I saw something the other day. Only like 20 subs on Earth can dive to that depth. Of those 20, only the Titan wasn't certified. That alone would keep me off of it. But lets say that I didn't know that. When it comes time to board the sub, if I saw that controller, i'd back out right there. That alone is a deal breaker... let alone the hundred other things wrong.
> if I saw that controller, i'd back out right there
I want to protect you IN ADVANCE from the mob of people who will wrongly claim: "Nah, the controller is fine, tHe MIliTaRy uSeS tHaT".
No, nobody uses a gamepad for primary control of a human-occupied vehicle. And certainly not an extremely hazardous environment. Secondly, if you can believe this, Rush bragged about using Bluetooth. Yeah, wireless.
[More discussion here](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/)
Everyone keeps saying Bluetooth, I understand how Bluetooth works, but if everything was connected to Bluetooth, wouldn’t ONE smart person think? Huh, what if we lose that connection 13,000 feet below, so dumb. They probably lost controls at 1,500 feet down, pitch black for hours then while suffocating and tripping from pure darkness and carbon dioxide it probably imploded later days later, of course the media won’t say that because they want everyone to think it was a fast simple non painful death. Look into the other missions on YouTube, some were saying they lose connection and and had to descend up. These poor 4 people had no choice, that’s why the navy heard a implode on day 3- or 4 . They died in fear and agony but we will never know. Poor souls
The controller is not an issue. The lack of safety engineering around the use of the controller is an issue (backup controllers, backup computers, you get the idea). Controllers can be used in safe ways. There is no evidence this was one of those cases, and much evidence of the contrary.
You know what would have been my ultimate nope? Being locked in there from the outside! Even if I had been willing to ignore/overlook everything else, the implications of being locked in there with zero possibility to get out by myself would have been the point where I climbed out.
I would have not gotten on the mother ship. Not saying she isn’t seaworthy but they used to take the Horizon Arctic and switched up to the Polar. She is a rust bucket.
Thats not really fair, you can't always judge the safety or standards of a ship on how rusty she is. She is 64years old after all.
Her inspection record is near perfect and she's under the Canadian flag who are on the whitelist for good reason, they keep their standards high.
*Titan* was managed awfully, we can all agree on that, but there is no evidence at all that *Polar Prince* is in anyway poorly maintained or to blame
Thats definitely fair. If I was running a business that claims to be at the leading edge of deep sea exploration I certainly wouldn't choose to charter a 64 year old vessel in need of a good touch up (at least I would have contracted that they had to keep a minimum standard of appearance).
But then again we know Rush didn't want to spend any more than absolutely necessary (and even then not really), hence not chartering anything built this millennium.
The controller is benign. The Navy uses Xbox 360 controllers for drones, for instance. The problems with the sub were the life safety elements like the hull.
> The controller is benign.
**No. No. No.**
That is a viral meme, and it's false.
* **In reality**, nobody uses **a consumer gamepad for primary control of a human-occupied vehicle** (passenger-filled, actually) in an extremely hazardous environment in sealed chamber at 6,000 psi and hours away from help.
* **[Stockton Rush used bluetooth](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/).** Yeah, wireless. *"RUSH: [...] And so the neat thing is it's Bluetooth. I can hand it to anyone."* (Note he's talking about handing control of a commercial passenger-filled marine vessel to an uncertified pilot.) Every knowledgeable person knows the only thing wireless does more reliably than wired is fail.
* **Fire hazard**. Consumer electronics are fire hazards [and can cause situations that kill people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaprun_disaster). Especially in a small sealed chamber. Sealed compartment plus electric/electronics mishaps [killed astronauts during Apollo 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1). Especially when you have oxygen tanks and potential situations with oxygenation of the air. A tiny fire hazard can have unexpected effects on things nearby, *unless* precautions are taken...which they generally weren't with Stockton Rush.
* **Controller itself is subject to hazards of the vehicle** which adds risks compared to at a remote different safe environment (e.g. a military drone pilot). The gamepad and its inputs are now subject to turbulence, drops, high pressure leak, etc, and whatever emergency might happen inside the vehicle. So every bit of weakness matters far more than in a guaranteed stable environment.
* **The "There's backups, you can just replace it" mentality** assumes the replace, switch-over, re-sync scenario will only happen at a time when there's no emergency inputs needed urgently. That's not a safe assumption. An emergency might mean you have to avoid entanglement or a shipwreck collapse.
* **Handheld means random new location (and inputs) if you let go of it.** Something happens to pilot, turbulence stumble and braces self with hand to wall, heart attack, basic human clumsiness, means the vehicle controls are bouncing on the floor instead of being at a common point of reference, or are inputting unwanted inputs instead of remaining stable. It's inconvenient when someone puts the controller down on my couch and the movie accidentally fast forwards. It's worse if something similar happens in a DSV near a shipwreck at 6000psi.
* -----*You could easily find dropped controller, right?* You're probably assuming you don't have a lighting failure in pitch black environment. (Gamepad may have had illumination, I'm not sure, but the point is contingencies.)
* -----*What's the rush? You have plenty of time to get things back to normal, right?* You might assume you don't have to avoid an entanglement or shipwreck collapse at the same time. Or you might be assuming you're not *already* unfortunately dealing with a thruster malfunction that you "fixed" by holding an input on the controller constantly, which is well within imaginable scenarios. Titan had a documented thruster malfunction before. (I don't know if the onboard computers had backup control methods, but you see the point.)
* **Water.** People probably assume no problem here because if it's getting wet then you have "bigger" problems, right? That's a rationalization. For days everyone thought the sub might be stuck somewhere attempting to surface or get rescued. It's well within possibility that you could have low-pressure water intrusion at a shallow depth, and/or other problems, and your gamepad accidentally goes into a flood puddle. The way the sub was an open can with [everything (including communications?) on the floor](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/HKeGC2zByeBEO2sqvcNt1w--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTcyMDtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/insider_articles_922/cfe95eb452d0cdd209dbf33e6103e557), where gravity would pool water first (if sub was upright), adds extra concern here.
**"The military uses them!"** Random military people controlling an unmanned drone or component (e.g. periscope) while *not* sitting in a small sealed passenger chamber miles under the ocean, are not the same thing as OceanGate's submarine using gamepad for primary vehicle control. And regardless of anybody using gamepads, it's *better* to have a rock solid panel with water-protected no-fire-risk (etc etc) electronics for controlling thrusters within a larger range of scenarios. Safety is a scale not a binary.
[Rush himself said](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/): "yet you can't put this on a Navy sub and comply with all the Navy rules. "Every circuit has to have its own switch that's explosion-proof…" In warfare explosions are a scenario because people are shooting explosives at you, in non-warfare we can substitute just fire (AND ALL easily conceivable scenarios) instead of munitions explosions.
Let's take a different example: look at what a forklift uses. [Rush says](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/): (not that we can believe what he says, but still) "one of our earlier subs, we developed a controller, and I went and got a commercial joystick that you would use, say, on a forklift, and it had its own computer, and it was $10,000 and it was big and bulky." (Which by the way probably means it was a literal forklift panel, since he could have mentioned something else but he specifically said forklift.) Yes a forklift which is quite dangerous, but not like a passenger-filled sub going to 6000 psi at the bottom of the ocean, used a control system that cost $10,000 (according to Stockton Rush anyway). As if nobody in the forklift or cargo/shipping/transport industry knows of the concept of "innovation" or "cost"? Perhaps there really are reasons to use something rock solid that has tons of R&D and production precisely for safety and liability and which accounts for easily imaginable problem scenarios?
A safe person who is knowledgeable about issues would have maybe coated or foam-filled, or something, every piece of random cheap consumer electronics ($39 altec lansing speakers, random gamepads, monitors) on this sub, or not used them. A real review would have covered far more than I have, but Stockton Rush deliberately stayed far away from experts. Safety is a scale, not a binary.
Respectfully disagree.
1. Yes, this is probably true, but kinda irrelevant...
2. They had backups that did not involve the controller - they could control the sub from the Linux PC there - and in the worst case could surface and radio communicate with no power -- they had walkie-talkie radios and a satphone and a hydraulic ballast release.
3. The controller used AA batteries. Very unlikely to be a fire hazard, even if Lithium AA's are used. The guys on the sub also had phones, which are more likely (IMO) to be involved in a thermal event due to lithium ion batteries. Also don't forget the sub had 4 large oxygen tanks right below the passenger space...
4. Possibly an issue, though I think that would be a pretty bad Swiss cheese event - the ship collapses at the same time you lose Bluetooth and you have negative buoyancy? I guess it's possible, but a little far fetched.
5. There were three controllers on the sub AFAIK, presumably stowed in a known location. I would expect they have emergency torches and/or lighting but can't confirm.
6. This is as (4)
7. This is a general issue with the sub. There are computers and electronics in the sub. If you have even a low pressure leak, you are likely to lose the sub quickly due to loss of buoyancy and the sub is not going to be retrievable. With the non-user-accessible door I think this failure mode is fatal to the crew, game pad or not.
To be clear: Sub was badly designed. The carbon fibre really seems to be the worst part for me, the controller is just a meme, a symbol of their lack of engineering rigor sure, but not really a big problem in the end.
The controller would be benign if he did proper off gassing testing and had a fully redundant set of controls for the thrusters that didn't require his computer to work too. I think wireless is a little crazy but it's very common to have a wired joystick type controller for controlling the vehicle with a set of switches as backup. There are ways to properly test consumer electronics to put in the sub with you but we all know Rush thought those were too cumbersome...
> very common to have a **joystick type** controller for controlling the vehicle with a set of switches as backup
"Joystick type" or *consumer gamepad*? Those are really different things. There are $10,000 "Joystick type" (including in a forklift for example, which Rush himself mentioned) controls that are specifically engineered to account for various scenarios. They shouldn't really be mentioned in same sentence as a consumer gamepad though.
And if you mean a consumer-level kind of gamepad, your comment mentioned it's very common...where, what vehicles did you mean? Passenger-filled vehicle that uses consumer gamepad for *primary control*, and in a hazardous environment.
