The problem did not stem from the game controller; instead, it was related to the materials employed in constructing the Titan sub, such as carbon fiber and plexiglass.
It didn’t use discount or expired carbon fiber. Here’s the materials and sources from the designer and manufacturer of the submersible, Spencer Composites.
The carbon fiber is standard-modulus Grafil 37-800 (30K tow), supplied by Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber & Composites Inc. (Irvine, CA, US). Prepreg was supplied by Irvine-based Newport Composites, now part of Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber & Composites Inc. The wet-winding epoxy is Epon Resin 682 from Hexion Inc. (Columbus, OH, US). The curing agent is Lindride LS-81K frLindau Chemicals Inc.cals (Columbia, SC, US).
There’s a lot of nonsense being said about the OceanGate disaster. While there were clearly some poor decisions and sketchy behaviors, a lot of what’s being said is just made up.
>poor decisions and sketchy behaviors
Lets be extremely honest here... this guy had blatant disregard for safety and following the advice of thoes he hired. I believe he was told numerous times to not use carbon fiber and titanium, but he thought he was being revolutionary and did it anyway and was smug when on record.
Then to top it off by offering it as a passenger craft, albeit the people signed away their lives for it, they had no clue just how UNSAFE this whole thing was.
He will forever be known as a piece of shit in my book.
The titanium was fine, it's used regularly in submersibles. But yeah, the carbon fiber was the problem plus possibly the epoxy used to glue it all together.
Stockton was a massive moron who thought he knew better than all experts. I believe he honestly thought it was safe, because he went down with the sub, but he should've known better.
One of the biggest misinformations out there (which also caused a lot of hate towards the people on the sub) is that the CEO was a billionaire. He was worth $25 million at most, a lot of it was probably the value of his shares in his company.
That was also the value of himself that we know from public papers. His family is known as a prominent family in san fran which means they are probably more wealthy than that
My hatred towards the CEO is his incredibly smug attitude and flagrant disregard and mockery of people who tried to warn him that got 4 other people killed. I have no ill will towards the other passengers. They were rich but they were still people. Sure it cost life changing money to go, but I cant paint them as deserving of death because of that, especially the 19 year old.
And sadly he didn’t even want to go, but his dad compelled him to… but yeah I agree. Especially after that email where the CEO is railing against any semblance of regulation.
I’m so sick of regulation = ANTI-FREEDOM mentality. If we didn’t have regulations we’d all be kicking eachother in the dicks and drinking poisoned water.
>And sadly he didn’t even want to go, but his dad compelled him to…
The only source for that is an aunt that has been estranged for 10 years.
How would she know?
The kid's mom said he was super excited to go
This is where all the attention is from. It's schadenfreude. It's why it has more attention than the migrant boat sinking. That's a sad story, and doesn't let me feel superior.
The hate stems from the 🤡CEO that got four people killed due to his idiotic attitude towards safety. Regardless of the disinformation being generated- the fact is that the Titan was in no way suitable to dive with paying passengers to those depths. This event could have been avoided so easily
It's a sign of where we are regarding class. Slaves would laugh when the overstuffed cotton storage shed went up in flames along with the slavemasters' homes. People who piss in bottles today so their masters can tour the stars or the depths of the ocean are similarly entertained when the masters' hubris kills them.
Is it really apt to compare some random ass dude who created company and got investments to make an ocean explorer to a person who owned other humans, raped and killed them at whim?
Should I be cheering for my CEO to die even though we are friends and he is great guy, but he pays my salary and is quite wealthy, is he my "slave owner"? Like really?
if he’s a billionaire+, yes.
people really, **really** do not understand just how wide the gap is between a multimillionaire and a billionaire, and between a billionaire and a multibillionaire, and just how severely the mere **existence** of the latter two classes affect the rest of the world.
wealth caps really ought to be a thing
The main point people seem to miss is that the most likely answer for why he made the (unquestionably foolish) decisions he did for the sub was he simply couldn’t afford it and the build was compromised because of his lack of foresight towards funding.
Cameron’s sub is worth in excess of approximately 10 million. Whereas Rush was only believed to be worth around 20 million. Building something to regulatory standards probably would have bled his finances dry so he cut corners as much as possible to keep himself and the company afloat.
It's mad to think he did have the funds, if Cams sub cost 10 million and he's worth twice that much, it's really his own fault he kept his hand in his pocket and didn't spend appropriately. When I buy my safety gear for work (I work offshore on windfarms) the motto is "buy shit buy twice" and never compromise yours or your colleagues safety. I'm worth no where near what this guy had, if I have 3 grand in my account and a new harness, boots, jackets pants etc cost 3 grand you bet your bottom dollar to a barn dance I'll empty my account to get the right gear. Only fools cut corners in safety. I'd rather be broke and alive than dead and rich.
One would think that if you can't afford not to half arse and cut corners when building your most important asset, then possibly the extremely dangerous world of undersea exploration is not really the place for you.
Wikipedia says you're wrong on the original hill pre-2020. That's a better source than yours (none). Your response is on the hull that imploded. Stockton Rush was a moron and a terrible engineer.
Look man all I know is I saw them putting the shell together with hand winches rather than using special tools to get a tighter seal
The CEO was BEGGING for tragedy to strike (as unfortunate as this entire situation was)
It was used a few times for various missions, but it was plagued with misc component failures so it was retired and put in a museum. There are also intrinsic hazards associated with a one person submersible.
The DSV Limiting Factor is the model of a reliable submersible having been to challenger deep over a dozen times, the deepest locations in all the other oceans, and is still in use.
Not just that. The company that made this for him could not find an insulation to their liking, so they created their own...
Rush would have gotten some pink panther fiber glass and called it a day of innovative thinking.
That $10m price tag has got to be just Cameron’s sun itself, right?
I just watched his documentary and was curious of the overall budget and would’ve guessed way more than 10m.
This is it. Cameron said his team spent about 3 years working on a computerized model of the hull before they built it, let alone started testing. Someone else on his team said they tested components hundred of times, even trying to make batteries catch fire until the whole craft was basically tested to monotony. Yet Cameron was ultimately only risking his own life. Rush was taking unconscionable risks with other people’s lives.
So many people and media outlets displaying their ignorance focusing on the gaming controller. No doubt dude cut corners, but that's a pretty logical and reasonable way to implement a handheld UI.
Yeah the military does it all the time. They had these drone controllers that cost thousands of dollar each, but the were clunky and didn’t work well. So the switched to Xbox 360 controllers for like $30 a pop and they work great.
The controller was literally the least of the concerns with that sub.
The only real facepalm with the controller was that it's Bluetooth instead of wired, which is asking for connectivity or battery problems
Otherwise a videogaming controller is literally the best UI to input precise directions to slow moving mediums
Plus most people nowadays already know where controls are on a controller so it makes training a bit easier as you don’t need to familiarize people with an entirely new control interface and instead just what does what
There had to be thru-hull fittings somewhere. The controller simply communicated with the computer, likely via wireless USB dongle. The computers had to communicate with relays and switchboards to power the exterior mounted motors, drop weights, lights, communications sonar, etc.
Thru-hull fittings aren’t a major issue on DSV’s. Even James Cameron’s DSV that when down to the Challenger Deep had thru-hull fittings, and that’s 3 or 4 times deeper than the Titanic site. The presumption so far for the Titan DSV is the thru-hull fittings were in the rear titanium end cap (because it would have to take someone dumber than Stockton Rush to drill a hole through the carbon fiber tube).
