Paradigm Shift: The Titan Sub Disaster

Big Rob & Jesse Dive Into The Titan Sub And How Things Went Horribly Wrong, How Could It Have Been Avoided.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

We are live back on the paradigm shift. I am, of course, Big Rob back with my buddy Jesse. What's going on, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey man, glad to be back. I'm excited for today's episode to get into all things with the Titan submersible Stockton Rush and the uh the story that was heard round the world, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Well, for me, what stands out the most about um the Titans, the Titan is uh how well thought out and planned it was. I like how they took their time meticulously planning everything. Obviously, I'm sarcastic.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I was about to say, man, you're gonna piss everyone off right off the top of the episode. We just started, we're within one minute, bro.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Chill. Yes. So a lot to get into with this. My like the first thing you have to ask yourself is like, what the hell, man? Like, would you that's the first thing you're asking? First thing, like if what would make someone think? And I understand there's all kinds of people out there, right? So the the intelligence level and common sense level of people varies, you know. But if even if the if you never heard of this story, if someone came up to me and said, I got a tin can controlled by a PlayStation controller that I'm gonna take you down to the depths of the Titanic. So you can watch on a on a monitor. There wasn't even windows, right? It's just like a there was like a monitor inside, I believe, that they were supposed to be able to see. Well tide.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I think there was a port. There was I think there was a couple portholes that were in it, but you still, I mean, let's be honest, it's like looking through like a something smaller than like the window out of an airplane.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I'm gonna try to find some pictures of it. Um Titan submersible. Yeah. Uh yeah, because I mean, like what what would you what would you say to that if I came to you and said and said, Yeah, man, trust me, bro. Like, you know, it's gonna be great. Now, had they been down there in this thing already before this initial, like that there this this trip that went horribly wrong.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yes, and and by the way, you're right, I don't see portholes. So there was one, there was actually one little porthole that was at the very front of it, was the one little porthole.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, so if you're watching on YouTube, I know you can't see it on the podcast, but there is a picture of it there. Yeah, you got the one little yeah, it's it's funny when you look at it. What were they thinking?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

What were they thinking, man? Yeah, you know what? For whatever reason, when I think about the Titan Submersible, I imagine like the mystery machine from Scooby-Doo, and it's like it's like I feel like they took that thing and they took it to like literally the bottom of the ocean, you know. I mean, you got one little porthole right in the front, and that's it. You you can't see anything. Okay, let's okay, first let me back up. Let's talk design here for the for the Titan, right? So this submersible, um, the design is is one of the most controversial uh things about about this whole submersible, right? But but outside of the controversy, let's just talk about what it looks like. I mean, is this like not the dumbest design you've ever seen?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So very much so.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I I okay, so like you got one little porthole at the very front of it, so you can't see out this thing literally at all. And I don't know if you've seen like like what the inside looked like, but the inside just sort of had a flat bottom. Like it was kind of like there were no chairs, there's no seats, there's no seat belt. It's just kind of like a group of people sitting on the floor in a in a can, in a tin can, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

I'll see if I can find pictures of the inside. Keep going.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah. And so anyway, you know, design-wise, it's it's pretty insane to me that I think what what was it, five people were on board that or six was the total number? Five. So five people were on board. I don't even know how you would get five adults in this thing. And then, you know, like if you're ever um if you're ever on like a public bus or something like that, there you go, the inside. Yeah, look, look at this thing. I mean, this is insane. Like, if you were ever like in a public bus where you're like sitting next to somebody, it is so uncomfortable. Anytime you take a turn, you know, and you feel like you're you're bumping into the person next to look at this, there's no seats. No seats. I mean, my back hurts just looking at it.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

My back and my knees. Yeah.

unknown 5:19

God.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

You know, can you imagine being an adult and sitting like crisscross applesauce going to the bottom of the ocean? What?

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Oh man. You know, there's I don't want to jump all over that. You know, I'll bring it up later. Let's let's stay on topic here of the of the what the design of this thing looks like. I mean, you've got two your two monitors here, you've got a PlayStation controller controlling this thing. What genius? Like, why was that why was that a good idea? I mean, clearly it wasn't, but why would it wasn't a good it was a bad, a really bad idea. But who was sitting in a boardroom and said, I got it, Sony PlayStation to navigate, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what's weird to me about this whole thing, right? And I said this after uh after you know the whole incident, and I was talking to my wife years ago, and I said, you know, if if if like a remote control submersible, you know, this is how like they normally do it, right? Like they send down the remote control submersible that's like corded and it goes down and it looks around, whatever, and it comes back and there's no person on it, right? But the whole time they're looking at a screen and they can kind of see what it sees, and they look at it later and analyze it. How is that any different from this if you're actually in the submersible, but you cannot look out anywhere, and you're looking at a screen of what's going on outside, right? Yeah. What's the difference? The difference is you're in the in the can going down there, but you can't see shit. I mean, you're looking at a screen just like you would as if you were not in there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