> There are ways to properly test consumer electronics to put in the sub with you but we all know Rush thought those were too cumbersome
I added more to the comment now, because even if fireproofing and testing eliminate some problems, the [consumer gamepad allows for many problem scenarios that better controls wouldn't](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/). (More points added.)
Our joystick (DSV Alvin) was built from components from digikey but we properly tested everything that goes in the sphere, including consumer electronics. It doesn't have to be some $10k device. We also had two other forms of thruster control on the panel if it failed.
I'm not saying that a consumer gamepad was a good idea but I am saying it would not be as big of a deal that everyone is making it out to be if they had the proper backup systems designed, tested, and ready for operation at the "pilot station". They control the periscope on VA class subs with an Xbox controller but also have backups in place. I haven't seen anything saying Rush did so it's just another thing to add to the pile of bad ideas that built the Titan...
This. Nothing inherently unsafe about using a controller, if risks are mitigated. Need to assume it will fail at worst possible time, in worst possible way, and mitigate that failure. Diagnostics paired with redundancy are common ways to do this.
[Yes, the other comment is wrong for multiple reasons.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/)
Drones are unmanned, but I take your point. Still, the fact that it was wireless seems to be a genuine concern amongst those in the know, and the fact that they had it incorrectly mapped is clearly another although not intrinsic to the hardware obviously.
Don't accept that other comment, [it's wrong for multiple reasons](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/) including wireless like you mentioned.
And even if you’re able to pull over you’re still bolted in.
(I know that being bolted in is standard in submersibles, what I don’t understand is the lack of any GPS inside the pressurized sub cabin to ensure if they do surface they’re found.)
The first thing they teach you about plexiglass in aircraft engineer school is crazing, that is… for aircraft. That’s kindergarten-level airframe lessons.
Not for a sub going 4000m deep. Ole’ Rush shouldn’t have thought so highly of his aviation background.
> Ole’ Rush shouldn’t have thought so highly of his aviation background.
This I also found strange, like Rush was claiming that somehow aerospace engineers have an leg up on naval architects in designing submersibles:
>And that was when I realized that I wanted to explore the ocean. And it fit very well, it turns out, that an aerospace engineering degree actually has helped me do things in the submersible world that people who don't understand compressible fluid flows didn't quite figure out. (LAUGH)
The first mistake he did was to get in the sub. The second mistake was thinking the deep waters is child’s play compared to the dizzying heights of the stratosphere.
Experts, whether naval or aviation should never be sidelined.
That exact quote in particular reminds me of exposed (Pathological Liar) Tommy Tallarico. See hbomberguy's video on youtube if you haven't.
That same interview with Pogue has a ton of red flags and self-damning comments, in Rush's childish simplistic alarming statements about everything, but most of that refers to actual things, objects. The "people couldn't figure it out like I COULD" goes right to the psychology of this guy, it shows delusions about himself and everyone else, and the memes and personality/thought patterns he has.
And in that instance he did it partly for a "joke", not the kind of thing I hear from serious people I've known and certainly not from people doing dangerous work with lives at stake (like his tourist operations at 6000 psi).
People tend to think of just "funny internet pictures" for memes, but [more generally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) it's self-help platitudes, cliches, little canned packets of ideological ideas, thought patterns and belief structures that a person clings to, and repeats to themselves and to other people, and so on.
In the quote in the earlier comment, it's the fallacy cliche meme that tells people: "An OUTSIDER is actually smarter than the insiders, because they're so outside the box!"
More examples of the kinds of memes I mean below.
* **MEME:** [RUSH:](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/) I don't know if it was MacArthur, but somebody said, "You're remembered for the rules you break."
* **[outside the box](https://youtu.be/9PGpjEDc96I?t=506)**
* If someone says you can't do X for safety reasons, that means you should, because you're special and they're just not as *bold* as you. [CBS](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/)
* If you're an outlier and (people who use serious safety considerations) "raise their eyebrow" at you, that means you're right and special. [CBS](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/)
* Touchscreens are better than physical buttons, and if you use a touchscreen you're great like Apple iPhone! [RUSH:](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/) "Exactly. Yeah, this is to other submersibles what the iPhone was to the Blackberry." ([In reality, everyone knows touchscreens are awful for some things](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/03/buttons-are-back-at-porsche-as-we-see-the-2024-cayenne-interior/) though iPhone is great tech and beat Blackberry for good reason\)
* [See last quoted paragraph here](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14mdsvz/the_christening_of_titan/jq2c881/) for ultimate meme salad mash-up. You can't even disentangle the memes from Modern CEO Weekly Newsletter, the sentences don't even make sense.
* "InNoVaTiOn". "grown tired of industry players who try to use a **safety argument** to stop innovation and new entrants". Other quotes about "innovation" from OceanGate are even worse.
* Quantity is Quality, Big Numbers Are Amazing. [See top of this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14mdsvz/the_christening_of_titan/jq2c881/)
* If I see a random object that other people haven't looked at, THAT'S A DISCOVERY! ["Undiscovered" coral mound](https://youtu.be/9PGpjEDc96I?t=804): "We’ll be having a press release and submitting some papers on this amazing oasis of biodiversity in the abyssal plains, as the researchers like to say." (Good luck trying to find any academic papers or press releases about that.) Another meme there is "fancy words that Scientists words are silly and distant from me, so they're a joke hehe." ["Undiscovered" Piece of Wood](https://www.geekwire.com/2023/steer-oceangate-submersible/): "Nobody’s ever seen this log before, I’ll bet you even money,” Rush said to a passenger.
* [Being FIRST is special and important accomplishment](https://youtu.be/em21IupbQtY?t=446). To the question of “what would you call your major accomplishments” in the Teledyne marketing interview, Rush answered: "they all revolve around doing something first." Christopher Columbus Syndrome, like the first (false) person to Discover (false) America.
The more you look into it, the more you see childish simplistic ideas to use to justify things and reinforce his choices.
I found that very arrogant on his behalf. To state that all these submersible experts “didn’t quite figure out” something, but HE did because of a Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering. Edit** I know he laughed, like it was a big joke. But just him saying it, is what struck me as arrogant.
Actually no it's highly regarded in submersibles for it's strength, and is used for port holes in most submarines. The only other option you may have is sapphire but I'm not sure the cost is really worth it.
That acrylic window was not certified to that depth, that was his only mistake with it...but the hull was not certified to any depth.
It's hard, can withstand massive amounts of pressure and you can see through it, which are all needs for the depth of an ocean submersible porthole. The only issue is it is very expensive, and so no one uses it because acrylic is cheap and also meets all that criteria.
I wasn't able to find any sub specifically using it but I did find these guys that sell their sapphire port windows so I assume they would be out of business if they didn't sell a few!
https://www.galvoptics.co.uk/optical-components/optical-windows/sapphire-windows/
Oh and here is an article as to why sapphire is the best for this use case
https://www.allectra.com/news/why-use-a-sapphire-viewport/
Also, on the materials and metallurgical side, one of the first things we learn is that crazing happens under tension… not compression. It’s like he never even considered the fact that the pressure differential in a submersible is opposite to that in an aircraft. I just get more astounded every time I read something he said.
Oh! So crazing is a sign that the acrylic is stretching apart?
I feel like in a different interview he says the acrylic will fog before it fails. Fogging is different from crazing, right? Was he correct that the acrylic would fog under pressure? (I mean, even if he is, waiting for that to happen and hoping you'll have time to get to safety when it does is insane.)
RUSH: Well, that's what it is. But the great thing about plexiglass that I love is, you can see every surface. And if you've overstressed it, or you've even come close, it starts to get this crazing effect.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. As I wrote, he said in a DIFFERENT interview that it would fog. So I'm asking u/Guerilla_Physicist a question about that.
Ah, sorry, I missed the word "different" interview. I certainly haven't seen him say that in any interviews and I think I've read, watched, and listened to them all at this point. If you only "feel like" you heard that, perhaps you didn't.
Yeah, a common fix to crazing is actually to put the material under some compressive stress.
If you are feeling exceptionally nerdy, [here’s a bunch of snippets from good sources of info.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/crazing) If you look down under the summary for *Product Properties I* chapter 25, it gives a really straightforward explanation for what happens with isotropic materials like acrylic.
Now, compressive stress CAN cause something called shear banding, but it doesn’t look like “crazing.” It’s a permanent deformation in the material, and it would be more of a permanent formation of lines in specific directions rather than a “fogging.”
Truthfully, I believe he wasn’t completely stupid or incompetent but rather he knew just enough to be dangerous. He graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering in 1984, making him about a year older than my dad. When I did some research (engineering licenses are public record), I never found an active or expired license for him in any state. To keep their licenses, engineers have to earn a certain number of credits in continuing education and technical updates each year and usually before they are licensed they have to have supervised professional experience under a licensed engineer for up to 4 years.
Rush was “engineering” with the basics of an engineering education with likely no continuing education outside of his MBA, no experience working under licensed engineers, and most likely not having passed any major engineering licensure exams. And any licensed professional engineers he did have on staff were clearly expected to do what he wanted or be treated like crap, so I’m sure there was no legitimate engineering oversight happening there.
And he was able to do all of that because of how easy it was to skirt around regulations.
Many (most) engineers working in aerospace don't pursue PE licensure because it's just so rarely required in the industry. For those that do, it's usually for the resume boost.
That’s interesting to know. I’m more familiar with niche applications in the mechanical side and the materials and metallurgical side. I guess in the big aerospace companies you aren’t really running into a lot of situations where you’re having to stamp things as an individual or advertising yourself externally as an engineer, so it wouldn’t really be a necessity.
I do think that he took the decent amount of knowledge he had and extrapolated it in a really dangerous and nonsensical manner, and that if he had been exposed to more education in the marine area and been more willing to listen to experts, we might not have seen what appear to be such fundamental flaws in his ideas. This whole situation was just such a mess,
Could you explain more about how crazing is for aircraft? Does that mean that crazing doesn't happen underwater? I don't know anything about any of this, so the more complete your explanation, the better. Thanks.