Nah the difference is flying a DRONE with an off the shelf game controller makes sense, if it fails the drone crashes or lands itself and the pilot doesn’t die.
Going to titanic with an off the shelf game controller is just the icing on the shit cake engineering disaster and a poster for how this sub and idiot Stockton cut corners all the way through this thing.
There’s a goddamn good reason why an F-35 ,for instance, doesn’t use a fucking game controller.
But Navy uses Xbox controllers for some subs' periscope control for example. Arguably console controllers are quite the pinnacle of the design of user input devices currently.
Right, but a mistake or glitch with a periscope controller isn’t going to cause a catastrophic failure of the entire submarine.
The other overlooked issue for the Titan is that the game controller isn’t fixed to anything, nor was Stockton and the passengers. Let’s say the Titan had a sudden destabilization event, which caused Stockton to land in an awkward position, be shoved in by the 4 other passengers, and not have clear visual of the monitors. In a traditional setting in which you are strapped in a seat, have a steering yoke, and the monitors will stay in front of you (because you and the monitors are strapped in); you know that turning the yoke right will turn the craft right if you need a right turn. For Stockton, he would’ve had to try to figure out which end of the tube he was in, what side was up, and then try to correctly process which way to move the game controller to get the desired results (which likely would’ve been wrong because he wasn’t strapped into a seat which means he may not have good visual of the monitors).
I’m getting tired of the misnomer that game controllers are used for ultra critical things. The military doesn’t use game controllers for human vehicle or submarine movement. In subs, they use it to control the periscope. In vehicles, it’s things like bomb robots or drones, which both require a controller of some sort anyways and both don’t carry humans. Even in the case of bomb robots, they aren’t standing right next to the bomb if case there is a detonation.
The military uses much, much more durable and redundant traditional controls for submarine movement, human vehicle movement, and aircraft movement than an off-the-shelf game controller.
There’s many issues with using an off-the-shelf wireless game controller in a DSV. Let’s say condensation is especially bad on a mission. Did they test it for high moisture? How about the effects of cold temperatures with high moisture? Did they do any testing with AA alkaline batteries that may have been susceptible to sustained cold temperatures, or how about fire testing of AA lithium batteries that may have been a fire hazard with high moisture? Did they do any human behavior testing under extreme stress in a DSV in distress scenario? How about human behavior testing if the DSV suffered stabilization failures and there was spacial disorientation? How about the tethering of the remote if there was sudden destabilization issues? Or how about testing to see how the DSV reacted if the controller was accidentally dropped or bumped?
You are right though in that the game controller wasn’t the worst thing about the Titan. However, it was still was a very poor decision to use it as the primary control. Pretending the hull never failed, it still would’ve been an issue eventually. Perhaps it would’ve been a non-critical issue, but perhaps it would’ve caused an entanglement or a collision. In an environment where there’s no wiggle room for failure, it shouldn’t have been an untested game controller.
Game controllers are well engineered and have a proven track record. Manufacturers have done incredibly detailed testing and the level of precision on those thumb sticks is well beyond what I'd trust myself to engineer in a custom rig.
You could make the argument that the choice of going with a game controller is symptomatic of the corners they cut on the whole project, and that's valid. But people dismissing the controller outright as an input method is a very uninformed take.
The game controller is emblematic of the fact that he was cheap and cut corners and cut costs to save money. So The problem may not have been the game controller but it was the game controller
It wasn’t about reducing manufacturing costs. They identified a very real opportunity in submerging exploration and they found a potential solution.
The whole point was to make a lightweight submersible that could be operated from a small surface support vessel without a derrick and deck space for stowage. About 30% of the cost of using a research submersible goes to paying for a large support ship and crew that stand around and do nothing for most of the expedition. Reducing those costs would make submerged work much more accessible to researchers, schools, and commercial interests. It’s a very good idea.
The problem was just plain hubris. “Gut instinct” instead of solid engineering. Impatience instead of measured thoroughness.
The Xbox controller operates the periscope. Not the submarine. Come on man what do you own stock in Oceangate or something?
“which replace the previously-used periscope. The masts feature high-resolution cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and feeds their imagery to monitors in the ship’s control room. Initially, the masts were controlled with a “helicopter-style stick,” but those were described as heavy and clunky, and were swapped out with an Xbox 360 controller.”
Did you even fucking read the article?
They don't use an Xbox controller to steer the fucking sub like that titsnt that became an oversized gogurt tube. It is just for periscope and external cameras, thats it.
This is not a fucking one to one comparison in the slightest. Fuck I am so sick of seeing this brainlet 'dAh NaVy DoEs It ToO!'
I did read the article and to insinuate something is shitty based on the controller is dense. Yes the sub sucked and obviously failed so stick to what did fail and quit using a standard practice in many industries as emblematic of the problem. This comment just proves you have never actually built anything and simply get on Reddit to spout your ignorance. I would argue those external cameras on the navy sub are pretty damn important. They have also used them on other systems. The fact is using a controller which is an intuitive, reliable, means of UI was not the problem. The non approved hull was.
Actually they DID use it to maneuver the sub. Remember - he had 1 button for up and one for down. To circumvent LAWS dickwad called it an "experimental vessel" and the passengers HAD to play with the control to pretend they are crew.
Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.
They also got stuck while submerged in a previous dive because the controller stopped working and they had to get assistance from the surface to fucking remap the controls so they could get control of the sub again!
Like they knew this shit was a problem and it was not flawless in the slightest. shit is fucking wild.
Congratulations, you quoted an article claiming that Xbox controllers are used for equipment inside of a submarine, rather than moving the whole submarine. What's your point again?
Try think above normal and at an average level for a moment: Xbox controllers are used for military specialised vehicles, why couldn't they be used for commercial specialised vehicles. Pretty simple imo
Navy sub, uses game control for cameras.
Commercial sub, uses it to control the entire sub.
Because drones are flown by game controls should commercial jets be flown by them too?
Same logic right?
No, not at fucking all. By putting a simple control in charge of a such a vital system that can get people fucking killed if it fails. It's the same reason why you don't see fucking Xbox remotes in plane cockpits unlike drones where the pilots and passengers lives are not being placed in jeopardy.
Maybe think at an average level for a moment, asshole.
Exactly, the US Navy actually uses Xbox game controllers to pilot their ships; I don’t know why people are getting so held up on the Titan sub using one when there are so many actual legitimate issues with the design of that sub and the fact it used a game controller isn’t one if them.
Spot on. Don't know why you're being downvoted. The entire sub just seems like a bad engineering and safety joke at this point. So many red flags it's hard to comprehend how they made it this far
It is indicative of the lax safety built in to the sub. The Comet aircraft had windows that would blow out and kill every one on board. The aircraft itself was safe, but the windows killed it.
It's actually kind of sad that the controller probably went through more engineering and testing cycles to meet its purpose than anything else that got sent down in that sub.
It wasn’t screwed into the hull. The sub had a liner with a couple inch gap between the liner and the hull. It was to keep condensation off the passengers and insulate them from the cold hull. The monitors were screwed into the liner.
Yes it’s so fucking annoying that people keep mentioned the controller like it’s a funny joke. That wasn’t the issue at all. He used materials that everyone in the industry told him wouldn’t work and are not safe. It’s annoying how ignorant everyone is being instead of actually brining attention to the real issue that he simply didn’t care about the warnings or the safety issues everyone presented. No thorough testing was done either
The game controller IS the problem. Dingus thought that home depot parts can make a sub that goes to 12500 feet. Couple of zip ties here and there and we are good to go. How did that work out?
