You’re making my point. But it was only the 25th mission–not nearly the 135 that creates your statistic.
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One of the people on board is super-experienced:
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French maritime expert who has been on over 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site, is one of the five people aboard the submersible that has been missing since Sunday, said Mathieu Johann, an agent for Mr. Nargeolet.
Mr. Nargeolet is the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, Inc., an American company that owns the salvage rights to the famous wreck and displays many of the artifacts in Titanic exhibitions. The company conducted eight research and recovery expeditions between 1987 and 2010, according to its website.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/us/missing-submarine-titanic-who-is-on.html
However, the submersible is so lacking in basic design (e.g., hatch can only be open from the outside) and lack of emergency locator transmitters, even someone as incredibly experienced as Mr. Nargeolet can’t do much.
Apparently, he was also instrumental in the recovery of Air France 447, which crashed in the Atlantic in 2009 on a flight from Rio to Paris.
No one knows this for a fact, but one of the ways to conserve oxygen is to have the other passengers sleep (if that is even possible), as humans use less oxygen when sleeping. If the banging is coming from inside the Titan, that may be why it is coming in 30-minute intervals, again, to conserve oxygen. And that would probably be Mr. Nargeolet. But this is all total speculation.
The press conference I heard this morning CLEARLY indicated that there were no guarantees that the sounds were coming from the Titan. The ocean is vast, and there can be many reasons for the sound. But, coming at seemingly regular intervals has to give some hope. It’s clearly a race for time, though, assuming the five souls are still alive.
I wish them the best.
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Agreed totally with your dad, who clearly had much more knowledge about these missions than I do.
And there is absolutely no comparison between the world’s pre-eminent space agency, with the massive successes of Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo (with some disasters as well) and a company like OceanGate, the operator of the submersible.
One thing about OceanGate: my understanding is that, because it operates in international waters, it is not subject to regulatory oversight by any government agency. For things like this submersible, I strongly believe you need to have an adequate level of regulatory oversight. Seemingly, there was none.
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Sadly, an Omega Speedmaster watch won’t save the Titan crew, like it did for the Apollo 13 astronauts.
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That and the support of the world’s greatest space scientists, engineers, and mission staff. In addition, redundancies were built in everywhere in Apollo, and they had planned for every contingency, or so they thought. Incomparable to OceanGate, obviously.
As they say about Apollo 13, it was the “successful failure.” Apollo 11 (and the others) were generally some of the greatest successes in world history. Apollo 13 was too, but in a different way. My admiration for NASA in the 1960s-1970s knows no bounds.
In any event, I hope these five are safe. I’ll save further comments until the search and rescue is over.
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Agree! Also, the known whereabouts of Apollo 13 was an added bonus. Here, rescuers have to search for a needle in a haystack before any recovery attempts can be even made. 
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If attached outside of the hull, it would have to withstand 400 bar of pressure (based on the submersible’s depth range), so about 5,900 pounds per square inch for anyone using the inferial system.
Also, the “not expensive” ones will automatically activate when immersed - which for a sub would be the expected state!
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According to this, it was not the first time the submersible went missing for a few hours.
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What would a pressure-withstanding beacon cost? $10,000? $100,000? Seems like it would be a fraction of the value of the submersible they may not recover as a result – never mind the lives that might be saved if they could find the crippled vehicle near the surface.
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How much would a good bumper on your car cost?
100%! They mistakenly thought their money was being spent on a fun, safe adventure.
Years ago we rented a little motor boat for the day in Sorrento, Italy. There were no safety precautions issued by the company. They simply told us how to run the boat.
It was crazy and irresponsible in hindsight, but we spent the day on that boat having fun. We didn’t drive stupidly, of course. Luckily, no one else drove stupidly, because were no life jackets. Thank heavens we didn’t need them, but we honestly never thought about that when we set off. We just thought it would be an adventure for a day.
I wrote a review mentioning that they didn’t have life jackets on board, and they responded saying there were life jackets. There were not, or if there were, they were totally inaccessible. Interestingly, they didn’t say where those life jackets were.
This incident is a much more serious issue, of course. It’s incredible that there seem to have been some basic safety lapses in this case, but non-professionals don’t know what they don’t know. They surely felt they were safe. White subs are a bad idea for a non-military vessel. How can anyone spot a tiny white thing in a vast ocean amongst the whitecaps?
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Re: white subs. Agree that the color choice is puzzling. One article described how the CEO despised the yellow color of their earliest submersible. He said he hated the song! 
Orange is a color least likely present in nature and is being used for life jackets etc.
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" Titan passengers signed safety waivers in case of bad outcome. Pogue described the safety waiver he had to sign to ride the Titan submarine, which included many clauses specifying ways passengers might be injured or killed."
Pogue is the CBS reporter. He said the waiver say “Or you could DIE” on every page, usually several times. He did say it was very clear it was dangerous.
But some people think they are invincible so they sign the waiver and get on the ship, the rocket, shark cage, the horse. They climb mount Everest. They ski the back country without avalanche beacons in March with unstable conditions, they try to pet bison in Yellowstone. And we pay to rescue them.
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The embedded video showing the GeekWire reporter diving in a different OcenGate submersible makes this dangerous activity look like fun…
This former paying customer says the sub had CO2 scrubbers (duh! an enclosed space needs them) and other safety features, and the safety instructions lasted several hours.
That guy also believes they are floating on the surface, and because the submersible is white, it is hard to see it among whitecaps.
Now… there are some ramblings that U-Dub helped design the doomed Titan. UW made clear that the joint project involved a different sub called Cyclops which is not designed to go as deep as Titan.
Macklemore was apparently one of the guests on the Cyclops!
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Another deep sea tourist describes his experience as a “kamikaze operation”
Mr. Rush is a descendant of some famous people, too:
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/missing-titanic-submersible-ceo-sf-family-18162447.php
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