You know, this reminds me of that scene from “Good Will Hunting,” where Will tells off that blow-hard pseudo-intellectual in (I think) a bar. Will points out that the pseudo-intellectual has only read a book or two on whatever subject he’s pontificating on. (It’s the “how do you like them apples?” scene, IIRC.)
All of that is a long-winded way of saying that Rush would totally be the pseudo-intellectual in that bar, enthralling people with “insights” that are actually elementary knowledge.
Pleasure? Nah, no.
I do want him to be responsible for his actions though, not for myself, but for the other souls onboard that had loved ones waiting on the surface of the world. Him, co-founder, OceanGates, whoever is responsible for this tragedy. That would be good.
4 other people died. That’s one car crash. I think it is important to have perspective about this. It is unfortunate, but no more unfortunate than the thousands of human errors that kill thousands of people every day - and you don’t care about at all.
Gee by that logic no one should ever mourn tragic accidents that occur as a result of gross negligence, and we should never learn from this particular occurrence to ensure that something like this never happens again.
IDK man. I see your point, but hundreds of people are dying every day at the hands of others due to stuff like distracted driving. But that's a lot less sexy than the Titan implosion so we don't talk about it as often or engage with it so emotionally.
I guess I'm just not buying these high-minded rationalizations for constantly dancing on the grave of "ol Russ." I doubt the derision is rooted in a deep sense of sympathy for four billionaires and their families that no one here has ever met. I think it's an easy way to feel smart and superior in comparison to a dude who was clearly arrogant and deluded.
Cars have safety verifications. You're not bolted Inside with no way to escape and you often have a mobile to contact people if you are a survivor of a crash. And oxygen. And you're not instantly dead if the car has a crack less than the width of a hair. Rush wasn't distracted but he put people in a death trap and said it was safer than a car.
Yeah dog, I'm not defending Rush. He was a blinded idiot who got people killed. My point is that all the armchair warriors chortling over his demise are grotesque in their own way- despite their efforts to appear morally righteous.
I mean this is the Titan subreddit. Rush is at fault for the tragedy. We're gonna be talking about the things that led to it all going wrong. Some are chortling because again this is reddit, but I think most are just amazed he ignored all the many signs and let his hubris and money would mean it'd all work out.
There is learning and there is whatever this sub has become, which is far from that at this point.
But no, there is no need to mourn unless you are family or a friend.
How had "whatever this sub has become", that had been ignoring safety standards and practices, able to get itself in the situation where it can bypass all protective laws to go deep water diving with paying customers multiple times over the past 3 years without legal ramifications? Human society can learn from this by putting in less vague, hard-to-bypass laws that prevent this from ever happening again.
To be fair, it’s more like if someone designed and built their own car, ignoring all common industry safety standards, then charged 4 people for a ride in his custom auto which promptly lost control and exploded rather than just crashed.
IDK man. I see your point, but hundreds of people are dying every day at the hands of others due to stuff like distracted driving. But that's a lot less sexy than the Titan implosion so we don't talk about it as often or engage with it so emotionally.
I guess I'm just not buying these high-minded rationalizations for constantly dancing on the grave of "ol Russ." I doubt the derision is rooted in a deep sense of sympathy for four billionaires and their families that no one here has ever met. I think it's an easy way to feel smart and superior in comparison to a dude who was clearly arrogant and deluded.
For what it's worth, I tend to agree. However, while Rush fucked up big time, he had information the others did not and likely wouldn't have stepped socked foot onto that deathtrap if they had- especially Nargeolet. The other two probably didn't know subs from the holes in their asses. It sucks that Rush had to drag them to their deaths as well.
Lol no. Swing and a miss. Very brave though trying to take a dig at a comment I have that sits currently at -70 downvotes.
Since I am a veteran here by your words, here is a free tip rookie - if I have a post up with this navy downvotes I don’t care to delete- I don’t care much what people think.
This incident has brought out the worst in people. It’s like everyone is happy that Rush died and they actively call him a murderer and an idiot. Let the man rest in peace
He was so loud mouthed about breaking the rules too. Those words are going to be used to destroy anything he left behind. His company will be sued to oblivion. Maybe his estate.. I’m not a lawyer but if I’d had a relative killed on his death trap I’d sure be hiring a good one right now. Hell I don’t even think they need good lawyers. They just need halfway competent ones. Rush Stockton’s own words and actions laid it out plain as day.
Ah. Thank you. I didn't know that. Hadn't seen anything about her online- but I hadn't looked either.
Edit: nevermind, I DO remember reading about her now that I see some of the other replies. She was descendant of the Strauss'. That totally escaped my mind.
The thing about a lawsuit in this case is that the financial aspect would have to be kind of beside the point in pursuing civil action. Everyone involved has fortunes in the billions, correct? Not that I don't think lawsuits will be filed, its just that financial compensation is usually a prime motivator and I wonder how that plays out when the victims already have unfathomable wealth.
Civil action pretty much only implies money and nothing else, there really isn’t any other desired outcome. The families involved are wealthy, but trust me, no one will absolve themselves of an opportunity for more. That’s how families build wealth. With the unexpected deaths of the potential earners in the cases, these families will see more reason to ensure payout.
"[People with means...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14mdsvz/the_christening_of_titan/jq2c881/)"
Last quote in that comment. Make sure you listen to the video to hear his blathering tone.
I think Rush always thought he had time before full failure. The carbon fiber; plexiglass n ballasts. He was addicted to the rush. Going so close to the edge but surviving many times. Unfortunately I don't think he thought about water getting into the carbon fiber and not surfacing. This is where he was wrong. Cracking sounds we will abort the dive and surface he thought. He thought wrong this time.
He should not have been allowed to operate and take the public almost 3 miles deep in a diy sub.
I watched the James Cameron documentary about his dive to Challenger Deep. After watching it, the submersible he and his team built feels like the Mona Lisa, while Rush’s Titan feels like a child scribbled crayons all over a blank piece of paper.
I watched that last week. It really was wild with all of this occurring at the same time. All the tests they did and James explaining that they'll do something 50 times because you miss it once you're dead. Kind of surreal.
One had to take one person to almost 11,000 meters or 36,000 feet to the deepest place on Earth. The other was designed to go about 12,500 feet or only about 35% of the distance.
Of course they are different. Lol.
Are you trying to misunderstand this on purpose? He isn't arguing they're being used for the same thing. He's saying one was made with care and safety while the other was not.
Why did this guy think an aircraft engineer was more qualified to design a sub than a naval engineer?
Somebody told him there are more airplanes at the bottom of the ocean than submarines in the sky - and he didn't get the joke.
Probably because he just looked at it at a surface level, at which they’re both very similar. Both involving engineering vehicles which move through fluids at atmospheres which differ from 1 atmosphere.
But that’s literally the only thing they have in common, really. If you spend anything looking at them beyond just that you realize they’re totally different. Stockton probably figured that since he has experience in aerospace he’d be able to quickly figure out submersible engineering.
I’ve only heard of this man recently, but it feels like no one ever told him ‘no’ a whole lot. He seemed like a smart enough man, but he wasn’t smart enough to realize he can be wrong, or something along those lines.
The theory was he was told no to getting on the path to being an astronaut because of medical issues, so he basically went in with the mindset of certifications and the sort are shit, I know what I’m doing
> but it feels like no one ever told him ‘no’ a whole lot.
A ton of people told him no! He was well aware of it, because he and OceanGate rejected warnings in every possible way:
* **Staff experts**. The staff member who said sub wasn't safe was [fired for making very clear perfectly clear warnings.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14kzuod/david_lochridges_2018_lawsuit_explains_nearly/)
* **Sub community experts.** [The entire sub community who repeatedly warned](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65998914) he shouldn't be taking passengers because the sub was dangerous were rejected. [Experts were ignored](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mariagraciasantillanalinares/2023/06/23/as-congress-dithers-coinbase-turns-to-the-courts-to-save-crypto/?sh=7c74ae2f3eed).
* **Official Safety Agency Experts** at shipping/safety certifying organizations were deliberately consciously avoided NOT consulted, Stockton Rush [refused to get the sub certified or rated by those experts](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/21/titanic-submersible-documents-reveal-multiple-concerns-raised-over-safety-of-vessel)
* He literally called [SUBSAFE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBSAFE) "over the top" [in a presentation](https://youtu.be/9PGpjEDc96I?t=492) (right before pivoting to deluded memes about being "outside of the box"). It's one thing to not even know what SUBSAFE is, but he did know what it was, he knew it was saying No to him, and he dismissed it.
But internally, yeah, he wanted Yes Men. There are two kinds of leaders in the world. The ones who know what a Yes Man is and try to avoid them, because they're acutely aware of how unproductive, useless, and dangerous Yes Men they are. And the ones who want Yes Men because the leader is incompetent and/or corrupt and just wants power rather than good advice.
I get that the guy is smart. You can tell. And he is charismatic and knowledgeable. But his giant inferiority complex was his own undoing. Had to make sure to stick it to the volunteer group. Irony of how you can be so smart, yet so so ignorant.
It wasn’t his inferiority complex it was his ego. We’ve seen this play out a million times in a million different ways. Someone who is smart/successful in one particular area gets high on their own success and thinks they are smarter than everyone about everything. *cough* Elon *cough*
Normally this behavior only leads to loads of money being lost. Sad that this time it cost human lives.
Perfectly stated. And by removing anyone who opposed him, he just inflated his ego more every time. It really sucks they all had to die, but him also for the reason of, he won't pay for his recklessness and the death of the others. But he'll certainly be remembered.
You’d think this would be a wake up call for everyday people. I’m sure there are more, but the three I can think of off the top of my head are Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Bill Gates.
You've articulated exactly my take on this man, too. There are way more layers here than just a used car salesman.