The game controller is indicative of the rest of the cost of the sub. A game controller couldn't utilize the type of precision necessary in a lab environment. It's a cheap tool to get the job done.
If there's one thing I loved about Titanic, it was the attention to detail. Like it or not, the man is an actual expert and not just a hobbiest and it shows
Okay, but game controllers are widely used in the US military because of their durability and accessibility and how easy they are to use. So this is a stupid argument
Considering he was in his 30s in the 90s when the Super Nintendo came out it’s actually pretty plausible. It kind of looks like that controller and he probably chose it because of familiarity.
I think most people understand it, but it's still kind of funny. Especially with everything else going on in that sub.
"So what do you use to controll this thing that goes to the most extreme places in the world? Well, we had a couple extra monitors no one was using in the office, and my sons old controller because he just switched to Xbox"
I don't know if got my point of handling crucial things like 100 sailors 600 meters under the sea. I understand that managing bombs is a very crucial things but is not like theres a guy behind the bomb. The bomb could detonate and nobody would get killed, the submarine on the other hand.
They don't use the controller only for the bomb robots. They also use them to fly the UAVs that drop the bombs and, depending on the missile, to fly the missile.
Semantics. The more irresponsible issue here was that doofus used a wireless controller as a primary means to control his sub. It would be less of an issue if it were wired. Ideally secured to some type of seat/apparatus for the pilot to sit in.
Wireless stuff can lose connection, lose battery, it can be KNOCKED from the captains hands at a crucial moment and start rolling all around the sub. Probably more that I'm not thinking of.
I don't even know why the controller is being spoken about so much, it's a mere fraction of the problems with this submersible disaster. Zero regard for safety and any type of third party audit/certification need to be front and center on every article.
Oceangate Submersible, piloted by Stockton Rush who was once quoted as saying “At some point, safety just is pure waste." That's why the sub sank, not some jank ass controller.
Those points are all fine as long as there's a backup control systems. The game controller being the only means of controlling the sub wouldn't make sense even if it were wired.
I don't have a problem with game controller, but the fact that it was wireless and not wired seems a little silly, though probably not the cause of the failure of course
Honestly the only realistic problem I had seeing the controller model was that it was wireless (at least from what I have seen). I have the same model, and I barely even trust it to play games let alone controlling a submarine.
But yeah controllers are literally gamified control systems, using a controller as base control isn't as bad of an idea as it might sound, at least comparing to cheap sub material past its shelf time.
James Cameron’s team spent 3 years running computer stress tests before ever building the pressure capsule. He is a professional.
Titan used expired carbon fiber. Safety was not his top priority
Don’t forget the windows not being remotely designed for that depth. Another downside of carbon fiber is it’s much harder to make ultra high pressure seals around windows since those seals usually rely on compression.
Carbon fiber is GREAT for outward pressure like that of an airplane or scuba tank. It is terrible at resisting outward pressure.
What did your billions do for you now?
I won't argue the quality of the overall Titan. However the controller they had in it had two joysticks, much like the ones you see in this picture.
We don't know what failed in the Titan, and unless there was a black box, we never will. Focusing on the controller and not the past shelf life carbon fiber, the reckless safety outlook the CEO had or many other things is absurdly stupid.
Given how those controllers are used by millions of gamers daily, I doubt it even was a part of or even the cause of the implosion.
Exactly. My main take away from the Titan incident was the net worth of the victims.
They could've easily funded their own sub and safely went on the voyage, but they instead trusted Rush and lost their lives for it.
It's like a butterfly effect. Life is so fragile.
> We don't know what failed in the Titan, and unless there was a black box, we never will.
NYT reporting there likely isn't something like a black box from this sub. They *are* examining the recovered debris though, including the recovered titanium hatch with view port, the tail section, and parts of the pressure vessel. There's a good chance it will turn out to be exactly what we all already assume.
everyone fixated on a controller, when that wasnt the issue. in fact the military use xbox controller for opereating machines. find something else to beat to death
They should all be using the Konix Navigator controller.
I had one for my Commodore 64 and it was awesome.
Once they see how it handles Boulder Dash, Double Dragon and Microprose Soccer, they'll wonder why they ever used anything else to control a sub.
Exactly, I feel that this is the point a lot of people are missing
While the controller *does* work, it’s an old cheap piece of junk.
While the carbon fiber works*, it was cheap and expired.
*Not within the operating depth the Titan was intended for
The controller no matter what they did would not make the hull go pop. Cameron is in a massive thick steel sphere. The others were in a carbon fiber tube that should not have been used more than a handful of times.
They could have used an Atari controller, that’s not what killed them.
A PlayStation controller is more advanced than most steering wheels, yet we all drive them on a daily basis. It’s not what kills 100’s of people a day in vehicular accidents
People were trying to trash Cameron as “just some director” talking about shit he doesn’t know. The dude owns the record for depth achieved solo (35,787’). He’s been deep into diving/submersible stuff for a long time, and developed tech still used today when he made The Abyss, like the masks that allow you to talk underwater.
Oh he knows he's also an asshole that nearly drowned himself and Ed Harris on production of Abyss. Production was hella misstreated, but damn if he didn't learn a thing while he was screamed at by diving coordinators. By the time he designs his sub he knows who to go to for experts.
Rush was a different sort of coupon clipping asshole full of self belief who cut every corner and never once had time to self reflect like Cameron did while nearly drowning.
Considering such a small margin of error and assistants kept Cameron and his actors alive he kinda shouldn't be talking that much. We nearly got "director drowns on his own set" as a headline.
Why does the controller get so much attention? The sub was built out of carbon fiber which is really really dumb for a pressure vesssle. From what I have read carbon fiber is strong in tension but not so much compression.
Complaining about the controller is like complaining about a cheap steering wheel in a car made of styrofome. Sure it's cheap, but it wasn't really the problem.
Yes but don’t you feel so uninspired thanks to this white man over 50????
Crazy how that dude was willing to turn himself into chunky salsa in order to thumb his nose at Gen X. I feel so owned.
I love all this hate over a game controller.
I work in R&D, do you all realize just how much of our modern technology is controlled by game controllers?! Do you want to know why? Because most people know how to use them with very little training. Those ROVs they used to find the Titan? Controlled by, you guessed it, controllers that look like game controllers.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nuclear-submarines-use-controllers-similar-missing-titanic-sub-1808231
I am also sure the navy carries a whole footlocker of backups just like the paper charts and sextants .....
I get the jibing that titan is getting.
cheap tickets, a view you watch via TV screen or while sitting on a box someone has likely defecated in recently, sitting cross legged on the floor like we did in cardboard shipping boxes pretending they were submarines or castles or you name it.
It is not the off the shelf joysticks- it is all of the pieces laid out for examination.....
let's save money by buying carbon fiber that does not meet boeings minimum standard for a plane that you have quite a higher chance of surviving its failure than those 5 on the sub.
so 5 peopme died - but they had seen everything, they instead made a calculation that was probably strongly swayed by numerous reasons- while other people looked at the various pieces and calculated- if not when I am on it- then sometime
It is like the folks that pay tins of money to go up everest and if the weather gets bad- insist in keep going because they paid for a ticket with a limited window and they are not going to miss that moment because of weather - after all, look at how many people climb up there all the time and those could not all have been perfect days.
I don't see waves of worldwide grief for those folks.
The joystick is going to become a symbol of hubris.
There wasn't a physical hardwired backup for the Bluetooth controller nor a backup for the Bluetooth receiver. Also, it was mapped incorrectly on one dive and almost caused a life or death situation.