That's like that's like somebody who is a germaphobe or whatever and is terrified to leave their house, so they don't leave the house their house for 20 years, they just stay inside their houses and then think that there's a difference of what country you're living in, you know, like where where you're geographically located.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah. Yeah. I mean it doesn't make sense. I I fundamentally don't get it. Like, even as an explorer, like you know, one of the guys that was on there, I think his name was like Hamish Harding. And and he was like a he was like one of these explorer types that you know does does the extreme limits of like what you can do on the planet. And I think he had done like one of the like the Blue Origin or something like that, you know, like he'd done stuff like that. I don't understand the risk of getting in this submersible that you can't see out of, anyways. You know, like like you know what's crazy to me with this whole thing is you know, the Titanic sank in when like 1928, something like that, right? The 1920s. And this thing has been underwater for like basically a hundred years. Um, it is a hulk of a wreck. The the ship, you know, like split in half, it went down. Any any little thing with your your submersible, like if it got caught somewhere, any any little area, you're dead. You know, you're you're you're like done. I don't know. It's it's insane to me to get into this terribly designed submersible to go do this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Well, from what I'm reading, the Titan submersible successfully reached the Titanic wreck 13 times. Really? 13 times. So I guess 14 was the magic number, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Well, so part of part of what's controversial, the really controversial part about this was the was the hull. And I guess it was carbon fiber. You know, like I don't know if you've ever seen carbon fiber like on a car. Like typically they'll take carbon fiber and they'll make like the the wing on the back of the car for like the down force, you know, for your Corvette or whatever, or they'll put it like in the in the in the front, like the grill of the car will be like uh carbon fiber. And it's it's it's kind of a neat looking material, you know. It's sort of like a again, it's a fiber, it's like a press thing, and it's it's like black and gray, and it looks kind of cool or whatever. And I guess what's very unique with this thing is that it and and there's there's some irony here because the thing was called Titan, but they did not use titanium for the hull. They used carbon fiber, and then the end caps were titanium. So one of the you know, one of the big controversies about this thing was that those two materials are are completely different and they expand and they contract at different rates, so they're not they're not like aligned at all, you know. And and when they would get in this thing, I don't know if you heard this part, when they would get in it, they would put the nose cone thing on and they would bolt it on there, right? So, like when you're in there, you're literally like bolted into this tin can, like, oh my god, if you had claustrophobia, good luck. You know, but you get bolted into this thing, but they're bolting titanium onto carbon fiber. Jeez.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Again, who did the science behind this?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, yeah. Well, so you know, the big controversy here, right, is the guy who was the creator, uh, this guy named Stockton Rush, right? And apparently, I get the impression that he sort of viewed himself like a like a Jules Verne, right? Like he he's in the uh what do they call that? The Nautilus, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, right? Like I think that's sort of like the vibe he was going for. Like he it's like cutting edge. I'm gonna have my own submarine, you know, we're gonna see amazing things, and I don't really care about your regulations or laws. And by all accounts, I don't think he ever um actually had the Titan like formally approved uh but or it like it was never blessed by like any any kind of independent third party that reviewed it for safety, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I was I was just gonna ask, I was just gonna bring that up. Don't we have regulations and kind of certifications for this kind of thing that have to be met before you can just take paying customers down in a in something like this?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Well, yeah, I I think there's a gray area here, right? So where the Titanic rests, it's as far as I'm aware, is in the the Atlantic Ocean, and it's not like in territorial waters of the US or you know, Canada or you know, it's it's just out there in the water, right? So like when it's when it's that far out, it's like who's the governing body of this? Who actually calls them to the carpet if they're not following the rules? And that's where I think it's it's sort of like I think they got away with it because it was like, yeah, you you should be um you know approved, you know, you should have, you know, again, a third-party audit to make sure this thing is safe and that you know it's safe for actual paying customers of whatever country they're coming from. But I don't think he ever really followed that. And and you know, once they're in international waters, it's kind of like who's in control of this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Wow, what a what a circus. Uh, one thing that really frustrates me as a father, and I'm sure you feel the same way, is that there was one of the passengers was a billionaire, from my understanding, who decided it was a good idea to take his son into this submersible and go down there. Yeah, now there are so many levels that this frustrates me on because you're a billionaire. Like you can't spring for something proper, right? Something that's safe and meets certification and stuff. Like, I don't know, maybe you know, not going to wish for a you know, wish website or whatever for a submarine uh when you're a billionaire to take but to put your son in. Uh I don't know. I mean, think about the poor woman left behind, poor widow left behind, you know?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Who probably cautioned her husband not to do this.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Probably. You know, okay. So I know I've told you off camera my thoughts on this, but now that we're doing the episode, I'll cover this. So just the thought of of this whole idea is absolutely pure insanity to me, right? Like, you know, I I think I've I've told you before, I've gone skydiving personally, right? And what was just like crazy when you go skydiving is when you're in the plane and you're at like cloud level and you're still going up, and it hits you, I'm jumping out of the plane. Like it's it's like just mind-blowing, right? You're like, what am I doing? You know, like it kind of like hits you like we're we're not just gonna like land like you normally do in an airplane. Like, I'm actually jumping out of this thing, yay! You know, like what on earth was I thinking, you know? And uh, and so I think about this Titan Submersible, right? So all these guys, you know, they got on their, they had like a barge that they would launch this thing from, right? So they they must have flown to wherever the barge was, they got on the barge, they literally took the barge to the middle of the Atlantic, you know, where the Titanic rests. They then get in the Titan submersible, it's bolted closed, they then descend, you know, it goes into the water with the plan. Uh I mean, again, you can't see land anywhere, it's nothing but open ocean. There's no one there but you, and a lot of really dark water, and you're getting in this thing, and you're gonna plummet to the bottom of the ocean like 2,000 feet below.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