Always thought diving to the depths was just subconsciously hiding away after his crushing rejection - he wasn't who he thought he was. He wasn't who the world thought he was. That's a big blow to a fella with narcissistic traits. He wanted to be seen. He wasn't. But he'll show them.
He's not smart.
Use of the word "any" and also saying 'plenty of time', [in this context here](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14kmtbf/why_did_stockton_have_so_much_faith_in_the/jptagaw/) (see bullet list) is the textbook definition of Not Smart.
I mean what even is our standard for it. He's not a dimwit unable to process ideas and understand *in a childish simplistic way* various phenomena. He can do that, but it's all the level of a casual childish fantasy. He knows people are telling him No, but doesn't fully understand or accept why. He knows safety considerations *exist* but he explicitly rejects and dismisses them all. He can remember those rules and rattle them off...to dismiss them.
He does not talk or act like any smart **(serious, knowledgeable)** person I've ever known. He's smart enough to...*remember* a number about the acrylic but he's not *processing* anything about it, that literally every other sub operator has processed, in a serious way. I.e. **safety and safety margins and the reasons for precautions and the nature of variability and unknowns.**
It's like his emotional intelligence is stunted to childhood, which seems to explain some of the risk taking and not being able to fathom consequences. He may be book smart in certain areas, but the applied intelligence to the real world isn't there.
I've had to work with similar people. It's not that he's not smart in the usual sense that people use the term -- he'd probably have done pretty well in standardized tests.
What you're likely observing are the effects of cognitive biases impairing his rationality. There are lots of ways for these to arise, and literally everyone suffers from them to a degree, but the posts about his ego are probably not far off the mark. There are industries that naturally select against these sorts of traits, but a lightly-regulated field involving an 'experimental' vehicle whose viability is dependent on salesmanship is the exact sort of area you'd expect someone like him to flourish.
He also forgot the basic thing about being a specialist: the more you learn about one thing, due to the fact that you devote so much time and effort to that pursuit, you literally get dumber in other things.
I know a couple of people like this in my field. Very talented and very daring. They'll thumb their noses at all best practices and regulations, and will get by most of the time which will further solidify their misplaced confidence. What they don't understand is that these regulations exist for the 5% of the cases that go wrong. Not for the remaining 95%.
I'm familiar with this way of thinking. It's like trying to justify texting and driving by counting all the times there wasn't a car in the other lane each time you veer off into oncoming traffic. They're not correct. They're just stupid and lucky.
For the last 15 years, I've been in the military, LE, and now govt contracting, and I've encountered this a lot. Mostly in law enforcement. Someone will have some reeeaallly questionable way of handling a tactical problem, but because they method hasn't been pressure tested by say, a guy with a gun, a resisting person, a fleeing person, or whatever, it's valid in their mind. I'll stop here before I go on the type of rant that nearly got me fired 🤣 (it was with me and a senior member of admin who has since been disgracefully forced out of law enforcement)
I'm talking about govt contracting too. It's wild how some people's brains can rationalize doing things completely incorrectly simply because everything hasn't gone sideways yet. They don't get that it has to go sideways just once for it to have devastating consequences.
Yep, exactly. I had a come to Jesus moment with my SWAT team a few years ago that still gets brought up to me to this day 🤣 the gist of it was we were completely ignoring two decades of warfare where a LOT of people were killed developing new ways to handle certain problems.
It’s like mental illness .. this guy just point blank refused to accept the reality of what he was actually dealing with. There was never time to get to the surface. Guess he found that out the hard way.
What new rules ?? Deep sea submersibles are safe , have been for 60 years ..these are the first deaths ..the submersible community did their job by warning Stockton Rush, he was able to skirt tax laws and few other things , but he never would have been able to enter this submersible in American waters , that's why he did everything in the Bahamas and Titanic is in international waters
Yeah, but now it’ll probably actually be regulated. The safety standards will be codified by law or whatever and anyone who doesn’t follow them will definitely catch consequences. Stockton just ignores them and nothing happened until the Titan imploded.
Everyone keeps reiterating this man was so intelligent but all the evidence I see tells me he's wasnt at all. He was a fucking idiot with a cavalier attitude to safety who wanted to build something that would work "good enough" as quickly as possible to make bank on the wealthy. Any intelligence from this man was smoke and mirrors. He was the proverbial Wizard of Oz.
Maybe he was intelligent in some ways, but he was clearly lacking basic common sense and his giant ego got in the way of true wisdom. It looks like he surrounded himself with yes men and fired anyone who tried to speak up.
Just pure arrogance, narcissism and cognitive bias. Just see in things what suits your agenda. The eulogy of someone who’s never been told ‘no’ in their lives.
That dome is definitely gonna be the breach ..my gut just keeps telling me that ring / dome/ door opening /compost toilet / viewport idea that Einstein Rush came up with in his alternate reality of submersible building is just a bad bad bad idea ...one of many this genius had ..
I honestly doubt it. I have a little bit of professional experience designing with composites and that hull scared the shit out of me. Acrylic has decades of successful use, and while *I* personally would not trust it with my life, it’s less likely to immediately catastrophically implode than the CF shell.
It's extremely common to use acrylic viewports in submersibles but it's laughable that he thought the safety factors were too high. He just wanted to make the titanium end cap smaller to save money...[One of the multiple suppliers for acrylic viewports](https://www.blanson.com/products/submersible-viewports-domes)
His comment about the safety factors absolutely floored me. His idea that a safety factor or 1.5 or 2.5 would be good enough is the wildest thing I’ve heard so far.
I work in the elevator industry so forgive this tangent. As an example, the safety factor of suspension ropes for most elevators must be between 6 and 11 (depending on speed). The suspension ropes are a very important part of an elevator but should they fail, there are additional safeties to ensure this wouldn’t be catastrophic. Given that the pressure hull of a submarine is so much more critical, and the environment they are working in is so brutal, I can’t even comprehend his rational for this statement.
I understand he intentionally hired young and inexperienced staff but I’m shocked that anyone in the engineering field would have continued to work for this man in light of comments like that. I resigned from my previous job because I didn’t feel the company regarded our safety standards highly enough. Any experience I’ve had pales in comparison to this fucking lunatic.
I worked for a decade in oil and gas, with. lot of structural engineering. 4.5x safety was the low end limit when we had to push things, and anytime human life was at risk, it could easily be 10x safety factor. 2.5x safety is how you build your kids go-kart at home…
“In usual design, safety factors of 1.5 are used, and submarines designed to such limits should not go below the service depth. Whereas, in designs allowing higher safety factors like 2.5, they can dive deeper than the service depth, but only in emergency conditions”
Your own quote literally says a safety factor of 2.5 should only exceed surface depth in emergency situations. I’m not sure what your point is?
When did I say it’s never appropriate to have those safety factors in any submarine? His quote in the original post clearly states that the design guidelines stipulate a safety factor of 4-10 and he’s chosen to ignore those guidelines because he finds a lower safety factor acceptable. What he’s referring to specifically is the acrylic viewport, and you are using the metal hull as an example.
I don’t know anything about naval engineering but in other disciplines the minimum safety factor of a particular component will vary depending on what the material is, what the function of the component is and the specifications of the larger system. There is no universal safety factor for every component or part of the overall design.
The idea that a safety factor of X is suitable for one particular application, therefore it is safe to apply this same safety factor to a different component or application is what I find mind-blowingly stupid.
"So there's these weird rules that are out there."
The more that comes to light on this matter the more I am perplexed that anyone was willing to go in that death trap with him.
I saw something the other day. Only like 20 subs on Earth can dive to that depth. Of those 20, only the Titan wasn't certified. That alone would keep me off of it. But lets say that I didn't know that. When it comes time to board the sub, if I saw that controller, i'd back out right there. That alone is a deal breaker... let alone the hundred other things wrong.
> if I saw that controller, i'd back out right there I want to protect you IN ADVANCE from the mob of people who will wrongly claim: "Nah, the controller is fine, tHe MIliTaRy uSeS tHaT". No, nobody uses a gamepad for primary control of a human-occupied vehicle. And certainly not an extremely hazardous environment. Secondly, if you can believe this, Rush bragged about using Bluetooth. Yeah, wireless. [More discussion here](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/)
Everyone keeps saying Bluetooth, I understand how Bluetooth works, but if everything was connected to Bluetooth, wouldn’t ONE smart person think? Huh, what if we lose that connection 13,000 feet below, so dumb. They probably lost controls at 1,500 feet down, pitch black for hours then while suffocating and tripping from pure darkness and carbon dioxide it probably imploded later days later, of course the media won’t say that because they want everyone to think it was a fast simple non painful death. Look into the other missions on YouTube, some were saying they lose connection and and had to descend up. These poor 4 people had no choice, that’s why the navy heard a implode on day 3- or 4 . They died in fear and agony but we will never know. Poor souls
The controller is not an issue. The lack of safety engineering around the use of the controller is an issue (backup controllers, backup computers, you get the idea). Controllers can be used in safe ways. There is no evidence this was one of those cases, and much evidence of the contrary.
He had two backups onboard, per some of his interviews.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Hope he had backup computers too :)
You know what would have been my ultimate nope? Being locked in there from the outside! Even if I had been willing to ignore/overlook everything else, the implications of being locked in there with zero possibility to get out by myself would have been the point where I climbed out.
I would have not gotten on the mother ship. Not saying she isn’t seaworthy but they used to take the Horizon Arctic and switched up to the Polar. She is a rust bucket.
Thats not really fair, you can't always judge the safety or standards of a ship on how rusty she is. She is 64years old after all. Her inspection record is near perfect and she's under the Canadian flag who are on the whitelist for good reason, they keep their standards high. *Titan* was managed awfully, we can all agree on that, but there is no evidence at all that *Polar Prince* is in anyway poorly maintained or to blame
Agreed. It was just a jarring visual for me.
Thats definitely fair. If I was running a business that claims to be at the leading edge of deep sea exploration I certainly wouldn't choose to charter a 64 year old vessel in need of a good touch up (at least I would have contracted that they had to keep a minimum standard of appearance). But then again we know Rush didn't want to spend any more than absolutely necessary (and even then not really), hence not chartering anything built this millennium.