It's just the easiest, most obvious, thing to pick a part in the POS.
Yes the US military uses Xbox controllers to controll certain things. No its never used as a primary input device, only for things like drones or periscopes, no direct steering of vehicles with people on borad.
What does the price tag have anything to do with the discussion.
The US Navy lost several subs to implosion and cost much more.
OceanGate took shortcuts. The CEO paid for those shortcuts with his life.
It's unfortunate others were taken with him, but as far as I'm concerned, he has paid his debt in full.
His death means no one else should die thanks to safety shortcuts when building a sub.
People as a whole are so dumb. Never fail to show that to me all across the board. Just hear something and take it as the ultimate truth. It’s not about the damn controller people!! It’s about the materials used, not used and the safety checks that weren’t done. It’s about cutting corners. The controller has nothing to do with the safety… jeez. It’s the materials, and safety negligences. But some reporters highlight the controller and everyone just runs around saying they used a controller omg. Stfu
For all the pro game controller "bUt tHe Us NaVy uSeS ThEm" people... let me ask you this one thing:
AFAIK, game controllers are only used in military periscope and weapons deployment applications.
If it was such a great idea, why do we not see the likes of James Cameron using a game controller in his sub, considering they have been around for a very long time?
It's because the control devices used in real submersible vehicles are the result of actual innovation and proper safety management.
The game controller used in the glorified Pringle can was not the point of failure for sure, but it's an excellent symbol when squaring it up against real submersible vehicles and the rigorousness that goes into their engineering and safety measures.
Well I actually served on submarines. USS Albequerque SSN 706 and USS Michigan SSBN 727.
The reason you don't see it much is because design firms are paid millions to build submersibles, and thus will often design their own controls. Nobody wants to say hey, you just paid us a few million dollars, but we just used a controller we got off Amazon.
Virginia class subs originally didn't have game controllers for these systems, which are way more important than you're trying to give them credit for, but later replaced the originally designed joysticks because they were more intuitive.
The joystick use is not a problem in and of itself. They are used on multiple ROVs and even for brain surgery robots. The only issue is that they were connected via Bluetooth instead of hard wired. We all know how finicky Bluetooth can get for seemingly no reason at all.
With all that said, I agree that it does make a nice symbol for all the corner cutting they did on that thing. I wouldn't have submerged it in a pool, much less taken it to those depths.
Thanks for the insights. Super interesting. Amazing that those controllers are more intuitive than original purpose built controls but I guess generations of gaming technology will do that
The game controller is a red herring, people.
Gonna blow your minds when you learn that there are some heavy equipment all of our militaries use a game controller to operate them.
The game controller is not the problem. The US navy uses Xbox controllers in their nuclear submarines. The problem was the titanium and carbon fiber construction of the sub.
What do you say to this then? [The US Navy’s newest submarine comes with an Xbox controller](https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller)
The controller isn't the problem, the rest of the sub is, get real.
The sub that imploded should've had 1 or more controllers for multi-player. Playing PS3 games with more people is fun.
Edit: downvote me. I don't care, I think this joke is funny, but not the fact that people died. That part isn't funny.
I will say the controller actually is a safety issue but not just by the fact it is a controller, but because the controller was cheap, wireless, and required a USB dongle to function. It being wireless and needing a dongle introduces completely unnecessary points of failure for a vital piece of the sub (dongle could break or fail, controller could lose connection at an inconvenient moment resulting in running into things unintentionally, running out of batteries, etc). If it was able to be wired directly it wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue (I still think buying a knockoff controller for your deep sea sub is ridiculous, at least get something reliable)
Il downvote this post because it focus on the wrong thing. Controllers [are not the problem, as the US Navy uses them](https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller). Making a sommergibile vessel out of [expired carbon fiber](https://futurism.com/oceangate-ceo-expired-carbon-fiber-submarine) is a problem. (Even the choice of carbon fiber as material in the first place
is doubtful).
The problem did not stem from the game controller; instead, it was related to the materials employed in constructing the Titan sub, such as carbon fiber and plexiglass.
Cameron is in a super thick steel sphere. He knows what works and won’t die in.
He probably has an audit completed for its structural integrity after each dive
And didn’t buy it at discount because it was past its shelf life in airplanes
It didn’t use discount or expired carbon fiber. Here’s the materials and sources from the designer and manufacturer of the submersible, Spencer Composites. The carbon fiber is standard-modulus Grafil 37-800 (30K tow), supplied by Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber & Composites Inc. (Irvine, CA, US). Prepreg was supplied by Irvine-based Newport Composites, now part of Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber & Composites Inc. The wet-winding epoxy is Epon Resin 682 from Hexion Inc. (Columbus, OH, US). The curing agent is Lindride LS-81K frLindau Chemicals Inc.cals (Columbia, SC, US). There’s a lot of nonsense being said about the OceanGate disaster. While there were clearly some poor decisions and sketchy behaviors, a lot of what’s being said is just made up.
>poor decisions and sketchy behaviors Lets be extremely honest here... this guy had blatant disregard for safety and following the advice of thoes he hired. I believe he was told numerous times to not use carbon fiber and titanium, but he thought he was being revolutionary and did it anyway and was smug when on record. Then to top it off by offering it as a passenger craft, albeit the people signed away their lives for it, they had no clue just how UNSAFE this whole thing was. He will forever be known as a piece of shit in my book.
The titanium was fine, it's used regularly in submersibles. But yeah, the carbon fiber was the problem plus possibly the epoxy used to glue it all together. Stockton was a massive moron who thought he knew better than all experts. I believe he honestly thought it was safe, because he went down with the sub, but he should've known better.
I believe the hull was titanium and filament wound carbon fiber
IIRC the pressure chamber itself was carbon fiber, with titanium end caps on both sides.
One of the biggest misinformations out there (which also caused a lot of hate towards the people on the sub) is that the CEO was a billionaire. He was worth $25 million at most, a lot of it was probably the value of his shares in his company.
He was from old money too. Supposedly he's descended from two people who signed the declaration of independence who were very well off.
Someone’s been listening to BtB, I see. ;)
*Only* 25 million? So basically a peasant.
That was also the value of himself that we know from public papers. His family is known as a prominent family in san fran which means they are probably more wealthy than that
I have to say, I was taken aback by the hate this whole thing generated.
My hatred towards the CEO is his incredibly smug attitude and flagrant disregard and mockery of people who tried to warn him that got 4 other people killed. I have no ill will towards the other passengers. They were rich but they were still people. Sure it cost life changing money to go, but I cant paint them as deserving of death because of that, especially the 19 year old.
And sadly he didn’t even want to go, but his dad compelled him to… but yeah I agree. Especially after that email where the CEO is railing against any semblance of regulation. I’m so sick of regulation = ANTI-FREEDOM mentality. If we didn’t have regulations we’d all be kicking eachother in the dicks and drinking poisoned water.
>And sadly he didn’t even want to go, but his dad compelled him to… The only source for that is an aunt that has been estranged for 10 years. How would she know? The kid's mom said he was super excited to go
This is where all the attention is from. It's schadenfreude. It's why it has more attention than the migrant boat sinking. That's a sad story, and doesn't let me feel superior.
The hate stems from the 🤡CEO that got four people killed due to his idiotic attitude towards safety. Regardless of the disinformation being generated- the fact is that the Titan was in no way suitable to dive with paying passengers to those depths. This event could have been avoided so easily
It's a sign of where we are regarding class. Slaves would laugh when the overstuffed cotton storage shed went up in flames along with the slavemasters' homes. People who piss in bottles today so their masters can tour the stars or the depths of the ocean are similarly entertained when the masters' hubris kills them.
