Watched: 06/23/2023
Format: YouTube
Viewing: First
Director(s): John Bruno, Ray Quint, Andrew Wight
Like everyone else, I spent last week keeping up
with the story of the Titan, the submersible that was designed by a California firm who seemed to play pretty fast and loose with fairly common knowledge about the ways in which one usually plans and develops a vehicle intended for use 3800 meters below the ocean's surface. As details about the Titan came out, as well as photos, my eyebrows were raised as I saw how the vehicle worked and how it looked.
Look, I'm no engineer, but you couldn't have gotten me in that thing for love or money. I'm modestly aware of how submarines look, the need for redundancy and failsafe systems that are as robust as possible when one is not going to be in a position to be rescued should something go wrong. And while I agree that Playstation controllers are a marvel, I also don't want to lose connectivity to my controller whilst being pulled by ocean currents. And, really, those game paddles were seen as a sign of the clear hubris suggested by the ship's design and thumbing of the nose at well-established standards of engineering, and, in fact, physics, that I think some of us were responding to. It was less a lack of respect for other engineers and more of a lack of respect for the danger.*