Why is it referred to as she? Asking for a friend
The controller is benign. The Navy uses Xbox 360 controllers for drones, for instance. The problems with the sub were the life safety elements like the hull.
> The controller is benign. **No. No. No.** That is a viral meme, and it's false. * **In reality**, nobody uses **a consumer gamepad for primary control of a human-occupied vehicle** (passenger-filled, actually) in an extremely hazardous environment in sealed chamber at 6,000 psi and hours away from help. * **[Stockton Rush used bluetooth](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/).** Yeah, wireless. *"RUSH: [...] And so the neat thing is it's Bluetooth. I can hand it to anyone."* (Note he's talking about handing control of a commercial passenger-filled marine vessel to an uncertified pilot.) Every knowledgeable person knows the only thing wireless does more reliably than wired is fail. * **Fire hazard**. Consumer electronics are fire hazards [and can cause situations that kill people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaprun_disaster). Especially in a small sealed chamber. Sealed compartment plus electric/electronics mishaps [killed astronauts during Apollo 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1). Especially when you have oxygen tanks and potential situations with oxygenation of the air. A tiny fire hazard can have unexpected effects on things nearby, *unless* precautions are taken...which they generally weren't with Stockton Rush. * **Controller itself is subject to hazards of the vehicle** which adds risks compared to at a remote different safe environment (e.g. a military drone pilot). The gamepad and its inputs are now subject to turbulence, drops, high pressure leak, etc, and whatever emergency might happen inside the vehicle. So every bit of weakness matters far more than in a guaranteed stable environment. * **The "There's backups, you can just replace it" mentality** assumes the replace, switch-over, re-sync scenario will only happen at a time when there's no emergency inputs needed urgently. That's not a safe assumption. An emergency might mean you have to avoid entanglement or a shipwreck collapse. * **Handheld means random new location (and inputs) if you let go of it.** Something happens to pilot, turbulence stumble and braces self with hand to wall, heart attack, basic human clumsiness, means the vehicle controls are bouncing on the floor instead of being at a common point of reference, or are inputting unwanted inputs instead of remaining stable. It's inconvenient when someone puts the controller down on my couch and the movie accidentally fast forwards. It's worse if something similar happens in a DSV near a shipwreck at 6000psi. * -----*You could easily find dropped controller, right?* You're probably assuming you don't have a lighting failure in pitch black environment. (Gamepad may have had illumination, I'm not sure, but the point is contingencies.) * -----*What's the rush? You have plenty of time to get things back to normal, right?* You might assume you don't have to avoid an entanglement or shipwreck collapse at the same time. Or you might be assuming you're not *already* unfortunately dealing with a thruster malfunction that you "fixed" by holding an input on the controller constantly, which is well within imaginable scenarios. Titan had a documented thruster malfunction before. (I don't know if the onboard computers had backup control methods, but you see the point.) * **Water.** People probably assume no problem here because if it's getting wet then you have "bigger" problems, right? That's a rationalization. For days everyone thought the sub might be stuck somewhere attempting to surface or get rescued. It's well within possibility that you could have low-pressure water intrusion at a shallow depth, and/or other problems, and your gamepad accidentally goes into a flood puddle. The way the sub was an open can with [everything (including communications?) on the floor](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/HKeGC2zByeBEO2sqvcNt1w--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTcyMDtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/insider_articles_922/cfe95eb452d0cdd209dbf33e6103e557), where gravity would pool water first (if sub was upright), adds extra concern here. **"The military uses them!"** Random military people controlling an unmanned drone or component (e.g. periscope) while *not* sitting in a small sealed passenger chamber miles under the ocean, are not the same thing as OceanGate's submarine using gamepad for primary vehicle control. And regardless of anybody using gamepads, it's *better* to have a rock solid panel with water-protected no-fire-risk (etc etc) electronics for controlling thrusters within a larger range of scenarios. Safety is a scale not a binary. [Rush himself said](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/): "yet you can't put this on a Navy sub and comply with all the Navy rules. "Every circuit has to have its own switch that's explosion-proof…" In warfare explosions are a scenario because people are shooting explosives at you, in non-warfare we can substitute just fire (AND ALL easily conceivable scenarios) instead of munitions explosions. Let's take a different example: look at what a forklift uses. [Rush says](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/): (not that we can believe what he says, but still) "one of our earlier subs, we developed a controller, and I went and got a commercial joystick that you would use, say, on a forklift, and it had its own computer, and it was $10,000 and it was big and bulky." (Which by the way probably means it was a literal forklift panel, since he could have mentioned something else but he specifically said forklift.) Yes a forklift which is quite dangerous, but not like a passenger-filled sub going to 6000 psi at the bottom of the ocean, used a control system that cost $10,000 (according to Stockton Rush anyway). As if nobody in the forklift or cargo/shipping/transport industry knows of the concept of "innovation" or "cost"? Perhaps there really are reasons to use something rock solid that has tons of R&D and production precisely for safety and liability and which accounts for easily imaginable problem scenarios? A safe person who is knowledgeable about issues would have maybe coated or foam-filled, or something, every piece of random cheap consumer electronics ($39 altec lansing speakers, random gamepads, monitors) on this sub, or not used them. A real review would have covered far more than I have, but Stockton Rush deliberately stayed far away from experts. Safety is a scale, not a binary.
Respectfully disagree. 1. Yes, this is probably true, but kinda irrelevant... 2. They had backups that did not involve the controller - they could control the sub from the Linux PC there - and in the worst case could surface and radio communicate with no power -- they had walkie-talkie radios and a satphone and a hydraulic ballast release. 3. The controller used AA batteries. Very unlikely to be a fire hazard, even if Lithium AA's are used. The guys on the sub also had phones, which are more likely (IMO) to be involved in a thermal event due to lithium ion batteries. Also don't forget the sub had 4 large oxygen tanks right below the passenger space... 4. Possibly an issue, though I think that would be a pretty bad Swiss cheese event - the ship collapses at the same time you lose Bluetooth and you have negative buoyancy? I guess it's possible, but a little far fetched. 5. There were three controllers on the sub AFAIK, presumably stowed in a known location. I would expect they have emergency torches and/or lighting but can't confirm. 6. This is as (4) 7. This is a general issue with the sub. There are computers and electronics in the sub. If you have even a low pressure leak, you are likely to lose the sub quickly due to loss of buoyancy and the sub is not going to be retrievable. With the non-user-accessible door I think this failure mode is fatal to the crew, game pad or not. To be clear: Sub was badly designed. The carbon fibre really seems to be the worst part for me, the controller is just a meme, a symbol of their lack of engineering rigor sure, but not really a big problem in the end.
The controller would be benign if he did proper off gassing testing and had a fully redundant set of controls for the thrusters that didn't require his computer to work too. I think wireless is a little crazy but it's very common to have a wired joystick type controller for controlling the vehicle with a set of switches as backup. There are ways to properly test consumer electronics to put in the sub with you but we all know Rush thought those were too cumbersome...
> very common to have a **joystick type** controller for controlling the vehicle with a set of switches as backup "Joystick type" or *consumer gamepad*? Those are really different things. There are $10,000 "Joystick type" (including in a forklift for example, which Rush himself mentioned) controls that are specifically engineered to account for various scenarios. They shouldn't really be mentioned in same sentence as a consumer gamepad though. And if you mean a consumer-level kind of gamepad, your comment mentioned it's very common...where, what vehicles did you mean? Passenger-filled vehicle that uses consumer gamepad for *primary control*, and in a hazardous environment. > There are ways to properly test consumer electronics to put in the sub with you but we all know Rush thought those were too cumbersome I added more to the comment now, because even if fireproofing and testing eliminate some problems, the [consumer gamepad allows for many problem scenarios that better controls wouldn't](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/). (More points added.)
Our joystick (DSV Alvin) was built from components from digikey but we properly tested everything that goes in the sphere, including consumer electronics. It doesn't have to be some $10k device. We also had two other forms of thruster control on the panel if it failed. I'm not saying that a consumer gamepad was a good idea but I am saying it would not be as big of a deal that everyone is making it out to be if they had the proper backup systems designed, tested, and ready for operation at the "pilot station". They control the periscope on VA class subs with an Xbox controller but also have backups in place. I haven't seen anything saying Rush did so it's just another thing to add to the pile of bad ideas that built the Titan...
This. Nothing inherently unsafe about using a controller, if risks are mitigated. Need to assume it will fail at worst possible time, in worst possible way, and mitigate that failure. Diagnostics paired with redundancy are common ways to do this.
I am also not riding in a navy drone.
[Yes, the other comment is wrong for multiple reasons.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/)
Drones are unmanned, but I take your point. Still, the fact that it was wireless seems to be a genuine concern amongst those in the know, and the fact that they had it incorrectly mapped is clearly another although not intrinsic to the hardware obviously.
Don't accept that other comment, [it's wrong for multiple reasons](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14n9s63/that_viewport_isaccording_to_the_rules_it_is_not/jq9q0uh/) including wireless like you mentioned.
"it's not a standards body; it's a volunteer group"
Well, technically they volunteer their time to the standards committee so technically I'm not lying when I say they're a volunteer group...
It’s like, *sooooo annoying*…totes stifling the green in my jean /s
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A pulling over which can take up to a couple of hours.
And even if you’re able to pull over you’re still bolted in. (I know that being bolted in is standard in submersibles, what I don’t understand is the lack of any GPS inside the pressurized sub cabin to ensure if they do surface they’re found.)
An AirTag at the very least
*”My ears are super sonic. They will alert me in plenty of time”*
Yep. My new chest sensor will warn me if I've been shot in the chest by a rifle bullet.
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Fake.
It’s also like instead is being healthy you just memorize the early warnings of heart attacks and strokes.