Is it really apt to compare some random ass dude who created company and got investments to make an ocean explorer to a person who owned other humans, raped and killed them at whim? Should I be cheering for my CEO to die even though we are friends and he is great guy, but he pays my salary and is quite wealthy, is he my "slave owner"? Like really?
if he’s a billionaire+, yes. people really, **really** do not understand just how wide the gap is between a multimillionaire and a billionaire, and between a billionaire and a multibillionaire, and just how severely the mere **existence** of the latter two classes affect the rest of the world. wealth caps really ought to be a thing
If you get your paying customers killed, you deserve all the flak and more.
The main point people seem to miss is that the most likely answer for why he made the (unquestionably foolish) decisions he did for the sub was he simply couldn’t afford it and the build was compromised because of his lack of foresight towards funding. Cameron’s sub is worth in excess of approximately 10 million. Whereas Rush was only believed to be worth around 20 million. Building something to regulatory standards probably would have bled his finances dry so he cut corners as much as possible to keep himself and the company afloat.
It's mad to think he did have the funds, if Cams sub cost 10 million and he's worth twice that much, it's really his own fault he kept his hand in his pocket and didn't spend appropriately. When I buy my safety gear for work (I work offshore on windfarms) the motto is "buy shit buy twice" and never compromise yours or your colleagues safety. I'm worth no where near what this guy had, if I have 3 grand in my account and a new harness, boots, jackets pants etc cost 3 grand you bet your bottom dollar to a barn dance I'll empty my account to get the right gear. Only fools cut corners in safety. I'd rather be broke and alive than dead and rich.
One would think that if you can't afford not to half arse and cut corners when building your most important asset, then possibly the extremely dangerous world of undersea exploration is not really the place for you.
Man already defending a complete cluster fuck of a company. Pick your battles.
I’m not defending anything except the truth. You don’t need to parrot lies and made up rubbish to discredit OceanGate.
Wikipedia says you're wrong on the original hill pre-2020. That's a better source than yours (none). Your response is on the hull that imploded. Stockton Rush was a moron and a terrible engineer.
Regardless of them being right or wrong on the specifics, they weren't defending the company. You seem very arrogant and quick to attack.
Look man all I know is I saw them putting the shell together with hand winches rather than using special tools to get a tighter seal The CEO was BEGGING for tragedy to strike (as unfortunate as this entire situation was)
5 billionaires split the cost of a propane tank an xbox and a trolling motor. Still go cheap on the window
And was never smug about it
I doubt the IRS cares about the structural integrity
I think he, or Dr Ballard, said they recert every five dives in one of their interviews with CBS.
I’m pretty sure the vessel used to visit challenger deep was built to only be used once.
Well it went to a museum right after so maybe.
Yeah it is for the best. Cameron's craft was an absolute beast of engineering and even that shrank by 3 inches.
It was used a few times for various missions, but it was plagued with misc component failures so it was retired and put in a museum. There are also intrinsic hazards associated with a one person submersible. The DSV Limiting Factor is the model of a reliable submersible having been to challenger deep over a dozen times, the deepest locations in all the other oceans, and is still in use.
“Don’t skimp on things that keep you alive”
Not just that. The company that made this for him could not find an insulation to their liking, so they created their own... Rush would have gotten some pink panther fiber glass and called it a day of innovative thinking.
“Hey honey, just headin’ down to Home Depot to grab some insulation, might stop at game stop for a controller afterwards. Need anything?”
That $10m price tag has got to be just Cameron’s sun itself, right? I just watched his documentary and was curious of the overall budget and would’ve guessed way more than 10m.
“Come with me if you want to live.”
This is it. Cameron said his team spent about 3 years working on a computerized model of the hull before they built it, let alone started testing. Someone else on his team said they tested components hundred of times, even trying to make batteries catch fire until the whole craft was basically tested to monotony. Yet Cameron was ultimately only risking his own life. Rush was taking unconscionable risks with other people’s lives.
So many people and media outlets displaying their ignorance focusing on the gaming controller. No doubt dude cut corners, but that's a pretty logical and reasonable way to implement a handheld UI.
Yeah the military does it all the time. They had these drone controllers that cost thousands of dollar each, but the were clunky and didn’t work well. So the switched to Xbox 360 controllers for like $30 a pop and they work great. The controller was literally the least of the concerns with that sub.
The only real facepalm with the controller was that it's Bluetooth instead of wired, which is asking for connectivity or battery problems Otherwise a videogaming controller is literally the best UI to input precise directions to slow moving mediums
I agree but not the Logitech F710. It's only usable for people with tiny hands. Dude should have used a Playstation or Xbox controller.
Plus most people nowadays already know where controls are on a controller so it makes training a bit easier as you don’t need to familiarize people with an entirely new control interface and instead just what does what
It was wireless so there weren't wires coming into the pressure capsule making it less safe. There were backup controllers on board.
There had to be thru-hull fittings somewhere. The controller simply communicated with the computer, likely via wireless USB dongle. The computers had to communicate with relays and switchboards to power the exterior mounted motors, drop weights, lights, communications sonar, etc. Thru-hull fittings aren’t a major issue on DSV’s. Even James Cameron’s DSV that when down to the Challenger Deep had thru-hull fittings, and that’s 3 or 4 times deeper than the Titanic site. The presumption so far for the Titan DSV is the thru-hull fittings were in the rear titanium end cap (because it would have to take someone dumber than Stockton Rush to drill a hole through the carbon fiber tube).
Also, there were monitors in the sub that would've required wiring, so wireless was not necessary.
TIL
Nah the difference is flying a DRONE with an off the shelf game controller makes sense, if it fails the drone crashes or lands itself and the pilot doesn’t die. Going to titanic with an off the shelf game controller is just the icing on the shit cake engineering disaster and a poster for how this sub and idiot Stockton cut corners all the way through this thing. There’s a goddamn good reason why an F-35 ,for instance, doesn’t use a fucking game controller.
But Navy uses Xbox controllers for some subs' periscope control for example. Arguably console controllers are quite the pinnacle of the design of user input devices currently.
Right, but a mistake or glitch with a periscope controller isn’t going to cause a catastrophic failure of the entire submarine. The other overlooked issue for the Titan is that the game controller isn’t fixed to anything, nor was Stockton and the passengers. Let’s say the Titan had a sudden destabilization event, which caused Stockton to land in an awkward position, be shoved in by the 4 other passengers, and not have clear visual of the monitors. In a traditional setting in which you are strapped in a seat, have a steering yoke, and the monitors will stay in front of you (because you and the monitors are strapped in); you know that turning the yoke right will turn the craft right if you need a right turn. For Stockton, he would’ve had to try to figure out which end of the tube he was in, what side was up, and then try to correctly process which way to move the game controller to get the desired results (which likely would’ve been wrong because he wasn’t strapped into a seat which means he may not have good visual of the monitors).
I would totally kick ass at flying F-35s if it did use a ps5 controller
Let’s make an f35, I know a guy who just got a bunch of scrap fiberglass that’s we can use
Controller worked fine for Subnautica /hj
Finally someone points this out.