It's ominous, it's it's the yeah, it's it's almost overwhelming, right? Like, I I I hear stories. I've never been on a cruise ship, and I said to a friend of mine, I'm thinking about going on a cruise. He's like, Are you like why? They're not as great as they seem. He said, When you go, he told me, when you go out on the deck by yourself in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean, it is terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah, it's it's it's weird, you know. You know, I say that, but I gotta admit, truthfully, I love cruises. I've I've always had a great time on them. You know what I like about a cruise is when I get on a cruise, there's an itinerary on the TV all day long. Every 15 minutes, there's like four things happening somewhere, right? Oh, and so you you always have an endless choice of hey, we could do any of these four at any any point in time, right? Um, there's endless amounts of food, there's lots of like really fun stuff on a cruise, and personally, I really enjoy them. Now that said, I also have an extreme fear of like drowning in the middle of like the Atlantic Ocean. Truthfully, man. Goes together like French fries and mayonnaise. Yes. Yes, right. Like, like just some of these stories that you hear. Like, I remember there was a uh there was an Air France flight that flew out of Brazil that was going to France, got hit by lightning in the middle of the Atlantic and plummeted like eight miles below. That's like my ultimate like nightmare fuel, right? Something like that, right? Or there was uh one of these uh cruise ships where you know there's um some younger adults on there, right? Like I don't know if they were like high school or barely college, it kind of looked like that, right? And one of them dared one of the guys to jump off the boat. And this dipshit actually jumped off the boat in the it's in like the Bahamas at night at like midnight, and they have it on video where you see him jump off willingly, then you see him start swimming, like all of a sudden it hit him. Oh shit, I jumped off the boat, and then you see him quickly kind of look behind him like something was there in the water, and then the you know, it it cuts off. They never found him, right? Of course they never found him. You know why? Because sharks follow those boats because they're always dropping all kinds of stuff, you know, like people like nomads, yeah. Like people, and especially in the Bahamas, is loaded with sharks, loaded, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Unbelievable. That is that is I don't even know. I don't even I can't even put into words how stupid you would have to be to jump off a cruise ship. And I have seen pictures of people doing it and stuff. I've I've seen dumb pictures as well where people are throwing the furniture off the cruise ship and stuff like that. I don't know if you've seen any of that stuff before. That was a popular trend for a while. People were throwing uh all the furniture from their cabins, I guess. Great off the balconies of their rooms. Yeah, it's like, man, really, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

I digress that that's terrifying. Could you imagine being that guy though? Like, I wonder if it hit him like on the way down before he even touched the water with what he had just done.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

You know, I've thought about that because in the video, he genuinely looks terrified when he when it when you see him look over his shoulder, right? And you know, I think that he probably was like most people on the boat, probably drinking all day, probably sunburnt, probably, you know, didn't really give a shit, whatever. Yeah, you won't do that. So of course he does it, you know. And I think it hit him when he hit the water, right? And then he came up, and then it's uh oh my god, like what did I just do? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