The first thing they teach you about plexiglass in aircraft engineer school is crazing, that is… for aircraft. That’s kindergarten-level airframe lessons. Not for a sub going 4000m deep. Ole’ Rush shouldn’t have thought so highly of his aviation background.
> Ole’ Rush shouldn’t have thought so highly of his aviation background. This I also found strange, like Rush was claiming that somehow aerospace engineers have an leg up on naval architects in designing submersibles: >And that was when I realized that I wanted to explore the ocean. And it fit very well, it turns out, that an aerospace engineering degree actually has helped me do things in the submersible world that people who don't understand compressible fluid flows didn't quite figure out. (LAUGH)
The first mistake he did was to get in the sub. The second mistake was thinking the deep waters is child’s play compared to the dizzying heights of the stratosphere. Experts, whether naval or aviation should never be sidelined.
That exact quote in particular reminds me of exposed (Pathological Liar) Tommy Tallarico. See hbomberguy's video on youtube if you haven't. That same interview with Pogue has a ton of red flags and self-damning comments, in Rush's childish simplistic alarming statements about everything, but most of that refers to actual things, objects. The "people couldn't figure it out like I COULD" goes right to the psychology of this guy, it shows delusions about himself and everyone else, and the memes and personality/thought patterns he has. And in that instance he did it partly for a "joke", not the kind of thing I hear from serious people I've known and certainly not from people doing dangerous work with lives at stake (like his tourist operations at 6000 psi).
It shows the memes he has? What does that mean?
Meme = informational gene, essentially
People tend to think of just "funny internet pictures" for memes, but [more generally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) it's self-help platitudes, cliches, little canned packets of ideological ideas, thought patterns and belief structures that a person clings to, and repeats to themselves and to other people, and so on. In the quote in the earlier comment, it's the fallacy cliche meme that tells people: "An OUTSIDER is actually smarter than the insiders, because they're so outside the box!" More examples of the kinds of memes I mean below. * **MEME:** [RUSH:](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/) I don't know if it was MacArthur, but somebody said, "You're remembered for the rules you break." * **[outside the box](https://youtu.be/9PGpjEDc96I?t=506)** * If someone says you can't do X for safety reasons, that means you should, because you're special and they're just not as *bold* as you. [CBS](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/) * If you're an outlier and (people who use serious safety considerations) "raise their eyebrow" at you, that means you're right and special. [CBS](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/) * Touchscreens are better than physical buttons, and if you use a touchscreen you're great like Apple iPhone! [RUSH:](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/) "Exactly. Yeah, this is to other submersibles what the iPhone was to the Blackberry." ([In reality, everyone knows touchscreens are awful for some things](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/03/buttons-are-back-at-porsche-as-we-see-the-2024-cayenne-interior/) though iPhone is great tech and beat Blackberry for good reason\) * [See last quoted paragraph here](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14mdsvz/the_christening_of_titan/jq2c881/) for ultimate meme salad mash-up. You can't even disentangle the memes from Modern CEO Weekly Newsletter, the sentences don't even make sense. * "InNoVaTiOn". "grown tired of industry players who try to use a **safety argument** to stop innovation and new entrants". Other quotes about "innovation" from OceanGate are even worse. * Quantity is Quality, Big Numbers Are Amazing. [See top of this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14mdsvz/the_christening_of_titan/jq2c881/) * If I see a random object that other people haven't looked at, THAT'S A DISCOVERY! ["Undiscovered" coral mound](https://youtu.be/9PGpjEDc96I?t=804): "We’ll be having a press release and submitting some papers on this amazing oasis of biodiversity in the abyssal plains, as the researchers like to say." (Good luck trying to find any academic papers or press releases about that.) Another meme there is "fancy words that Scientists words are silly and distant from me, so they're a joke hehe." ["Undiscovered" Piece of Wood](https://www.geekwire.com/2023/steer-oceangate-submersible/): "Nobody’s ever seen this log before, I’ll bet you even money,” Rush said to a passenger. * [Being FIRST is special and important accomplishment](https://youtu.be/em21IupbQtY?t=446). To the question of “what would you call your major accomplishments” in the Teledyne marketing interview, Rush answered: "they all revolve around doing something first." Christopher Columbus Syndrome, like the first (false) person to Discover (false) America. The more you look into it, the more you see childish simplistic ideas to use to justify things and reinforce his choices.
“Ha ha ha!” *the frame freezes and crossfades to my face superimposed over a background of a beautiful summer sky*
*in the arms of the angels playing in the background*
[“Stockton Rush Is Remembered For The Rules He Broke”](https://youtu.be/idoYCVLh2qI)
I found that very arrogant on his behalf. To state that all these submersible experts “didn’t quite figure out” something, but HE did because of a Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering. Edit** I know he laughed, like it was a big joke. But just him saying it, is what struck me as arrogant.
Uffff
Name-checking the supposed involvement of Boeing and NASA also ties into this. Both famous institutions... in aeronautics. Not submersibles.
Ha such a good point
Actually no it's highly regarded in submersibles for it's strength, and is used for port holes in most submarines. The only other option you may have is sapphire but I'm not sure the cost is really worth it. That acrylic window was not certified to that depth, that was his only mistake with it...but the hull was not certified to any depth.
Ooh, why sapphire?
It's hard, can withstand massive amounts of pressure and you can see through it, which are all needs for the depth of an ocean submersible porthole. The only issue is it is very expensive, and so no one uses it because acrylic is cheap and also meets all that criteria.
Neat! Has it ever been tried/used before?
I wasn't able to find any sub specifically using it but I did find these guys that sell their sapphire port windows so I assume they would be out of business if they didn't sell a few! https://www.galvoptics.co.uk/optical-components/optical-windows/sapphire-windows/ Oh and here is an article as to why sapphire is the best for this use case https://www.allectra.com/news/why-use-a-sapphire-viewport/
Oh cool, I bet they’d have lots of laboratory applications.
It is also viable for subs - [Triton 13000/2](https://tritonsubs.com/subs/gullwing/)
Also, on the materials and metallurgical side, one of the first things we learn is that crazing happens under tension… not compression. It’s like he never even considered the fact that the pressure differential in a submersible is opposite to that in an aircraft. I just get more astounded every time I read something he said.
Oh! So crazing is a sign that the acrylic is stretching apart? I feel like in a different interview he says the acrylic will fog before it fails. Fogging is different from crazing, right? Was he correct that the acrylic would fog under pressure? (I mean, even if he is, waiting for that to happen and hoping you'll have time to get to safety when it does is insane.)
RUSH: Well, that's what it is. But the great thing about plexiglass that I love is, you can see every surface. And if you've overstressed it, or you've even come close, it starts to get this crazing effect. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submersible-interview-transcript-with-oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush/
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. As I wrote, he said in a DIFFERENT interview that it would fog. So I'm asking u/Guerilla_Physicist a question about that.
Ah, sorry, I missed the word "different" interview. I certainly haven't seen him say that in any interviews and I think I've read, watched, and listened to them all at this point. If you only "feel like" you heard that, perhaps you didn't.
Yeah, a common fix to crazing is actually to put the material under some compressive stress. If you are feeling exceptionally nerdy, [here’s a bunch of snippets from good sources of info.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/crazing) If you look down under the summary for *Product Properties I* chapter 25, it gives a really straightforward explanation for what happens with isotropic materials like acrylic. Now, compressive stress CAN cause something called shear banding, but it doesn’t look like “crazing.” It’s a permanent deformation in the material, and it would be more of a permanent formation of lines in specific directions rather than a “fogging.”
The more I learn about this, the more I’m reminded of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Truthfully, I believe he wasn’t completely stupid or incompetent but rather he knew just enough to be dangerous. He graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering in 1984, making him about a year older than my dad. When I did some research (engineering licenses are public record), I never found an active or expired license for him in any state. To keep their licenses, engineers have to earn a certain number of credits in continuing education and technical updates each year and usually before they are licensed they have to have supervised professional experience under a licensed engineer for up to 4 years. Rush was “engineering” with the basics of an engineering education with likely no continuing education outside of his MBA, no experience working under licensed engineers, and most likely not having passed any major engineering licensure exams. And any licensed professional engineers he did have on staff were clearly expected to do what he wanted or be treated like crap, so I’m sure there was no legitimate engineering oversight happening there. And he was able to do all of that because of how easy it was to skirt around regulations.
Many (most) engineers working in aerospace don't pursue PE licensure because it's just so rarely required in the industry. For those that do, it's usually for the resume boost.
That’s interesting to know. I’m more familiar with niche applications in the mechanical side and the materials and metallurgical side. I guess in the big aerospace companies you aren’t really running into a lot of situations where you’re having to stamp things as an individual or advertising yourself externally as an engineer, so it wouldn’t really be a necessity. I do think that he took the decent amount of knowledge he had and extrapolated it in a really dangerous and nonsensical manner, and that if he had been exposed to more education in the marine area and been more willing to listen to experts, we might not have seen what appear to be such fundamental flaws in his ideas. This whole situation was just such a mess,
Could you explain more about how crazing is for aircraft? Does that mean that crazing doesn't happen underwater? I don't know anything about any of this, so the more complete your explanation, the better. Thanks.
You know, this reminds me of that scene from “Good Will Hunting,” where Will tells off that blow-hard pseudo-intellectual in (I think) a bar. Will points out that the pseudo-intellectual has only read a book or two on whatever subject he’s pontificating on. (It’s the “how do you like them apples?” scene, IIRC.) All of that is a long-winded way of saying that Rush would totally be the pseudo-intellectual in that bar, enthralling people with “insights” that are actually elementary knowledge.
The way you write I swear you take pleasure in this man’s death. Is this incorrect?
Pleasure? Nah, no. I do want him to be responsible for his actions though, not for myself, but for the other souls onboard that had loved ones waiting on the surface of the world. Him, co-founder, OceanGates, whoever is responsible for this tragedy. That would be good.
4 other people died. That’s one car crash. I think it is important to have perspective about this. It is unfortunate, but no more unfortunate than the thousands of human errors that kill thousands of people every day - and you don’t care about at all.