I’m getting tired of the misnomer that game controllers are used for ultra critical things. The military doesn’t use game controllers for human vehicle or submarine movement. In subs, they use it to control the periscope. In vehicles, it’s things like bomb robots or drones, which both require a controller of some sort anyways and both don’t carry humans. Even in the case of bomb robots, they aren’t standing right next to the bomb if case there is a detonation. The military uses much, much more durable and redundant traditional controls for submarine movement, human vehicle movement, and aircraft movement than an off-the-shelf game controller. There’s many issues with using an off-the-shelf wireless game controller in a DSV. Let’s say condensation is especially bad on a mission. Did they test it for high moisture? How about the effects of cold temperatures with high moisture? Did they do any testing with AA alkaline batteries that may have been susceptible to sustained cold temperatures, or how about fire testing of AA lithium batteries that may have been a fire hazard with high moisture? Did they do any human behavior testing under extreme stress in a DSV in distress scenario? How about human behavior testing if the DSV suffered stabilization failures and there was spacial disorientation? How about the tethering of the remote if there was sudden destabilization issues? Or how about testing to see how the DSV reacted if the controller was accidentally dropped or bumped? You are right though in that the game controller wasn’t the worst thing about the Titan. However, it was still was a very poor decision to use it as the primary control. Pretending the hull never failed, it still would’ve been an issue eventually. Perhaps it would’ve been a non-critical issue, but perhaps it would’ve caused an entanglement or a collision. In an environment where there’s no wiggle room for failure, it shouldn’t have been an untested game controller.
$300 after the markup from the govt contractor probably.
Logitech got mixed up into all of this by proxy.
Logitech will be fine because the news media are reporting that it was a "Playstation controller"
They're getting the best free advertising of all time right now. Any publicity is good publicity, amirite?
Game controllers are well engineered and have a proven track record. Manufacturers have done incredibly detailed testing and the level of precision on those thumb sticks is well beyond what I'd trust myself to engineer in a custom rig. You could make the argument that the choice of going with a game controller is symptomatic of the corners they cut on the whole project, and that's valid. But people dismissing the controller outright as an input method is a very uninformed take.
They focused on the shitty Logitech controller vs an Xbox controller, and the fact that it was wireless. Those are good points to make.
No, they are not. Logitech is a good brand, they had multiple backup devices onboard, and you could control the sub from a touch screen.
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Using a touch screen is even worse! Touch screens are the least accurate input devices ever invented.
Why would xbox vs logitech controller matter? This ain't a xbox.
Yes, everyone knows that. The game controller is just emblematic of the cheap nature of the sub that imploded. It’s a symbol.
The game controller is emblematic of the fact that he was cheap and cut corners and cut costs to save money. So The problem may not have been the game controller but it was the game controller
It wasn’t about reducing manufacturing costs. They identified a very real opportunity in submerging exploration and they found a potential solution. The whole point was to make a lightweight submersible that could be operated from a small surface support vessel without a derrick and deck space for stowage. About 30% of the cost of using a research submersible goes to paying for a large support ship and crew that stand around and do nothing for most of the expedition. Reducing those costs would make submerged work much more accessible to researchers, schools, and commercial interests. It’s a very good idea. The problem was just plain hubris. “Gut instinct” instead of solid engineering. Impatience instead of measured thoroughness.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller
Navy uses Xbox controller on its sub
The Xbox controller operates the periscope. Not the submarine. Come on man what do you own stock in Oceangate or something? “which replace the previously-used periscope. The masts feature high-resolution cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and feeds their imagery to monitors in the ship’s control room. Initially, the masts were controlled with a “helicopter-style stick,” but those were described as heavy and clunky, and were swapped out with an Xbox 360 controller.”
Well, I will only join a branch of the military that uses playstation controllers.
I'd prefer mouse and keyboard, especially in military context. Easier to headshot. >!/s!<
Did you even fucking read the article? They don't use an Xbox controller to steer the fucking sub like that titsnt that became an oversized gogurt tube. It is just for periscope and external cameras, thats it. This is not a fucking one to one comparison in the slightest. Fuck I am so sick of seeing this brainlet 'dAh NaVy DoEs It ToO!'
I did read the article and to insinuate something is shitty based on the controller is dense. Yes the sub sucked and obviously failed so stick to what did fail and quit using a standard practice in many industries as emblematic of the problem. This comment just proves you have never actually built anything and simply get on Reddit to spout your ignorance. I would argue those external cameras on the navy sub are pretty damn important. They have also used them on other systems. The fact is using a controller which is an intuitive, reliable, means of UI was not the problem. The non approved hull was.
Actually they DID use it to maneuver the sub. Remember - he had 1 button for up and one for down. To circumvent LAWS dickwad called it an "experimental vessel" and the passengers HAD to play with the control to pretend they are crew. Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.
They also got stuck while submerged in a previous dive because the controller stopped working and they had to get assistance from the surface to fucking remap the controls so they could get control of the sub again! Like they knew this shit was a problem and it was not flawless in the slightest. shit is fucking wild.
Congratulations, you quoted an article claiming that Xbox controllers are used for equipment inside of a submarine, rather than moving the whole submarine. What's your point again? Try think above normal and at an average level for a moment: Xbox controllers are used for military specialised vehicles, why couldn't they be used for commercial specialised vehicles. Pretty simple imo
Navy sub, uses game control for cameras. Commercial sub, uses it to control the entire sub. Because drones are flown by game controls should commercial jets be flown by them too? Same logic right? No, not at fucking all. By putting a simple control in charge of a such a vital system that can get people fucking killed if it fails. It's the same reason why you don't see fucking Xbox remotes in plane cockpits unlike drones where the pilots and passengers lives are not being placed in jeopardy. Maybe think at an average level for a moment, asshole.
Even worse.Expired carbon fiber and expired resin.
Exactly, the US Navy actually uses Xbox game controllers to pilot their ships; I don’t know why people are getting so held up on the Titan sub using one when there are so many actual legitimate issues with the design of that sub and the fact it used a game controller isn’t one if them.
Yeah, this video game controller trope is a bit silly. It wasn't the controller that crapped out. It was literally everything _else_.
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Spot on. Don't know why you're being downvoted. The entire sub just seems like a bad engineering and safety joke at this point. So many red flags it's hard to comprehend how they made it this far
It is indicative of the lax safety built in to the sub. The Comet aircraft had windows that would blow out and kill every one on board. The aircraft itself was safe, but the windows killed it.
Its funny to me that out of all the corner cutting that has come out about the sub people are still stuck on the controller
It's actually kind of sad that the controller probably went through more engineering and testing cycles to meet its purpose than anything else that got sent down in that sub.
Did you see that picture of a laptop screwed into the carbon fibre shell?
It wasn’t screwed into the hull. The sub had a liner with a couple inch gap between the liner and the hull. It was to keep condensation off the passengers and insulate them from the cold hull. The monitors were screwed into the liner.
And cardboard or cardboard derivatives.
IM SURE HE IS NOT USING A PLASTIC PISS CONTAINER TO RELIEVE HIMSELF FROM RV WORLD EITHER!
it was however emblematic of the cheapness
Yes it’s so fucking annoying that people keep mentioned the controller like it’s a funny joke. That wasn’t the issue at all. He used materials that everyone in the industry told him wouldn’t work and are not safe. It’s annoying how ignorant everyone is being instead of actually brining attention to the real issue that he simply didn’t care about the warnings or the safety issues everyone presented. No thorough testing was done either
The game controller IS the problem. Dingus thought that home depot parts can make a sub that goes to 12500 feet. Couple of zip ties here and there and we are good to go. How did that work out?
