Family may want the sub. recovered for an investigation more than burial.
Titanic tourist submarine missing 6-19-2023 (Debris field found, passengers presumed dead. 06-22-23)
They have money. They can pay for a private salvage operation if they want.
(Reply to susan)
I hear ya. But at what cost? And I don’t mean money. The bottom of the ocean. It’s a big thing to ask.
By my math, they’ve got about 5 hours of oxygen left at this point. Seeing as the sub would have to be lifted to the surface to open it, I don’t see any way that they can be got to in time.
This is now a salvage operation.
I had a similar thought.
But if they lost propulsion and somehow ended up more or less neutral buoyancy they could be drifting around somewhere in the water column. Wherein it might take days (weeks?) for the sub to either settle on the bottom or arrive at the surface. And during the entire time it’s somewhere in the water column vertically it’s also drifting horizontally.
I don’t know how dynamically stable neutral buoyancy in water is. IOW, if they drift up a bit is there a natural restorative force down, or a runaway imbalance that drives them inexorably towards the surface?
Military submarines of course have powerful active sonars for detecting silent underwater stuff. But given the comparatively shallow depth limits even on modern subs, how much can they point their active sonar downwards to scan the deep, deep, deep ocean where Titan might be drifting?
It could be a real life Flying Dutchman wandering in the middle of the water for a long time.
Look, I don’t care what they do. I’m naming an alternate explanation for why a family might want it retrieved an response ro discussion about burial.
Looks bad, but people vary in how much oxygen they consume. In past situations, I think the oxygen sometimes/usually lasted longer than rated.
OK, that’s cool. I refer you, then, to running coach’s response.
Agreed, except I think the rules needed to be in place in advance.
The U.S. Coast Guard, by law, does not charge for rescues. But some U.S. states have rescue services that charge.
I think the law should change to charge for rescues. But I have a hard time seeing a charge for failed rescues. And I think the rule making needs to focus on common rescue scenarios, not the very rare super high publicity rescues like this.
And if they were alive for a while after the failure, it’s likely they wrote some stuff down. They may have provided details on what failed, which would be of value to the investigators. Or they may have written personal notes to family members, which would be of obvious importance to them. If that happened, preserving these messages assumes (of course) the sub didn’t implode sometime later, and that it can be retrieved intact.
Here is a link to an in-depth consideration of explorers and risk-taking by Sarah Parcak, one of the pioneers in using space technology. I launches off the current crisis but goes much deeper and farther into the broad topic of risk-taking.
Why does NASA buy Coca-Cola? They can’t get 7UP.
You misspelled “Mission Specialists”.
Carbon dioxide was an issue that occurred to me just a little while ago. It’s something that hasn’t been mentioned in the media, or anywhere upthread (except for your post) as far as I can tell. On Apollo 13, it was understood that carbon dioxide build up was going to be a fatal problem long before they ran out of oxygen. Wouldn’t that be an issue in this sub as well? If the thing is only outfitted for a mission of 8 hours, would they even have bothered including a CO2 scrubber in the design? Would CO2 build up be a fatal problem in less than 4 days, especially considering the volume of that sub is so small?
It doesn’t have to crumple. the water could fill the vessel under pressure. If it’s hauled up then the pressure from inside comes back out. I can’t find it but there’s a video of an early deep sea sphere that this happened to. When they opened it up the door shot off.
Doh! That was a stupid thing for me to write.
But was there full disclosure of the risk?
For example, did the waiver papers say that the viewing window was only rated for 1,300 metres depth, but that Titanic was at 3,800 metres? Did the waiver papers say that Titan had not been submitted for safety reviews, the only one in the small group of submersibles designed to go to Titanic that had not been reviewed?
If there was full disclosure of those sorts of facts, then maybe the waivers would stand. But if the waivers only spoke of “experimental submersible”, without revealing details like the depth rating of the view port, they could potentially be set aside by a court.
As always, facts will be important if there is a lawsuit.
So too will the law of the jurisdiction where the claim (if any) is brought, as some jurisdictions may be more willing to set aside waivers than others; will depend on a review of the law of the different potential jurisdictions.
Right. I well remember one of my professors at law school saying something along the lines of, “Liability waivers are worth the paper they’re printed on—in other words, about two cents, tops.” He went on to say that unless they make full disclosure about what might happen, including death, a good lawyer could punch right through them.
I have, sadly, had the vet put a number of pets to sleep. It was their time; they were old and struggling and in obvious distress. Anyway, I always had to sign a waiver for the euthanasia procedure. It always included the phrase, “This procedure will result in the death of your pet.” That’s unambiguous, and that’s the kind of thing any such waiver should address.
From what I understand, “death” appeared at least 3 times on the first page of the form, so there is that. But, OTOH,
Combo Veterinary/Taxidermy service!