.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/38 "2012-04-12T17:16:17Z")
Worse News: It won’t take \*me \*30 years to become a shapeless blob…
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/39 "2012-04-12T18:03:37Z")
When I saw the words “Titanic” and “shapeless blob,” I thought of the movie script.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-news-30-years-for-titanic-to-rust-away-to-a-shapless-blob/618519/40 "2012-04-12T18:27:39Z")
Ouch! Move over, Rex Reed!
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