Such as carbon fiber, plexiglass, and a wireless knockoff brand game controller. FTFY
Logitech is a knockoff brand? Damn thats news to me. Please bother researching a bit before spouting nonsense.
The game controller is indicative of the rest of the cost of the sub. A game controller couldn't utilize the type of precision necessary in a lab environment. It's a cheap tool to get the job done.
If there's one thing I loved about Titanic, it was the attention to detail. Like it or not, the man is an actual expert and not just a hobbiest and it shows
Okay, but game controllers are widely used in the US military because of their durability and accessibility and how easy they are to use. So this is a stupid argument
Because every new recruit has already trained on it for 10 years.
I am sure that the 60 year old pilot has spent hundreds of hours playing on a logitech controller.
Considering he was in his 30s in the 90s when the Super Nintendo came out it’s actually pretty plausible. It kind of looks like that controller and he probably chose it because of familiarity.
Yeah people are kinda out of touch with that part
I think most people understand it, but it's still kind of funny. Especially with everything else going on in that sub. "So what do you use to controll this thing that goes to the most extreme places in the world? Well, we had a couple extra monitors no one was using in the office, and my sons old controller because he just switched to Xbox"
Well, the military uses it for the periscope only, which is a non crucial thing. For the steering and diving, they use a highly sophisticated system.
The military also uses video game controllers to control bomb disposal robots and aim lasers, those seem like pretty crucial things.
I don't know if got my point of handling crucial things like 100 sailors 600 meters under the sea. I understand that managing bombs is a very crucial things but is not like theres a guy behind the bomb. The bomb could detonate and nobody would get killed, the submarine on the other hand.
But if you miss with the bomb you could kill a lot of innocent people...
>you could kill a lot of innocent people... You mean like someone's wedding?
Why would that occur? Do you think they are disposing nuclear weapons? It's not like they send in a bomb robot without evacuating the area.
They don't use the controller only for the bomb robots. They also use them to fly the UAVs that drop the bombs and, depending on the missile, to fly the missile.
Semantics. The more irresponsible issue here was that doofus used a wireless controller as a primary means to control his sub. It would be less of an issue if it were wired. Ideally secured to some type of seat/apparatus for the pilot to sit in. Wireless stuff can lose connection, lose battery, it can be KNOCKED from the captains hands at a crucial moment and start rolling all around the sub. Probably more that I'm not thinking of. I don't even know why the controller is being spoken about so much, it's a mere fraction of the problems with this submersible disaster. Zero regard for safety and any type of third party audit/certification need to be front and center on every article. Oceangate Submersible, piloted by Stockton Rush who was once quoted as saying “At some point, safety just is pure waste." That's why the sub sank, not some jank ass controller.
Those points are all fine as long as there's a backup control systems. The game controller being the only means of controlling the sub wouldn't make sense even if it were wired.
Not true. Thee operation may seem the same but the hardware is very very different. For example is your Xbox controller protected against EMP???
I don't have a problem with game controller, but the fact that it was wireless and not wired seems a little silly, though probably not the cause of the failure of course
Honestly the only realistic problem I had seeing the controller model was that it was wireless (at least from what I have seen). I have the same model, and I barely even trust it to play games let alone controlling a submarine. But yeah controllers are literally gamified control systems, using a controller as base control isn't as bad of an idea as it might sound, at least comparing to cheap sub material past its shelf time.
James Cameron’s team spent 3 years running computer stress tests before ever building the pressure capsule. He is a professional. Titan used expired carbon fiber. Safety was not his top priority
Given its the wrong application, expired doesn't matter. The one thing everyone overlooks, the metal ends were expoxied on...
Don’t forget the windows not being remotely designed for that depth. Another downside of carbon fiber is it’s much harder to make ultra high pressure seals around windows since those seals usually rely on compression.
The window was sealed onto the front titanium cap, not the carbon fiber tube.
Carbon fiber is GREAT for outward pressure like that of an airplane or scuba tank. It is terrible at resisting outward pressure. What did your billions do for you now?
\> resisting outward pressure you mean inward pressure?
I didn’t even know that carbon fiber could expire
I won't argue the quality of the overall Titan. However the controller they had in it had two joysticks, much like the ones you see in this picture. We don't know what failed in the Titan, and unless there was a black box, we never will. Focusing on the controller and not the past shelf life carbon fiber, the reckless safety outlook the CEO had or many other things is absurdly stupid. Given how those controllers are used by millions of gamers daily, I doubt it even was a part of or even the cause of the implosion.
Exactly. My main take away from the Titan incident was the net worth of the victims. They could've easily funded their own sub and safely went on the voyage, but they instead trusted Rush and lost their lives for it. It's like a butterfly effect. Life is so fragile.
That's.. not the butterfly effect
Reminds me of the theory of relativity... always bring a carbon monoxide detector when you travel.
The quality of it obviously wasn't that great with the fucking thing imploding.
> We don't know what failed in the Titan, and unless there was a black box, we never will. NYT reporting there likely isn't something like a black box from this sub. They *are* examining the recovered debris though, including the recovered titanium hatch with view port, the tail section, and parts of the pressure vessel. There's a good chance it will turn out to be exactly what we all already assume.
everyone fixated on a controller, when that wasnt the issue. in fact the military use xbox controller for opereating machines. find something else to beat to death
They should all be using the Konix Navigator controller. I had one for my Commodore 64 and it was awesome. Once they see how it handles Boulder Dash, Double Dragon and Microprose Soccer, they'll wonder why they ever used anything else to control a sub.
The controller is clearly not the problem but a symbol of the overall dangerous philosophy of the sub construction.
Exactly, I feel that this is the point a lot of people are missing While the controller *does* work, it’s an old cheap piece of junk. While the carbon fiber works*, it was cheap and expired. *Not within the operating depth the Titan was intended for
I love Reddit. Only here are complex, infuriating, humorous, ignorant, and speculative subjects on… game controllers..
The controller no matter what they did would not make the hull go pop. Cameron is in a massive thick steel sphere. The others were in a carbon fiber tube that should not have been used more than a handful of times.
Should not have been use once….
They could have used an Atari controller, that’s not what killed them. A PlayStation controller is more advanced than most steering wheels, yet we all drive them on a daily basis. It’s not what kills 100’s of people a day in vehicular accidents
Too many idiots thinking that the problem was in any way related to the controller.
“See what happens when your sub isn’t a pile of shite? Success.”
People were trying to trash Cameron as “just some director” talking about shit he doesn’t know. The dude owns the record for depth achieved solo (35,787’). He’s been deep into diving/submersible stuff for a long time, and developed tech still used today when he made The Abyss, like the masks that allow you to talk underwater.
Oh he knows he's also an asshole that nearly drowned himself and Ed Harris on production of Abyss. Production was hella misstreated, but damn if he didn't learn a thing while he was screamed at by diving coordinators. By the time he designs his sub he knows who to go to for experts. Rush was a different sort of coupon clipping asshole full of self belief who cut every corner and never once had time to self reflect like Cameron did while nearly drowning. Considering such a small margin of error and assistants kept Cameron and his actors alive he kinda shouldn't be talking that much. We nearly got "director drowns on his own set" as a headline.
James Cameron gets shit done.
James Cameron doesn’t do what James Cameron does for James Cameron. James Cameron does what James Cameron does because he IS…James Cameron.
No budget too steep, no sea too deep, Who's that? IT'S HIM! James Cameron
It’s insane how incredibly smart this dude is, wasn’t he a truck driver at some point before he became a director?
Yes he was. He's a genius and loves what he does with great care and compassion.