The terrifying thing is that even even if even if you know the the the captain or the the staff on the boat knew the second you jumped off, it would still take time for them to rescue you. It's impossible. There's no way. Yeah, you were dead as soon as you left that boat. Like the sharks had a good 20 minutes to get you, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah, yeah. Have you have you ever seen um there's a couple videos of this where they're on like an oil rig, and they'll be like on an oil rig in like the Gulf of Mexico, right? I s I still call it the Gulf of Mexico, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Anyways, how dare you? Gulf of America, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Anyway, uh so that so they've got you know these oil rigs, and there's a couple videos where there'll be somebody filming and they'll throw something off the oil rig, right? Like a piece of food or something, like an apple, right? And the moment it hits the water, like no shit, there's like 50 sharks that swarm it. It's like it reminds me of like, you know, at home, like I have a fish tank. And the moment I put the food in there, the fish can smell it immediately. And they instantly wake up, like, oh shit, hey, hey, there's food, you know, and all of a sudden they're going up to like get the sprinkles of food, right? Well, it's the same deal, man. It is the exact same thing. Like those sharks can smell that. And the moment, you know, you're you're, you know, I'm sure he's sweating alcohol and everything else. The moment he hit the water, they probably immediately beelined it right to him, you know. So I guarantee you, he was probably dead within 15 seconds, 20 seconds, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Oh, yeah. Yeah, from my understanding, sharks can actually sense the vibrations electronically. So when like just when something hits the surface of the water, even in uh all the commotion of the of the rotors, rotors of the of the boat, uh, they'll still feel that impact on the water, and they're boom, yep, you're done.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Right, exactly. Like they say that a shark can smell a drop of blood from like 400 feet away. One drop, right? And so when this guy's jumping off a boat, that sharks and whatever else are just naturally following to you know, see whatever falls off the boat, you know, they get a free meal, and then that dude fell off the boat, you know?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah, that's yeah, it's absolutely insane. It's it's terrifying because one of my biggest fears is actually sharks. So really, oh yeah, terrified of sharks. A fish to eat you, dude. Yeah, yeah, you know. I'm not even from a place really where I'm in central Canada. There's just no sharks around me, but uh there might be some bull sharks, I guess, theoretically, in like Lake Superior and stuff, like in the Great Lake. Yeah, because they're they're fresh, they're they can be freshwater, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yeah, and it uh a bull shark can live in freshwater or salt water, and a bull shark has you know, again, here's another 400 number. I I think it's I think the number is 400 times the testosterone level of an adult man is what's in a bull shark. So you think he's stronger than me? Is that what you're saying? I'm saying if you've ever met a meat head, whoa, that shark. I mean, uh that thing is like jacked and it's ready to go, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

No one no wonder they're so mean. Yeah, they are they're they also eat anything, too, from what I understand.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But you know, with all this, I would say that you know, like my fear with this stuff is the dark water, you know, like dark water, something about it just uh doesn't see what's that the unknown, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

The unknown. That's what I was gonna say. Even if let's let's just theorize that even if he hit the water and he saw he saw Finn or something like that, right? Or didn't see a Finn at all, just thought he saw whatever the case might be. Even if he survived and they rescued him after 20-30 minutes, let's say, as a safe estimate for how long it would take them to get him out of the water, right? Gotta stop the ship, get a get a rescue boat, all that fun stuff, right? That 20 to 30 minutes, for me personally, whether it's nighttime, daytime, whatever, would be the most terrifying because I'm terrified of sharks. So, like you said, that darkness of the unknown down below, I don't know what's down there. And that unknown would probably be more terrifying to me than if I actually saw a shark's fin, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Yeah. Have you have you ever seen um there was a movie that came out like probably like gosh, like 10-20 years ago called Open Water? Did you ever see that?

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yes, I did. It's the couple, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Yeah, it was it was a couple that they went on a dive boat, you know, they were vacationing somewhere, and at the end of the dive, the captain of the boat somehow miscounted and thought he had everybody, and the boat left. And then they pop up.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

I think what happened was a couple or two people that were on the boat were counted that came back on, and then he wasn't looking, then they went back off again. So then they when they came back on, he double counted these two people, which left the other two out in the ocean. He thought he had everybody.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

So yeah, yeah, you know, I saw that, and I never need to learn or attempt to dive anywhere ever.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

