So you are suggesting the US Coast Guard was involved in a charade?
I doubt it was a charade because even the US Navy couldn’t be 100% sure the submersible imploded without seeing the debris. Put the two together, and now it becomes clear that the sound was likely the implosion of Titan.
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I agree, but the other poster suggests withholding aid was a conscious decision.
That’s pretty serious to allege that, IMHO.
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No, I’m suggesting that given the Canadians and French volunteered to send ROVs, there was no need to add any comparable US equipment, and the Coast Guard didn’t take extreme measures that might have put additional personnel at risk (e.g. using crewed submersibles in the area). These reports suggest that the US did have access to comparable ROVs (but was being asked to pay to use them):
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Fair enough.
This is a real issue. I do find it problematic that these for-profit ventures, WITHOUT ANY APPARENT GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT, can take advantage of the rescue ethos of the US military/law enforcement. It puts many of our forces at risk.
I do really hope that governments (US and around the world) crack down on these extreme adventure organizations and that they become regulated. I am no engineer, but the implosion of the Titan strongly suggests that an unregulated company that had been sued and had numerous complaints about its vessel should have been regulated from a safety perspective. That appears to be the loophole that OceanGate exploited.
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And even then astronaut lives were lost.
NASA - old tech. SpaceX new tech. Look at the capabilities of NASAs largest lift capability (SLS ?) and look at SpaceX Starship / no comparison. So cost per pound to orbit makes SpsceX the superior solution, not to mention reuse
There is no comparison between Apollo 1 and the OceanGate tragedy. None whatsoever.
The US was creating science and technology as it went. It was in a geopolitical race for space superiority with the USSR.
After Apollo 1, nearly two years elapsed before the launch of Apollo 7 and a continuation of successful launches.
Gus Grissom and Ed White were highly trained astronauts. Roger Chafee was rookie, but on a highly accomplished team.
To compare the OceanGate tragedy to the Apollo project in any possible way is without merit. I do not know what benefit that the US gets from the OceanGate tragedy, and I can only imagine the sadness that the family members feel.
But Apollo was done for the benefit of the US and, by geopolitical extrapolation, the world. OceanGate’s expeditions were done for the profit of its owners.
Big difference. I think we can agree on that.
As a taxpayer, I don’t want to be funding Elon Musk’s hubris, like launching a Tesla convertible to Mars. Space is a far more important resource to the world than letting Elon Musk have control over it.
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The point was that even NASA will see failures. They did with Apollo and they did with the shuttle program. I’m sure at some point SpaceX will have a failure with a crewed vehicle.
The differences between SLS and Starship are well known and documented. You may not like a Musk but SpaceX is revolutionizing spacecraft.
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As with Apollo, I have no issues if SpaceX is a prime contractor like Boeing, NAA, Rockwell etc were back then. But they were under NASA’s control. If that applies to Space X, then fine. But I am not sure it is analogous to Apollo, which was frankly one of the world’s greatest achievements.
I am all for innovation. But the Boca Chica launch is a perfect example of how Musk himself messed up the launch (e.g., not using water suppression on the launch pad). I am literally no rocket scientist, but neither is Musk. Apparently, he himself made the decisions relating to the failure of that launch.
Space is not about Elon Musk. It’s about the US and the world. I am not content to let any one individual be a proxy for national and international concerns/interests.
To bring it back home to the OP topic, in the same way, OceanGate apparently had NO business launching Titan. Perhaps with US government oversight etc, it might have. But reading Stockton Rush’s pronouncements about safety and how it wasn’t a worry, this tragedy was a foregone conclusion.
My point is that the US should never cede important initiatives like space and underwater exploration to any company without involvement/oversight.
Not very libertarian of me, but I am not a libertarian. I strongly believe in the appropriate level of government regulation, not a free-for-all.
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Not a political thread but history would say you are off base here.
No idea at all what you mean, but please explain if you will.
No I am not raising two issues. I did not address your point “One…” But since you raised it, yes, I agree with the law of the sea that every available and nearby ship goes to aid another ship in distress, even if that ship is full of pirates. And that includes the USGS and Navy if they are in the area.
And I also agree that Bezos and Musk should not be able to launch rockets for free, particularly for space tourism. (And no where did I post anything to the contrary.)
Where we disagree is somehow regulating deep ocean exploration.
btw: I’m sure that you are aware that Nasa is paying SpaceX to launch rockets to the space station. I think Boeing got the contract to the moon, but Musk is after the contract to Mars.
Might make a good thread. To be successful space needs to be commercially accessible. That will be done by private ventures with vision. NASAs goal is to get back to the moon with old tech (reusing old shuttle engines, really?). Musk’s goal is mars. That’s vision. Sending a Tesla out into space - that’s 
style
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I was relieved to hear about the implosion, and even more relieved that it apparently happened early in the trip. The worse thing was thinking of the five of them trapped, helpless and waiting to die. I feel like this thread needs a moment of silence, so to speak.
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Heard on the news from an ‘aquanaut’ who said the implosion at that depth would happen in two milliseconds. And the human nervous system takes 4 milliseconds to feel anything, so they literally would not have known what happened.
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That is actually comforting.
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This is the scientific paper mentioned in the article:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/2130/1/012006/pdf
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Something thing popped up on my watch that said the Navy heard an implosion on Sunday right about when the vessel lost contact.
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WSJ article posted above details that.
Post #114
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