Titanic tourist sub missing

[Steve]

I read the whole article. Everyone who posts in this thread should.

This is the paragraph that stood out to me:


Only a ******* idiot would think that an accountant should be piloting this piece of junk! And paying fast-food wages to engineers is a great way to ensure you get ****** engineering!



And there's a rule that you don't build cars out of tinsel, or the cages at a zoo out of balsa wood. That would be innovative as hell, right?

Stockton Rush was a complete ******* idiot who got innocent people killed. I hope that at least their families can sue the **** out of his estate.

There is no such thing as an engineer in their late teens or early 20's. 5 years of university and 5 years of on the job training puts any newly registered professional engineer in their late 20's. Stockton Rush was scary incompetent.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Only a ******* idiot would think that an accountant should be piloting this piece of junk! And paying fast-food wages to engineers is a great way to ensure you get ****** engineering!

That seems in line with his reported reasoning for wanting a PlayStation controller, which was so he could quickly train almost anyone to use it, rather than having someone with deep submersible expertise at the controls.

 

[jimbob]

I read the whole article. Everyone who posts in this thread should.

This is the paragraph that stood out to me:



Only a ******* idiot would think that an accountant should be piloting this piece of junk! And paying fast-food wages to engineers is a great way to ensure you get ****** engineering!



And there's a rule that you don't build cars out of tinsel, or the cages at a zoo out of balsa wood. That would be innovative as hell, right?

Stockton Rush was a complete ******* idiot who got innocent people killed. I hope that at least their families can sue the **** out of his estate.

Spot on.

And the observation about Atlas Shrugged I saw (someone else?) post upthread, certainly seems accurate

 

[The Man]

That seems in line with his reported reasoning for wanting a PlayStation controller, which was so he could quickly train almost anyone to use it, rather than having someone with deep submersible expertise at the controls.

That's it, he accidently hit the key combination for the Crash Bandicoot BODY SLAM power move!!!

 

[Foster Zygote]

From The New Yorker piece:

A few weeks later, McDevitt contacted OceanGate, noting that he was looking into Lochridge’s firing as a whistle-blower-protection matter. OceanGate’s lawyer Thomas Gilman soon issued Lochridge a court summons: he had ten days to withdraw his osha claim and pay OceanGate almost ten thousand dollars in legal expenses. Otherwise, Gilman wrote, OceanGate would sue him, take measures to destroy his professional reputation, and accuse him of immigration fraud. Gilman also reported to osha that Lochridge had orchestrated his own firing because he “wanted to leave his job and maintain his ability to collect unemployment benefits.” (McDevitt, of osha, notified the Coast Guard of Lochridge’s complaint. There is no evidence that the Coast Guard ever followed up.)

That Rush used his lawyers to harass and silence Lochridge for attempting to raise safety concerns with government authorities after being fired for raising them with his employers is such a typical rich ******* tactic. The other four people on that piece of **** he built are a tragic loss, but Stockton Rush ******* earned what happened to him.

 

[Foster Zygote]

There is no such thing as an engineer in their late teens or early 20's. 5 years of university and 5 years of on the job training puts any newly registered professional engineer in their late 20's. Stockton Rush was scary incompetent.

This might explain it:

Meanwhile, soon after Lochridge’s departure, a college newspaper quoted a recent graduate as saying that he and his classmates had started working on the Titan’s electrical systems as interns, while they were still in school. “The whole electrical system,” he said. “That was our design, we implemented it, and it works.”

 

[Foster Zygote]

That's it, he accidently hit the key combination for the Crash Bandicoot BODY SLAM power move!!!

Seems likely.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

There is no such thing as an engineer in their late teens or early 20's. 5 years of university and 5 years of on the job training puts any newly registered professional engineer in their late 20's. Stockton Rush was scary incompetent.

Particularly when your Director of Engineering does not have an engineering degree in his resume.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

It immediately occurred to me to wonder if Stockton Rush had been an Ayn Rand fan, so I did a quick search for anything about him mentioning her. There don't seem to be any recorded references to her by him, but I found I wasn't the first person to see the similarity and wonder the same thing. Someone even pointed out that 'Stockton Rush' sounds like the name of a character you'd see in a Rand novel.

No, Rush was simply a real life example of the type that Ayn Rand was writing about. There are quite a few of them out there (I once worked for a guy like that - luckily he only made drones and didn't have enough money to do real damage).

 

[smartcooky]

Only a ******* idiot would think that an accountant should be piloting this piece of junk! And paying fast-food wages to engineers is a great way to ensure you get ****** engineering!

Stockton Rush was a complete ******* idiot who got innocent people killed. I hope that at least their families can sue the **** out of his estate.

Yup... quoted for truth!!!

 

[smartcooky]

There is no such thing as an engineer in their late teens or early 20's. 5 years of university and 5 years of on the job training puts any newly registered professional engineer in their late 20's. Stockton Rush was scary incompetent.

Absolutely 100% and accurate

I joined the Air Force in 1973 at 17½. After two, one-year long formal courses of training (Junior Trade and Senior Trade), five years of OJT in various maintenance bays and on flight operations, and four years at Varsity, I earned my degree and the right to call myself an engineer in 1984 - on my 29th birthday.


Most engineers in my general area of expertise will have similar timelines.

 

[Puppycow]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-re...submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen

The above was what got Lockridge fired. The article is a bit long but maybe worth the read.

Quite. I'd like to quote one more paragraph:

“If you’re not breaking things, you’re not innovating,” Rush said, at the GeekWire Summit last fall. “If you’re operating within a known environment, as most submersible manufacturers do—they don’t break things. To me, the more stuff you’ve broken, the more innovative you’ve been.”