No thanks.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah, no, no, I don't I don't want to do that. Um, but you know, I do have to say, so when I was when I was in my 20s, I had a really good friend that liked to surf, right? And where I'm at in Florida, um, there's definitely waves out here, and you can definitely go surfing. And, you know, depending on the size of your surfboard, so like the guys that have like the shortboard, right? When they're sitting on the shortboard, they're sitting on it in the water, and the water is still like up to their armpits, right? So the board's like probably two feet underwater, right? Now, I would have like longboards, so a longboard's more buoyant, so it's it's really kind of at the surface, but your legs are still hanging in, kind of just dangling for whatever, right? Yeah, and I I remember distinctly like a couple of the times that we were out there surfing, you know, it's kind of like we'd be out there all day, and you know, eventually like the weather just sort of changes, the wind picks up, some darker clouds come overhead, right? And you're out past the break, so you're a good you know, hundred yards away from the shore. And you start looking around, and it's like this this doesn't feel good. Like we're like way out here. The water is really dark. I can't see anything, and this isn't this isn't going well. I'm like, I I I gotta go in. Like, I'm not doing I'm I'm I think I'm done for the day, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

From my understanding, too, most the majority of shark attacks actually happen in shallow waters. True.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

True, yes. So so the thing with shark attacks is that sharks are not naturally looking for humans, okay? Usually what they're looking for is bait fish. And when you're at the beach, you can see the the school of bait fish a mile away because the water starts like flickering, and you know that's a school of bait fish. And the people that don't really know anything about that or how to deal with it, they just see and they go, Oh wow, look at all these fish. Well, you know what's following all those fish are sharks. Like they're definitely there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Something's gonna eat them.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, okay, so so back to Titan, right? So back to them getting on the barge. You know, it's it's this entire order of operations like like scares the shit out of me. So they get on the barge, they take the barge to the middle of the Atlantic, there's no other boats, there's no Coast Guard, there's no land, there's no landmarks, it's just dark, dark water. You get in the mystery machine, they bolt the lid on, you got this asshole piloting who's got a PlayStation controller and a couple monitors, you know, you can't even see out. And at that point, it's kind of like the skydiving thing where, like, you're not getting out of this, you know. I mean, like you like you're going down regardless at this point.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Point of no return, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah, and he's over there going, Yeah, we're gonna go down to the Titanic. We've done it, you know, 13 other times.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

I will say though that they attempted 26 times, they only had 13 successful.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Really?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah. So there were at least 10 failed attempts as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Well, so as part of this, the materials, right, that we were talking about earlier, the titanium and the carbon fiber, apparently this these materials uh pop and and have the ability to splinter and crack, right? And when you think about it, the pressure on the on the surface, you know, where they're at when they take the boat out there, is way different from the pressure that's down at the Titanic. So every time you go down, there's this immense amount of pressure that's pressed against this submersible. And then when it comes up, all that pressure releases, right? And like you think about like uh like at like a house, right? So, you know, your house is typically you know stick framed, you know, you've got uh studs and things like that. Well, you know, depending on the summer or the winter, or if it's been raining, or if it's you know really cold, like that wood like cracks and pops, and it's from like the expansion and the contraction, right? So imagine being in this submersible, and this thing is like cracking and popping.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

That's gonna be terrifying, too. Yes, you've got a guy with a PlayStation controller going, no, it's fine, don't worry about that. That's perfectly normal.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Yeah, normal. And and you know, in the meantime, also, you're in the back, no seat, no back, no seatbelt, you're just loose with like four other dudes and and him, and you know, you're you're you're just like plummeting to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Did you watch the um the AI? I think it's an AI generated reenactment of the implosion of the Titan Titan Titan.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

I I may have seen that. Yeah, I may have.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Yeah, it was just it was just like the pop of a balloon. Yeah. That fast. It's like you see this balloon, and then it's then you just see this little withered piece of uh rubber falling to the floor. That that's how quick it was, right? Yeah, so I strongly doubt they felt anything. Now I can't say if there was any kind of pressure on the inside, you know, that was causing them any harm. I have no idea, right? But um, yeah, that that quick little boom, and then there was like a little smear of like red mist in the water that was dissipating, because that's how quick they just turned into liquid, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Like and and and let's let's clarify this also. The ship did not explode, it imploded.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah. Big difference.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

So they were crushed.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

They were crushed.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Like very quickly crushed, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Instantly crushed.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah. Like they probably didn't even feel anything crushed. Yeah. That's that's the only silver lining for me, right? Is that they didn't even know that it happened. It just happened. Right? They're wherever they are, they're still unaware of what happened, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Did did you hear about how um the the Stockton rush that he was trying to get Josh Gates on there? Did you hear about this? No. Yeah, and and I think Josh Gates came out. Um, so this is Josh Gates from Expedition Unknown, right? Like he he does things like this to, you know, kind of push the limits. Yeah, he he he's really funny, right? Um, but he pushes the limits of exploration sometimes on different things. And this is one of those things, right, that came along. And he said that they I think he said he got in it on like a shallow water test and got totally freaked out. Like, like he was like, There is no way in hell I'm getting in this thing and going to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to the Titanic, you know. Yeah, um, and so he ultimately declined it. But you know, the guy, Stockton Rush, was like pushing for this stuff, right? Like he he was like he was literally pushing the envelope of exploration here in something completely, you know, unverified, untested, no third party signed off on it.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

I don't blame him. I wouldn't have even on if I'm being fully honest, I wouldn't have even gotten uh bolted into the thing 10 feet underwater.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, you could have drowned in that. Yeah, what if there was a leak?

