Now that the Titan's end has been determined and all onboard have died, should government involvement and funding be stopped?

Liquidate the company to reimburse the taxpayer.

@ragingloli That’s for sure although I think once they’re sued up the wazoo by the victims’ families, there won’t be much left for reimbursement. Insurance issues and bankruptcies will be rife.

The Titanic site is now even more of a graveyard and there are strong arguments in favour of letting the dead rest in peace. However, despite that, I think we ought to try to establish just what went wrong with the Titan or the living won’t be able to live in peace.

@flutherother But is it the government’s responsibility to pay for that?

If they can learn important information from finding more debris from the vessel then I’m ok with them spending money on it.

Are the $ estimates for sure in addition to normal operations? The coast guard and military spend money daily on normal operations, I’m not sure if the money stated is the net amount.

@JLeslie I’m almost sure it is in addition to normal operations.

@janbb I think it is. Who else can pay for it? I also think this type of venture should be better regulated to try to prevent it happening again.

From what I understand, they believe the hull weakened over time after diving multiple times. Possibly, our Navy could learn important information from that. If there are legitimate scientific reasons to find more debris I’m ok with spending the money. If it is just to tell a more complete story to the families then I’m against it.

Disasters give information that can be very valuable.

From what I’ve been reading, many people already had warned against the flaws in the Titan’s design.

The company’s website is already down. It’s been down all day. I’m betting the others who are involved with the company on the financial end are now working with their attorney’s to protect their assets or pull their money out and hide it. As for if it’s the government’s job to pay further to investigate this, I think only the government can be trusted to be objective in their investigation.

I heard on the news today that the Coast Guard is pulling most resources out of this area to put them back to preparedness in case of other emergency. The resources that were on the site Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday won’t be there any longer.

Hopefully, seeing the fate of the submersible will be a disincentive to others who want to do similar deep sea submersible exploration.

@jca2 This is a side point but I heard one submersible expert say that there are submersibles that are safe to go much deeper than this one and have. Stockton Rush did not follow standard design protocols and went his own way in developing the Titan.

I guess I’m not sure how much more there is to learn from this failure besides the interests of those personally involved. Ocean Gate was warned it was a flawed design and it proved to be so. I can’t imagine there are any remains to be found so I feel any mroe investigation should be in private hands.

I’m glad if the Coast Gurad is pulling their resources.

Yes. I don’t think enough could be learned that is not already known that could justify all this.

I saw someone on TV saying that after the Titanic standards and requirements changed for life boats. Every time there is a plane crash lots of money and time is spent investigating it.

I just think if the military believes it is worthwhile they probably have good reason. I trust it. Our military men don’t make more money because they investigate, they are salaried. There is no big incentive to lie. I’m just going with trusting there is likely a good reason to pursue it. Maybe they get free food while stationed there? Not sure if they get extra hazard pay? I don’t think so.

@JLeslie I hadn’t read this but @jca2 says the Coast Guard has pulled out most of their resources so I guess they don’t think there is much more to learn.

It seems like investigations may go on but on a smaller basis.

@janbb Oh, ok. Seems like they self regulated how much time and money was worth spending.

@JLeslie Or maybe they read my rant on Fluther and realized the error of their ways! lol

@janbb Cut and pasted from the NY Times, June 23, 2023:

“Nine vessels remained in the area as the search for remnants of the Titan, and mapping of the debris field, continued on Thursday afternoon, but Admiral Mauger said they would begin to disperse in the next 24 hours.”

Gee, maybe they’ll start doing underwater tours of the crushed bodies of the passengers of the Titan.
I understand the romancing of the Titanic tragedy, but we should respect it as a graveyard. If the government stops involvement in tours and research here I’d be good with that.

They cut too many corners to save money at every turn!!! There is no big incentive to lie. The military was almost positive on Sunday night what had happened. They knew for sure by Tuesday when they announced the “unknown banging” story. James Cameron claims that he knew on Monday morning from what had been included in a military report overnight. The hull was made of carbon fiber & they had been warned by one of their top engineers what would most likely happen…they fired him for saying it. Other employees had been telling them for at least 5 years that they were flirting with disaster. Had the owner not perished with them, I’d think that he should be charged with murder for each person that perished. The passengers paid £250,000 each to be murdered. That money should be returned to the families & then the company forced to reimburse the military for EVERY dime spent in the “rescue & recovery” phase.

@filmfann
Oh, there are no bodies. At that depth, the implosion is so violent and energetic that their bodies literally get turned into a red mist.