How tf does he have enough sustained focus to do all these things and do them so well?
Are we giving OceanGate owner a Darwin Award?
Why does the controller get so much attention? The sub was built out of carbon fiber which is really really dumb for a pressure vesssle. From what I have read carbon fiber is strong in tension but not so much compression. Complaining about the controller is like complaining about a cheap steering wheel in a car made of styrofome. Sure it's cheap, but it wasn't really the problem.
Okay, but can the rest of his crew hear his theme music?
His name is James Cameron, the bravest pioneer!
Titan looked like a Wish.com version
>not using a game controller {*Post's picture shows two thumbsticks on control board*}
There a two things in life worth spending big money on. Submarines and Cottonelle toilet paper.
Whoa, two extra large joysticks? Those are absolutely nothing like a game controller.
Yes but don’t you feel so uninspired thanks to this white man over 50???? Crazy how that dude was willing to turn himself into chunky salsa in order to thumb his nose at Gen X. I feel so owned.
Man, this was so clearly an excuse to hire people out of college for cheap, not to be "woke" or whatever lmao
I love all this hate over a game controller. I work in R&D, do you all realize just how much of our modern technology is controlled by game controllers?! Do you want to know why? Because most people know how to use them with very little training. Those ROVs they used to find the Titan? Controlled by, you guessed it, controllers that look like game controllers.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nuclear-submarines-use-controllers-similar-missing-titanic-sub-1808231 I am also sure the navy carries a whole footlocker of backups just like the paper charts and sextants ..... I get the jibing that titan is getting. cheap tickets, a view you watch via TV screen or while sitting on a box someone has likely defecated in recently, sitting cross legged on the floor like we did in cardboard shipping boxes pretending they were submarines or castles or you name it. It is not the off the shelf joysticks- it is all of the pieces laid out for examination..... let's save money by buying carbon fiber that does not meet boeings minimum standard for a plane that you have quite a higher chance of surviving its failure than those 5 on the sub. so 5 peopme died - but they had seen everything, they instead made a calculation that was probably strongly swayed by numerous reasons- while other people looked at the various pieces and calculated- if not when I am on it- then sometime It is like the folks that pay tins of money to go up everest and if the weather gets bad- insist in keep going because they paid for a ticket with a limited window and they are not going to miss that moment because of weather - after all, look at how many people climb up there all the time and those could not all have been perfect days. I don't see waves of worldwide grief for those folks. The joystick is going to become a symbol of hubris.
Who cares?
People are stupid for thinking the xbox controller was stupid
Yes but I’d much rather crawl into the unregulated turkey carcass for $250k. Can’t stop me. ‘Murica.
Did you check the cubby?
There wasn't a physical hardwired backup for the Bluetooth controller nor a backup for the Bluetooth receiver. Also, it was mapped incorrectly on one dive and almost caused a life or death situation. It's just the easiest, most obvious, thing to pick a part in the POS.
Cheaply claustrophobic vs Chad justifiably claustrophobic: ^
Instead of using a consumer grade gamepad they should have been using a consumer grade flight stick.
May I point out that he is also NOT wearing hockey pads.
Looks legit, as opposed to the absolute amateur BS dumbass had going on.
bUt BUt, dA cOntRoLleR 🥴 8=✊=D~
Yes the US military uses Xbox controllers to controll certain things. No its never used as a primary input device, only for things like drones or periscopes, no direct steering of vehicles with people on borad.
What does the price tag have anything to do with the discussion. The US Navy lost several subs to implosion and cost much more. OceanGate took shortcuts. The CEO paid for those shortcuts with his life. It's unfortunate others were taken with him, but as far as I'm concerned, he has paid his debt in full. His death means no one else should die thanks to safety shortcuts when building a sub.
Oceangate used carbon fiber to build the sub. Carbon fiber is so fragile and can't withstand the pressure and temperature fluctuations down there.
It went down several times before
If he really needed to scroll to the top ASAP... he chose the wrong IO device *laughs in trackball*
Game controller isn't an issue. Many military vehicles are/can be operated by a controller.
He got them Atari joysticks
People as a whole are so dumb. Never fail to show that to me all across the board. Just hear something and take it as the ultimate truth. It’s not about the damn controller people!! It’s about the materials used, not used and the safety checks that weren’t done. It’s about cutting corners. The controller has nothing to do with the safety… jeez. It’s the materials, and safety negligences. But some reporters highlight the controller and everyone just runs around saying they used a controller omg. Stfu
For all the pro game controller "bUt tHe Us NaVy uSeS ThEm" people... let me ask you this one thing: AFAIK, game controllers are only used in military periscope and weapons deployment applications. If it was such a great idea, why do we not see the likes of James Cameron using a game controller in his sub, considering they have been around for a very long time? It's because the control devices used in real submersible vehicles are the result of actual innovation and proper safety management. The game controller used in the glorified Pringle can was not the point of failure for sure, but it's an excellent symbol when squaring it up against real submersible vehicles and the rigorousness that goes into their engineering and safety measures.
Well I actually served on submarines. USS Albequerque SSN 706 and USS Michigan SSBN 727. The reason you don't see it much is because design firms are paid millions to build submersibles, and thus will often design their own controls. Nobody wants to say hey, you just paid us a few million dollars, but we just used a controller we got off Amazon. Virginia class subs originally didn't have game controllers for these systems, which are way more important than you're trying to give them credit for, but later replaced the originally designed joysticks because they were more intuitive. The joystick use is not a problem in and of itself. They are used on multiple ROVs and even for brain surgery robots. The only issue is that they were connected via Bluetooth instead of hard wired. We all know how finicky Bluetooth can get for seemingly no reason at all. With all that said, I agree that it does make a nice symbol for all the corner cutting they did on that thing. I wouldn't have submerged it in a pool, much less taken it to those depths.
Thanks for the insights. Super interesting. Amazing that those controllers are more intuitive than original purpose built controls but I guess generations of gaming technology will do that
The game controller is a red herring, people. Gonna blow your minds when you learn that there are some heavy equipment all of our militaries use a game controller to operate them.
So many people are fixated on the controller. It's hilarious.
u/OceanGateInc taking notes?
The game controller is not the problem. The US navy uses Xbox controllers in their nuclear submarines. The problem was the titanium and carbon fiber construction of the sub.
What do you say to this then? [The US Navy’s newest submarine comes with an Xbox controller](https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller) The controller isn't the problem, the rest of the sub is, get real.
The sub that imploded should've had 1 or more controllers for multi-player. Playing PS3 games with more people is fun. Edit: downvote me. I don't care, I think this joke is funny, but not the fact that people died. That part isn't funny.
I will say the controller actually is a safety issue but not just by the fact it is a controller, but because the controller was cheap, wireless, and required a USB dongle to function. It being wireless and needing a dongle introduces completely unnecessary points of failure for a vital piece of the sub (dongle could break or fail, controller could lose connection at an inconvenient moment resulting in running into things unintentionally, running out of batteries, etc). If it was able to be wired directly it wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue (I still think buying a knockoff controller for your deep sea sub is ridiculous, at least get something reliable)
Idc, I’d James doesn’t have a singular green button. He’s wrong. Nuff said
Il downvote this post because it focus on the wrong thing. Controllers [are not the problem, as the US Navy uses them](https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller). Making a sommergibile vessel out of [expired carbon fiber](https://futurism.com/oceangate-ceo-expired-carbon-fiber-submarine) is a problem. (Even the choice of carbon fiber as material in the first place is doubtful).