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Right, they gotta bolt it back open to get me out of there.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Have you ever heard of the like the very first uh submarines? Like they date back to like the Civil War. Have you ever heard of these? No. So so there's a couple submarines that came up came about Civil War era, and it was basically like when they were in there, they were like pedaling to to make the propeller move, and you know, they'd have like like one way of trying to like you know fire some sort of projectile or whatever, and and their odds of death was like 98%. You know, it was like you get in this thing, you you were you're as good as dead, like you're that's it, you know, you're not gonna come back up. And that's how I feel about this this Titan. That even if you were, like you said, in shallow water, I mean, you could drown in it then, right? I mean, the the thing could have sprung a leak. I mean, imagine like if it think about this, like it is a tin can with two caps on each side, right? So you have to have like a gasket for that, right? I mean, this is how like plumbing works. Like, you usually have a some sort of rubber gasket that goes in between and it seals it from any water. Imagine if that damn thing sprung a leak and you're bolted into it.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Yeah, you're dead. Yeah, you you probably can't come resurface because you you're taking on water, so that means someone's got to come down there and bolt the door off to get you like you're you're done. Exactly. Even even in 10 feet of water. So he went further than I would have even gone. I would have been like, yeah, I'll get into it on land and have a look around. Right. That thing's not touching water, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:01

I I don't even know if I would have done it on land, man. Like I the the my my claustrophobic fears getting in that thing, I think I would freak out. There's just no way. There is no way.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

I'm with you. I have a I have a little little bit of claustrophobia as well, right? As a as a bigger guy, too, it's like, you know, I got a thing with heights, I got a thing with a lot of things. So yeah, yeah, I just uh wouldn't be able to do it. So I don't know what these again again. I I gotta go back to the billionaire. What the hell, man? Right? Like is your life that boring? Like, was it a rush thing? Like, I don't understand. You can afford to find somebody who can build something with proper materials that would stand probably a far better chance of survival. Yeah, I mean, you're looking at again, what is it, 23 attempts, 13 successful. That that ratio is not good. It sounds okay, but it's not good, man. Your percentages that's like a 60% success rate or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

You gotta 13 out of 26 is 50. I mean, this this is an F. That's an F.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

That's a big fat F, man. I'm not I'm not taking that chance. If there was a 1% chance of that happening, I would be like, uh it's a little rich for my blood, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, did you hear about um you know James Cameron? So James Cameron of he was the director of Terminator, right? And he uh did he did he direct Titanic? I think he may have. Um anyway, he's always had a fascination with the Titanic, James Cameron, right? And I'm pretty sure that he has gone there in a submersible as well, but it was like something that was like, you know, approved and verified and vetted, and you know, like like that's kind of how it was done, right? Like it was not this thing that's never been approved by anybody. And and he had come out afterwards saying, like, yeah, like there's just like this thing was so insanely unsafe that it's completely crazy that this guy could actually do this legally and not not face just like a slew of lawsuits, you know. I mean, which which I'm sure, you know, with the death of everybody, he probably did the the estate or the company or whatever was left, probably did face a slew of lawsuits and immediately went belly up, you know. But it it's it's just amazing that he was able to to do it in the first place, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Well, that that's my question. Like, is there even anybody left to run that business? Like, yeah why would they why would they think, even if there was, why would they think that it would be possible to salvage the business at that point? Right? Like who who is ever gonna trust anything that you product you put out there ever again? I don't care if you're putting out a jet ski, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Yeah, I'm not getting on it. So, okay, so it says here that he founded Ocean Gate in 2009, so that was the company, right? And it said that he was charging tourists $250,000 per seat, and there were no seats.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yeah, you couldn't afford to build a safer ship.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

You know what it makes me think of is that this guy had like this blind ambition, he wasn't gonna listen to anyone else ever. And there was probably nobody who was willing to fund this, so he had this like hare-brained idea idea that well, I'm just gonna charge people 250 grand, and that that'll take care of it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Unbelievable, man. Unbelievable. It goes to show, guys, you always have to be safe out there. Whenever you're thinking of doing something uh extraordinary, you're on vacation, you're on holidays, your your life is a little stale, and you you need a little bit of excitement in it, you know, go bungee jumping with a certified company or something like that. Always try to make sure that whatever you're doing, whatever company you're you're thinking of acquiring the services of, has the proper certifications and and you know, is is meets regulatory compliance. I don't like don't hop into something because it's in international waters and there's no there's no governing body.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

