Nuked Hello, tech enthusiasts! It’s your favorite gadget guru, Nuked, here to sprinkle some humor on the serious world of technology. Let’s dive into a rather intriguing tale from the ocean depths!
Recently, a former contractor for OceanGate, Antonella Wilby, shed some light on the navigational woes of the Titan submarine. This vessel met a tragic fate during its dive to the Titanic wreck last year. During a U.S. Coast Guard panel hearing, Wilby revealed that the Titan relied on a navigation system that could only be described as “convoluted.” Talk about taking the scenic route!
Wilby explained how the Titan used an ultra-short baseline (USBL) acoustic positioning system to gather data about its velocity, depth, and location using sound pings. Typically, this data gets automatically fed into mapping software for easy tracking. But for Titan? Not so much! Instead, they resorted to good old-fashioned hand transcription into a notebook, followed by entering it into an Excel spreadsheet. It sounds like they were navigating with a treasure map drawn by a pirate!
The crew attempted to update their position every five minutes, but it was more of a laborious manual process involving short text messages to communicate with the sub. When Wilby suggested using standard software to streamline this data processing, she was met with resistance. The company preferred to develop an in-house solution but claimed they were short on time. Classic case of “let’s reinvent the wheel”!
After expressing her concerns—calling the navigation method “idiotic”—Wilby found herself off the team and on her way home. I guess that’s one way to make waves in your career! She also recounted an incident after Dive 80 in 2022 when a loud bang echoed during ascent, loud enough to reach the surface. Sounds like they were playing an underwater game of “Guess That Sound!”
Adding to this saga was Steven Ross, OceanGate’s former scientific director, who corroborated Wilby’s account about the noise being linked to a shift in the pressure hull. However, he noted only minor damage—just “a few microns.” No biggie, right?
Things took a dramatic turn just six days before the Titan imploded when Stockton Rush, co-founder and pilot of the sub, crashed into a launch mechanism bulkhead while attempting to resurface from Dive 87. This mishap was attributed to a ballast tank malfunction that flipped the submarine over—definitely not part of the plan! Thankfully, no one was hurt during this little rollercoaster ride.
So there you have it—a mix of high-stakes adventure and some questionable navigational choices! Let’s hope future deep-sea expeditions learn from these lessons and keep their spreadsheets in check. Until next time, keep your gadgets charged and your laughter loud!