I suspect ocean gate will be billed for much of this rescue effort leading to their immediate bankruptcy.

One thing I should have mentioned earlier is I still have one of those old logitech game controllers that they used to control the sub with. It’s a POS and far too often when you hit a button it does not even register. The wired version is actually great and I still use it. Even the smallest amount of testing would have revealed that this was not reliable equipment. It just took like $20 more to get actual modern Xbox/playstation controllers which really are used by the military. That should say something about their testing of this submersible.

@Blackwater_Park I’m sure they’re already with their lawyers declaring bankruptcy and in any case, would not have half the moeny to pay for the rescue operation. Lloyd’s Register, Lloyds being the major ship re-insurer, would not certify the Titan as safe so I’m not sure what insurance they have.

And this, if the link works.

Edit: “money”

“Lessons learned” is a (or the?) primary focus of successful high-risk ventures.

Sadly, the Titan guy and his victims ignored what ultra-deep-sea venturers have practiced for almost 100 years:

Rule #1: A sphere withstands pressure better than any other shape. ALL the other deep submersibles have a thick spherical passenger compartment. And NONE of them have failed.

Yes, sketchy at best.

Continue on, as required like always, to determine if any laws were broken so liability can be assessed.

According to my aunt, who is in the Coast Guard, search and rescue is the expensive part. She says the ongoing mission is similar to normal operations since this is just going to be someone’s daily patrol instead of something else.

She’s also pretty mad about people complaining about the search and rescue mission, but that’s another topic.

I think as humans we should be doing what we can, within reason, to find the remains. The Coast Guard is on the scene, let them continue on but you do need to set an endpoint to the search.

Additionally I believe that if we can find a clue as to what actually happened, that would be important not just for lawsuits that are bound to be coming but so we can avoid making those same errors in the future. We still don’t know exactly why the sub failed and went down. But again, any efforts need to be given a solid plan that includes an endpoint.

Thanks for all your opinions. There’s certainly a lot to think about in this mis-adventure.

Here’s a great summary article from CNN on what the next steps will be.

@janbb link doesn’t work.

Try this then:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/24/americas/submersible-titan-search-what-happens-next/index.html

@JLeslie when you mentioned free food, I’m sure they get a stipend for food when they’re out like they are but it would be nominal, like 15 dollars for dinner, something like that. It’s not a huge amount per person.

A neighbor who is a former Navy Seal insists that there are NO bodies to recover. He says that we are in what is known as the circle of life phase. When the Titan imploded, the bodies basically exploded into millions of pieces & that it happened so fast that nobody ever knew what happened, so…NO suffering!!! The ocean is an ecosystem within itself. The marine life in that area have already begun to clean up the site. He says that even intact bodies in the ocean are gone within 24 hours & that there is NO way that these bodies are remotely intact. The Coast Guard announced earlier today that they have crossed the $10 million mark on the rescue & recovery effort. Recovering the pieces of the sub might be all that’s left & most of those who know what to do with the pieces, also has a dayum good idea as to what went wrong!!! The portal was only strong enough to go below 1,400 feet & they dove to 6,000 feet. The hull was an experimental material & already showing signs of stress. This was a disaster waiting to happen before it ever broke the surface of the water. I feel great sadness for everyone who lost a family member in this…especially the woman who lost her husband & son at the exact same moment. The son didn’t want to go, but dad wouldn’t hear of him missing it!!!

Actually the window was rated to 1300 m (4265 ft) and they went down to 3800 m (12,500 ft). Being rated means there was some design margin, in case users encountered imperfect conditions. They went that deep before without the window breaking, so the design margin must have been at least 3x. They chose to eat up most of the design margin to achieve their bigger goals. No one should use up design margin unless they were going to die without taking that risk. They chose poorly.

@LadyMarissa I jsut read an interview withthe wife of the businessman who died with his son. She said that she was supposed to go but the son really wanted to so she let him take her place. I suspect we’ll never know the truth of that one.

@janbb On the news just now (NBC news/NYC), they said that the mother said the boy was excited to make a world record for solving a Rubik’s Cube down thousands of feet. I’m wondering if he was originally scared to go but then got the Rubik’s Cube idea or the parents gave him the idea and that got him excited about the trip, and helped allay his fears.

A friend of mine read parts of an article to me that originally it was supposed to be the husband and wife going, and then instead her son went. I don’t remember why the change, but it did say in the article. Wow, I really need a memory test.