That doesn't make it that makes it less safe, not more safe. Yeah, listen to this, right? So here's some of the safety criticisms. So it says here um he intentionally operated in international waters and deployed from foreign vessels to bypass strict U.S. commercial maritime regulations. So that's how he got around it, right? And it said that he steadfastly refused to have the Titan classed or certified by an independent marine safety organization because it would never pass. You know, it would never pass, which is why he refused it. And then he goes out and he says that uh this is a quote from him safety just is pure waste and an impediment to innovation. Right?

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Apparently not. That did not age well.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

It it didn't end well, right? Right. Listen to this. It says the final voyage. So the Coast Guard revealed that U.S. officials would have pursued criminal manslaughter charges against him had he survived.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Good thing the captain went down with the ship, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Okay, here's another thing that we didn't talk about yet. So I know I remember I saw this on uh I don't know if you did you watch the documentary that Netflix did on this?

SPEAKER_01 43:33

No.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Okay, so they they had a great documentary about the Titan. I watched that, and one of the people, and and I'm seeing it here, was a whistleblower, right? So it's it says here that um Ocean Gates owned former director of engineering, David Lockridge, and the Marine Technology Society repeatedly warned Rush that the carbon fiber hull could fail capitally. Catastrophically under deep sea pressure. Rush routinely dismissed these concerns, allegedly retaliating against or firing employees who challenged him.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Wow. So that's what you get for trying to save lives. And this is the like rewind it back to just the very first part of what you dropped there. That he deliberately operated in international waters to subvent, you know, attempt uh attempt to subvent consequences, legal, legal ramifications, right? Yeah. That's not a red flag to anyone who's considering opinic. That's for me number one. I'm I'm gonna say, okay, so so that means that no one is okay with you bringing this thing down to the Titanic. Well, then I'm not going in the damn thing. I'm certainly not paying you 200 plus thousand dollars to go down there.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

You know what else is interesting about this story? It kind of highlights this like uh privilege, you know, that he came from a place of privileged privilege, right? So it says here that in his lineage, two of his ancestors uh signed the declaration of independence, Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush, aka Stockton Rush, right? That that's his name. So he's named after his two ancestors that signed the Declaration of Independence. It says here that he got an aerospace engineering degree from Princeton and an MBA from UC Berkeley, right? So he's had like a whole life of privilege, and he knows better, and you can't tell him anything, and he's so colossally reckless that he killed himself and four other people.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Absolutely unbelievable. So where we live in, though. It's a world of privilege that we live in, like, and it's not the privilege that that the left thinks it is that I'm talking about, right? Um, not to not to dive into that, but um, yeah, that's that is the the perception of people. Uh, really quick example of what I'm talking about. Uh, I made a video about a project that specializes in streamlining payroll, right? On a global scale. So you get paid by the minute instead of waiting bi-weekly or monthly or whatever the case might be. And they're kind of revolutionizing payroll by streaming it. And somebody actually left a comment saying, Well, that's actually a bad thing for the like, you know, that's a big flaw in the company's design because you know some people can't budget properly, and and uh they're gonna spend their money on on stuff too soon if they get paid daily, and then they won't have any money, they won't won't pay their bills and all that stuff. I'm like, what kind of entitlement attitude is that where you think it's I said that's like McDonald's, that's like you saying it's McDonald's fault that you can't stop eating hamburgers because they make hamburgers. No, you're an individual who can make decisions, and yeah, it's just the entitlement level. It's like it's it's on someone else. I know better, I'm the best. You know, it's that attitude that we have nowadays that we see in our society, and this is the kind of stuff it leads to.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Yeah, I think you know, I've said it before, like I am like a pro-business centrist, right? But I'm not a pro-business, like reckless centrist. You know what I mean? Like, like yeah, we need to be pro-business and we need to, I think we need to always facilitate and push for innovation, right? You need innovators, right? I mean, these these are the people that build industries that employ thousands of people as in innovators, right? And you need that, but something like this really, really needs a third-party audit, it needs a safety review, it needs significant oversight, and you know, for him to be able to sort of like weirdly con these people into this, and then do it from like an international ship, and you know, I mean, I feel like the whole thing is just so shady. It's shady, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Well, when you're talking about people's lives, it you know, it's a little bit different for sure. Like that's there is no, you know, kind of fight the man attitude when it comes to putting other people's lives at risk. Right. Yeah, there does have to be lines, so I agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Yeah, yeah. It it says here so the the Titan submersible had no classification, the vessel was never independent independently classed or certified by any recognized maritime safety agency. I mean, that alone. What?