What a colossal douchebag. Well he certainly broke things.

 

[jeremyp]

Actually, I agree. I would also think the results of any realistic tests would show that monitoring would be inadequate. I expect that all this was more like, "If you won't like the answer, don't ask". Problem is, the answer tends to pop up sooner or later, anyway.

Hans

Aha. This is exactly what I've been trying to express - inadequately - for the last few comments.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I read the whole article. Everyone who posts in this thread should.

This is the paragraph that stood out to me:



Only a ******* idiot would think that an accountant should be piloting this piece of junk! And paying fast-food wages to engineers is a great way to ensure you get ****** engineering!



And there's a rule that you don't build cars out of tinsel, or the cages at a zoo out of balsa wood. That would be innovative as hell, right?

Stockton Rush was a complete ******* idiot who got innocent people killed. I hope that at least their families can sue the **** out of his estate.

Actually, or unfortunately, I don't think he was an idiot as such. What he was was someone who thought he was smarter than everybody else, and as such persons often do, he surrounded himself with people who were less competent than himself, thus justifying his viewpoint. You can get through life with this approach in some careers, but if you do something dangerous, like deep sea exploration (or being president ) it tends to end in disaster.

Hans

 

[jeremyp]

From The New Yorker piece:


That Rush used his lawyers to harass and silence Lochridge for attempting to raise safety concerns with government authorities after being fired for raising them with his employers is such a typical rich ******* tactic. The other four people on that piece of **** he built are a tragic loss, but Stockton Rush ******* earned what happened to him.

After reading the New Yorker article, I do not agree.

Rush deserved lengthy law suits designed to extract every last penny of his wealth. He deserved a prison sentence for reckless negligence at the least, if not homicide. Stockton Rush deserved to see the consequences of his hubris and pay for them. Instead, he just ceased to exist while doing something he loved. About the only good thing you can say about the outcome is that, if he hadn't been on the sub, somebody else would have died needlessly.

 

[Samson]

After reading the New Yorker article, I do not agree.

Rush deserved lengthy law suits designed to extract every last penny of his wealth. He deserved a prison sentence for reckless negligence at the least, if not homicide. Stockton Rush deserved to see the consequences of his hubris and pay for them. Instead, he just ceased to exist while doing something he loved. About the only good thing you can say about the outcome is that, if he hadn't been on the sub, somebody else would have died needlessly.

I always am intrigued by the blame game.
What happened to caveat emptor?
Even the 17 year old could read the document that said you might die.
Aviation is safe, and we hardly listen to in flight advice. But there is no reason to mourn people who expire in the ridiculously hazardous enterprise. It got safe and that is actually a bad thing.
For dear planet.

 

[smartcooky]

Quite. I'd like to quote one more paragraph:

“If you’re not breaking things, you’re not innovating,” Rush said, at the GeekWire Summit last fall. “If you’re operating within a known environment, as most submersible manufacturers do—they don’t break things. To me, the more stuff you’ve broken, the more innovative you’ve been.”

What a colossal douchebag. Well he certainly broke things.

Well, it's not a bad philosophy per se, so long as its executed correctly and safely.

Elon Musk used the same philosophy at SpaceX - its why they now land Falcon 9 first stage boosters on land and on autonomous drone ships when many high profile rocket scientists called it a pipe dream that was doomed to failure; its why the F9 launch cadence is faster than any otheer rocket in the world; its why F9 is the lowest cost launch-to-orbit rocket in the world, its why F9 has the highest launch-to-orbit success rate of any other rocket - 99.12% - the last three being the main reasons why SpaceX are now the world's premier launch provider. They did all this without putting any lives at risk. The Falcon 9 program took 10 years and 84 launches before they were allowed to risk putting people in a capsule on top of the rocket.

And yes, while Musk is not a licensed aerospace engineer, he does have a deep and comprehensive understanding of the engineering that goes into building and flying rockets. On the other hand, Stockton Rush actually was an engineer... BSc (Eng) in Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical Engineering from Princeton. He forgot the basic philosophy of what he learned, and he ought to have known better than to do what he was trying to do. At the very least he should have been extensively testing Titan as an unmanned ROV for many deep dives before ever risking a person inside it.

Rush put people's lives at risk while he was busy breaking stuff and innovating, ultimately killing himself and four others due to his own arrogance, ignorance and stupidity.

 

[smartcooky]

I always am intrigued by the blame game.
What happened to caveat emptor?
Even the 17 year old could read the document that said you might die.
Aviation is safe, and we hardly listen to in flight advice. But there is no reason to mourn people who expire in the ridiculously hazardous enterprise. It got safe and that is actually a bad thing.
For dear planet.

These do no absolve negligence and the risking of others' lives.

 

[Steve]

This might explain it:

So not engineers then. And not working under the supervision of a Professional Engineer. Although I will concede that an the accountant quoted may be unfamiliar with the requirements for registration.

When it comes time for these student interns to actually apply for registration they may well regret the lack of professional ethics during this episode of their lives.

 

[jeremyp]

I always am intrigued by the blame game.
What happened to caveat emptor?
Even the 17 year old could read the document that said you might die.
Aviation is safe, and we hardly listen to in flight advice. But there is no reason to mourn people who expire in the ridiculously hazardous enterprise. It got safe and that is actually a bad thing.
For dear planet.

You should read the New Yorker article. Rush ignored the advice of experts and lied about OceanGate's association with the University of Washington and Boeing. There's a difference between dangerous and reckless.

The seventeen year old was nineteen.