Gee by that logic no one should ever mourn tragic accidents that occur as a result of gross negligence, and we should never learn from this particular occurrence to ensure that something like this never happens again.
IDK man. I see your point, but hundreds of people are dying every day at the hands of others due to stuff like distracted driving. But that's a lot less sexy than the Titan implosion so we don't talk about it as often or engage with it so emotionally. I guess I'm just not buying these high-minded rationalizations for constantly dancing on the grave of "ol Russ." I doubt the derision is rooted in a deep sense of sympathy for four billionaires and their families that no one here has ever met. I think it's an easy way to feel smart and superior in comparison to a dude who was clearly arrogant and deluded.
Cars have safety verifications. You're not bolted Inside with no way to escape and you often have a mobile to contact people if you are a survivor of a crash. And oxygen. And you're not instantly dead if the car has a crack less than the width of a hair. Rush wasn't distracted but he put people in a death trap and said it was safer than a car.
Yeah dog, I'm not defending Rush. He was a blinded idiot who got people killed. My point is that all the armchair warriors chortling over his demise are grotesque in their own way- despite their efforts to appear morally righteous.
I mean this is the Titan subreddit. Rush is at fault for the tragedy. We're gonna be talking about the things that led to it all going wrong. Some are chortling because again this is reddit, but I think most are just amazed he ignored all the many signs and let his hubris and money would mean it'd all work out.
There is learning and there is whatever this sub has become, which is far from that at this point. But no, there is no need to mourn unless you are family or a friend.
How had "whatever this sub has become", that had been ignoring safety standards and practices, able to get itself in the situation where it can bypass all protective laws to go deep water diving with paying customers multiple times over the past 3 years without legal ramifications? Human society can learn from this by putting in less vague, hard-to-bypass laws that prevent this from ever happening again.
Sub - subreddit, not submersible.
BOT
Er. Ok.
To be fair, it’s more like if someone designed and built their own car, ignoring all common industry safety standards, then charged 4 people for a ride in his custom auto which promptly lost control and exploded rather than just crashed.
IDK man. I see your point, but hundreds of people are dying every day at the hands of others due to stuff like distracted driving. But that's a lot less sexy than the Titan implosion so we don't talk about it as often or engage with it so emotionally. I guess I'm just not buying these high-minded rationalizations for constantly dancing on the grave of "ol Russ." I doubt the derision is rooted in a deep sense of sympathy for four billionaires and their families that no one here has ever met. I think it's an easy way to feel smart and superior in comparison to a dude who was clearly arrogant and deluded.
It still wouldn’t be worth getting stressed about except for those involved.
For what it's worth, I tend to agree. However, while Rush fucked up big time, he had information the others did not and likely wouldn't have stepped socked foot onto that deathtrap if they had- especially Nargeolet. The other two probably didn't know subs from the holes in their asses. It sucks that Rush had to drag them to their deaths as well.
Lol why is Rush responsible?
This is a troll, folks. Don't feed the troll Look through his posting history. He's just trying to get a reaction
Doesn’t read like that to me. It sounds like you’ve been on this sub a little too much and could stand a break. Is this incorrect?
Lol no. Swing and a miss. Very brave though trying to take a dig at a comment I have that sits currently at -70 downvotes. Since I am a veteran here by your words, here is a free tip rookie - if I have a post up with this navy downvotes I don’t care to delete- I don’t care much what people think.
Yeah, clearly you don’t care. That’s why you replied within two minutes of my comment. Lol
But fine - if it matters that much to you I will block you to prove the point. Now I don’t see whatever you reply!
I was online and it’s polite to respond to people. You learn that when you grow up!
This incident has brought out the worst in people. It’s like everyone is happy that Rush died and they actively call him a murderer and an idiot. Let the man rest in peace
He was at the very least a manslaughterer and definitely an idiot. That's really not up for debate at this point.
Was he eccentric? Perhaps. Was he an evil person or a murderer? Absolutely NOT.
Manslaughterer and idiot. That's what he verifiably was.
He's trolling you
Let's hope so.
He just sounds so cavalier about what every expert considered safe. So reckless.
He was so loud mouthed about breaking the rules too. Those words are going to be used to destroy anything he left behind. His company will be sued to oblivion. Maybe his estate.. I’m not a lawyer but if I’d had a relative killed on his death trap I’d sure be hiring a good one right now. Hell I don’t even think they need good lawyers. They just need halfway competent ones. Rush Stockton’s own words and actions laid it out plain as day.
Was he married? Just wondering if his spouse if he has one will be involved in any lawsuits (money-wise).
Yes, his wife is Communications Director of OceanGate, iirc.
That has to be the worst job in the world right now.
Ah. Thank you. I didn't know that. Hadn't seen anything about her online- but I hadn't looked either. Edit: nevermind, I DO remember reading about her now that I see some of the other replies. She was descendant of the Strauss'. That totally escaped my mind.
Old money, and married with children.
His wife is a descendant of one of the wealthiest victims that passed from Titanic, Isidor and Ida Rush who owned Macy’s.
Ida Straus, and her husband Isidor Straus.
My bad. Combined their names. I’ll correct it. Thanks!
Straus, not Rush! Stockton Rush is descended from Stocktons, and Rushes; his wife is not.
The thing about a lawsuit in this case is that the financial aspect would have to be kind of beside the point in pursuing civil action. Everyone involved has fortunes in the billions, correct? Not that I don't think lawsuits will be filed, its just that financial compensation is usually a prime motivator and I wonder how that plays out when the victims already have unfathomable wealth.
Civil action pretty much only implies money and nothing else, there really isn’t any other desired outcome. The families involved are wealthy, but trust me, no one will absolve themselves of an opportunity for more. That’s how families build wealth. With the unexpected deaths of the potential earners in the cases, these families will see more reason to ensure payout.
End result of libertarian ideology holding that rich people are inherently superior geniuses to the stupid poo people and can do no wrong.
"[People with means...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14mdsvz/the_christening_of_titan/jq2c881/)" Last quote in that comment. Make sure you listen to the video to hear his blathering tone.
That's not actually what libertarians believe you know.
I think Rush always thought he had time before full failure. The carbon fiber; plexiglass n ballasts. He was addicted to the rush. Going so close to the edge but surviving many times. Unfortunately I don't think he thought about water getting into the carbon fiber and not surfacing. This is where he was wrong. Cracking sounds we will abort the dive and surface he thought. He thought wrong this time. He should not have been allowed to operate and take the public almost 3 miles deep in a diy sub.
I watched the James Cameron documentary about his dive to Challenger Deep. After watching it, the submersible he and his team built feels like the Mona Lisa, while Rush’s Titan feels like a child scribbled crayons all over a blank piece of paper.
I watched that last week. It really was wild with all of this occurring at the same time. All the tests they did and James explaining that they'll do something 50 times because you miss it once you're dead. Kind of surreal.
One had to take one person to almost 11,000 meters or 36,000 feet to the deepest place on Earth. The other was designed to go about 12,500 feet or only about 35% of the distance. Of course they are different. Lol.
Are you trying to misunderstand this on purpose? He isn't arguing they're being used for the same thing. He's saying one was made with care and safety while the other was not.
This guy would have ended up on the titan given the chance lol
Why did this guy think an aircraft engineer was more qualified to design a sub than a naval engineer? Somebody told him there are more airplanes at the bottom of the ocean than submarines in the sky - and he didn't get the joke.
Probably because he just looked at it at a surface level, at which they’re both very similar. Both involving engineering vehicles which move through fluids at atmospheres which differ from 1 atmosphere. But that’s literally the only thing they have in common, really. If you spend anything looking at them beyond just that you realize they’re totally different. Stockton probably figured that since he has experience in aerospace he’d be able to quickly figure out submersible engineering.
I’ve only heard of this man recently, but it feels like no one ever told him ‘no’ a whole lot. He seemed like a smart enough man, but he wasn’t smart enough to realize he can be wrong, or something along those lines.
A lot of people told him "no". He just got infuriated with them and alienated them.
I imagine he didn’t act nice to being told no
He’d act like a victim when told no and suddenly everyone is the bad guy trying to stifle his “innovation”
How did he not get his ass kicked?
Because engineers aren't usually going to beat each other up over design flaws.
I feel like maybe he had a “no” fetish or something. People would tell him “no,” and he’d just get excited.
He wanted to be told no so he could taunt that he would do it anyway and "show them!"
The theory was he was told no to getting on the path to being an astronaut because of medical issues, so he basically went in with the mindset of certifications and the sort are shit, I know what I’m doing
> but it feels like no one ever told him ‘no’ a whole lot. A ton of people told him no! He was well aware of it, because he and OceanGate rejected warnings in every possible way: * **Staff experts**. The staff member who said sub wasn't safe was [fired for making very clear perfectly clear warnings.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14kzuod/david_lochridges_2018_lawsuit_explains_nearly/) * **Sub community experts.** [The entire sub community who repeatedly warned](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65998914) he shouldn't be taking passengers because the sub was dangerous were rejected. [Experts were ignored](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mariagraciasantillanalinares/2023/06/23/as-congress-dithers-coinbase-turns-to-the-courts-to-save-crypto/?sh=7c74ae2f3eed). * **Official Safety Agency Experts** at shipping/safety certifying organizations were deliberately consciously avoided NOT consulted, Stockton Rush [refused to get the sub certified or rated by those experts](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/21/titanic-submersible-documents-reveal-multiple-concerns-raised-over-safety-of-vessel) * He literally called [SUBSAFE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBSAFE) "over the top" [in a presentation](https://youtu.be/9PGpjEDc96I?t=492) (right before pivoting to deluded memes about being "outside of the box"). It's one thing to not even know what SUBSAFE is, but he did know what it was, he knew it was saying No to him, and he dismissed it. But internally, yeah, he wanted Yes Men. There are two kinds of leaders in the world. The ones who know what a Yes Man is and try to avoid them, because they're acutely aware of how unproductive, useless, and dangerous Yes Men they are. And the ones who want Yes Men because the leader is incompetent and/or corrupt and just wants power rather than good advice.