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Yeah, it's it's again, it's common sense that these people who went down um into this thing, did you not ask any questions? Like, I mean that that's another you know what that reminds me of? That reminds me of there was a there was a fair that used to come around in my hometown all the time called the CLE, and it was all these rides and Ferris wheels, and uh you know, Ring of Fire, and all these crazy zipper, and you know, all the great rides. And every summer they'd go and I used to go as a kid and I'd go on all the rides and have a blast. And then one day, I was about 20 years old, I think it was 18 to 20 years old. My youngest brother told me that uh he was hired on as a hand to go because they just hire local people to go and put these rides together. Oh, great. And I'm like, my younger brother, who's like 11 years younger than me or something, right? Is the one putting the ride together that I'm gonna hop on, risk my life. This guy can't make a peanut butter sandwich. And I'm gonna hop on the zipper that he built. I don't care who supervised what, right? Yeah, that's what that reminds me of. Like I was ignorant enough in my youth to just get on these rides, not thinking about who put them together, what materials were used, or anything. I just ignorantly trusted the person putting it to who designed it and put it together.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

But these are adults. These were like middle-aged adults, with the exception of the son, you know. I mean, what this is true.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

This is true.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

Hey, that's that's what it reminds me of. Here you go. Here's another one that'll get your get get your head scratching going. So it says regarding navigation, the Titan relied on text messages from its surface support ship for directions, as standard underwater GPS does not function at that depth.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Do you have reception even? Like what? What? What happens if you lose reception?

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yeah, what if you don't get the text? I mean, you know, I don't know about you, but half the time I don't get texts on land.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Text comes in six hours late.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

You know what? I take that back. I do get a lot of texts from like the the scam texts. I get those constantly. Hey, it's the tree service. We're in your neighborhood. I get that one daily.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yeah, it's crazy. Well, I think we've about uh I think we've about run out of time here, my friend. Um I think it's gonna be, I'm really looking forward to the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna go down some rabbit holes here with this show. It's gonna get a little bit uncomfortable, but hey, yeah, you know, at the end of the day, the best investigations simply follow the empirical evidence wherever it takes you. So whatever your opinion is, throw it out the window. We're gonna follow the evidence, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:05

Absolutely. Yeah, we're gonna offend some people, we're gonna hurt some feelings, but um we don't care.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

I agree. Okay, so final thought here. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Well, like I said, I think that people need to do a little bit more research into who's building things that they're planning on putting their bodies into, and um, you know, who's building them, what materials are used, are they certified? See, I mean, you want to have fun and you want to have a certain degree of risk in your life for sure, but you don't want to also throw your life away. So, and also I would like to end it with this for me gum on the bottom of tables is not free candy.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Remember that this is really expensive gum, though, at 250 grand a seat. Bubba Bubba. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

What are your final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 54:15

You know, I think I I want to go back to your your thought earlier about the the kid. That I mean, come on, dad. You you gotta you gotta know better. I mean, you're I get it, you got money and you think you know everything, but you don't. And now you killed yourself and your son, which is just like the worst thing you could ever do as a dad, right? So I think about that. I feel like this thing was just like a mystery machine of red flags. And you know, it's it's almost like dealing with like AI today, that it talks to you like it's an authority and everything it's saying is right. And then you question it and you go, Well, what about this? That doesn't look right at all. And it goes, Oh, yeah, you're right. That's not correct. Here's what we should look at. I feel like this is kind of the same thing where he's talking to everybody like an authority, but he's not. He's not an authority. He he's not he's not like vested by the state, he's not even doing it on the up and up, and then he got them all killed on on something that was completely insane. So I I don't I don't know how I feel about all that, that all of it was allowed to transpire and the way he did it, and the way he kind of navigated around laws and rules and was so colossally reckless.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

It's amazing, it's amazing how convincing someone can be when they speak with conviction. You can speak absolute nonsense, but when you say it with conviction, you can convince just about anybody of anything.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

So true, very true, and so it's a tragedy. That's how I would sum it up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

Hopefully, we as a society learn not to not to try it again, right? Right, as we have as we have currently Elon Musk trying to send people into space. Just a matter of time, man. Patterns repeat.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Titan Mars ship. It's like, oh boy, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Pump all over it again. All right, guys. Well, this concludes another episode. We will see you in a couple of days. God bless, shift out.