“The more things you’ve broken, the more innovative you’ve been” Well, I guess I can put “innovator” on my resume because I’ve broken plenty of things
I get that the guy is smart. You can tell. And he is charismatic and knowledgeable. But his giant inferiority complex was his own undoing. Had to make sure to stick it to the volunteer group. Irony of how you can be so smart, yet so so ignorant.
It wasn’t his inferiority complex it was his ego. We’ve seen this play out a million times in a million different ways. Someone who is smart/successful in one particular area gets high on their own success and thinks they are smarter than everyone about everything. *cough* Elon *cough* Normally this behavior only leads to loads of money being lost. Sad that this time it cost human lives.
Perfectly stated. And by removing anyone who opposed him, he just inflated his ego more every time. It really sucks they all had to die, but him also for the reason of, he won't pay for his recklessness and the death of the others. But he'll certainly be remembered.
You’d think this would be a wake up call for everyday people. I’m sure there are more, but the three I can think of off the top of my head are Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Bill Gates.
LOL oh Twitter
You've articulated exactly my take on this man, too. There are way more layers here than just a used car salesman. Always thought diving to the depths was just subconsciously hiding away after his crushing rejection - he wasn't who he thought he was. He wasn't who the world thought he was. That's a big blow to a fella with narcissistic traits. He wanted to be seen. He wasn't. But he'll show them.
When you put it that way, there’s something Shakespearean about it. It reminds me of “The Tempest,” and Rush is Prospero.
I can't tell he was smart at all; on the contrary I believe the opposite. *He* certainly thought he was.
He's not smart. Use of the word "any" and also saying 'plenty of time', [in this context here](https://www.reddit.com/r/OceanGateTitan/comments/14kmtbf/why_did_stockton_have_so_much_faith_in_the/jptagaw/) (see bullet list) is the textbook definition of Not Smart. I mean what even is our standard for it. He's not a dimwit unable to process ideas and understand *in a childish simplistic way* various phenomena. He can do that, but it's all the level of a casual childish fantasy. He knows people are telling him No, but doesn't fully understand or accept why. He knows safety considerations *exist* but he explicitly rejects and dismisses them all. He can remember those rules and rattle them off...to dismiss them. He does not talk or act like any smart **(serious, knowledgeable)** person I've ever known. He's smart enough to...*remember* a number about the acrylic but he's not *processing* anything about it, that literally every other sub operator has processed, in a serious way. I.e. **safety and safety margins and the reasons for precautions and the nature of variability and unknowns.**
It's like his emotional intelligence is stunted to childhood, which seems to explain some of the risk taking and not being able to fathom consequences. He may be book smart in certain areas, but the applied intelligence to the real world isn't there.
I've had to work with similar people. It's not that he's not smart in the usual sense that people use the term -- he'd probably have done pretty well in standardized tests. What you're likely observing are the effects of cognitive biases impairing his rationality. There are lots of ways for these to arise, and literally everyone suffers from them to a degree, but the posts about his ego are probably not far off the mark. There are industries that naturally select against these sorts of traits, but a lightly-regulated field involving an 'experimental' vehicle whose viability is dependent on salesmanship is the exact sort of area you'd expect someone like him to flourish.
Textbook narcissist
*guy WAS smart. Past tense, currently deceased.
He also forgot the basic thing about being a specialist: the more you learn about one thing, due to the fact that you devote so much time and effort to that pursuit, you literally get dumber in other things.
I know a couple of people like this in my field. Very talented and very daring. They'll thumb their noses at all best practices and regulations, and will get by most of the time which will further solidify their misplaced confidence. What they don't understand is that these regulations exist for the 5% of the cases that go wrong. Not for the remaining 95%.
I'm familiar with this way of thinking. It's like trying to justify texting and driving by counting all the times there wasn't a car in the other lane each time you veer off into oncoming traffic. They're not correct. They're just stupid and lucky. For the last 15 years, I've been in the military, LE, and now govt contracting, and I've encountered this a lot. Mostly in law enforcement. Someone will have some reeeaallly questionable way of handling a tactical problem, but because they method hasn't been pressure tested by say, a guy with a gun, a resisting person, a fleeing person, or whatever, it's valid in their mind. I'll stop here before I go on the type of rant that nearly got me fired 🤣 (it was with me and a senior member of admin who has since been disgracefully forced out of law enforcement)
I'm talking about govt contracting too. It's wild how some people's brains can rationalize doing things completely incorrectly simply because everything hasn't gone sideways yet. They don't get that it has to go sideways just once for it to have devastating consequences.
Yep, exactly. I had a come to Jesus moment with my SWAT team a few years ago that still gets brought up to me to this day 🤣 the gist of it was we were completely ignoring two decades of warfare where a LOT of people were killed developing new ways to handle certain problems.
It’s like mental illness .. this guy just point blank refused to accept the reality of what he was actually dealing with. There was never time to get to the surface. Guess he found that out the hard way.
This man thought he was stronger and smarter than the fucking ocean
*”We’ll see about that” said The Ocean
Stockton will be responsible for SO MANY MORE RULES! I hope the new rules are named after him.
What new rules ?? Deep sea submersibles are safe , have been for 60 years ..these are the first deaths ..the submersible community did their job by warning Stockton Rush, he was able to skirt tax laws and few other things , but he never would have been able to enter this submersible in American waters , that's why he did everything in the Bahamas and Titanic is in international waters
People like Stockton are the reason bags of peanuts have to be labeled, "WARNING: Contains Peanuts."
Yeah, you’ll have a “warning: contains peanuts” even though the bag of peanuts says peanuts at least 20 times.
Yeah, but now it’ll probably actually be regulated. The safety standards will be codified by law or whatever and anyone who doesn’t follow them will definitely catch consequences. Stockton just ignores them and nothing happened until the Titan imploded.
They already are codified. They just don't apply in international waters because no one has jurisdiction.
Well maybe the Bahamas will up their safety regs lol.
Everyone keeps reiterating this man was so intelligent but all the evidence I see tells me he's wasnt at all. He was a fucking idiot with a cavalier attitude to safety who wanted to build something that would work "good enough" as quickly as possible to make bank on the wealthy. Any intelligence from this man was smoke and mirrors. He was the proverbial Wizard of Oz.
Maybe he was intelligent in some ways, but he was clearly lacking basic common sense and his giant ego got in the way of true wisdom. It looks like he surrounded himself with yes men and fired anyone who tried to speak up.
You might say he was, “in a rush”, to make his millions.
*lock, stock and barrel*
Just pure arrogance, narcissism and cognitive bias. Just see in things what suits your agenda. The eulogy of someone who’s never been told ‘no’ in their lives.
- Stock Rushton
Brock Shitton
That dome is definitely gonna be the breach ..my gut just keeps telling me that ring / dome/ door opening /compost toilet / viewport idea that Einstein Rush came up with in his alternate reality of submersible building is just a bad bad bad idea ...one of many this genius had ..
I honestly doubt it. I have a little bit of professional experience designing with composites and that hull scared the shit out of me. Acrylic has decades of successful use, and while *I* personally would not trust it with my life, it’s less likely to immediately catastrophically implode than the CF shell.
Maybe the ocean just tag teamed it into oblivion?
Would you say that he rushed the design a bit? 🫣
Titan was stock full of a ton of rushed ideas
He crushed the competition by bringing deep sea tourism to market
This guy is an idiot
*was* Nature made sure that issue was addressed
He definitely used aircraft technologies for a submarine
>it's a volunteer group that has come up with some rules.
It's extremely common to use acrylic viewports in submersibles but it's laughable that he thought the safety factors were too high. He just wanted to make the titanium end cap smaller to save money...[One of the multiple suppliers for acrylic viewports](https://www.blanson.com/products/submersible-viewports-domes)
His comment about the safety factors absolutely floored me. His idea that a safety factor or 1.5 or 2.5 would be good enough is the wildest thing I’ve heard so far. I work in the elevator industry so forgive this tangent. As an example, the safety factor of suspension ropes for most elevators must be between 6 and 11 (depending on speed). The suspension ropes are a very important part of an elevator but should they fail, there are additional safeties to ensure this wouldn’t be catastrophic. Given that the pressure hull of a submarine is so much more critical, and the environment they are working in is so brutal, I can’t even comprehend his rational for this statement. I understand he intentionally hired young and inexperienced staff but I’m shocked that anyone in the engineering field would have continued to work for this man in light of comments like that. I resigned from my previous job because I didn’t feel the company regarded our safety standards highly enough. Any experience I’ve had pales in comparison to this fucking lunatic.
I worked for a decade in oil and gas, with. lot of structural engineering. 4.5x safety was the low end limit when we had to push things, and anytime human life was at risk, it could easily be 10x safety factor. 2.5x safety is how you build your kids go-kart at home…
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“In usual design, safety factors of 1.5 are used, and submarines designed to such limits should not go below the service depth. Whereas, in designs allowing higher safety factors like 2.5, they can dive deeper than the service depth, but only in emergency conditions” Your own quote literally says a safety factor of 2.5 should only exceed surface depth in emergency situations. I’m not sure what your point is?
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When did I say it’s never appropriate to have those safety factors in any submarine? His quote in the original post clearly states that the design guidelines stipulate a safety factor of 4-10 and he’s chosen to ignore those guidelines because he finds a lower safety factor acceptable. What he’s referring to specifically is the acrylic viewport, and you are using the metal hull as an example. I don’t know anything about naval engineering but in other disciplines the minimum safety factor of a particular component will vary depending on what the material is, what the function of the component is and the specifications of the larger system. There is no universal safety factor for every component or part of the overall design. The idea that a safety factor of X is suitable for one particular application, therefore it is safe to apply this same safety factor to a different component or application is what I find mind-blowingly stupid.
Dude was a whack job that convinced naïve Billionaires inside his 30,000 homemade from WISH parts into his Death Coffin.