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It makes me have questions since part of the budget rearrangement was to focus on a design to avoid hiring a ship, to create a platform to launch the submersible, only to ironically return back to leasing ships. Why didn’t part of the investment is to just buy a ship, have that ship take on extra errands to help pay for it as well as bring in some revenue for Oceangate on the side, so that they weren’t throwing more money down the drain and became fixated on it? They could have had one or two ships, and the times they were not in operation for the deep dives, they could have taken on side jobs.
Thanks for your comment. Sure, those are valid points. When you look at pictures of the Horizon Artic with the Titan and the LARS on the back, the ship size dwarfs the size of the OceanGate equipment. They had to lease big ships. Event the Polar Prince was big. But remember these ships are designed to service off-shore things like oil platforms. So, OceanGate was in a way competing for their time. To have a profitable ship business, on the side, like you suggested would probably require having more of a cargo ship, which may not be set up as well to do missions off of (I don't know for sure). Unfortunately, it was an idea and a business model that was too complicated and did not work out. Then it ended in disaster. I sad but interesting saga.
I remember following this very close last year. IMO it was less obvious then, but loud & clear now. I think Stockton committed suicide. At the very least he knew it was "Do or Die" & he chose to die. He was under too much pressure, he had to put his money where his mouth was. He had two choices. He could die, or be humiliated in front of his family & the whole world, becoming a complete failure. I don't think his ego could take the failure & embarrassment. After being fascinated by the story & watching and reading all I could find I've come to a conclusion. It's my impression that Stockton knew at that point that the Submersible was pretty much a death trap after 13 dives, or at the least have a pretty good idea how bad off his submersible had been stressed and it was at risk, because I don't think when he started this adventure he had huge dreams. He wasn't supposed to be in that position. In the beginning he never thought or ever intended to have to use that one submersible that many times without it being tested. That wasn't part of his dream. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. He thought he was too smart for that scenario. But now he was out of time, out of cash, & out of excuses, but yet still decided to not only risk his own life, but he risked others who didn't have the inside info that he had just to save face. That info might have changed their minds if they knew what Stockton knew. That makes him a huge POS in mine & a lot of other peoples book. RIP Ocean Gate passengers & God speed!
It also makes me wonder if the pressure of society is stagnant at some circumstances. I say this not to have sympathy or animosity towards Rush, but looking at the big picture. The reasoning brings this up is because historically the US has achieve many great and vast achievements, especially innovation. It is the world’s hub for technology and engineering, a desire to improve. Part of this hub is created by the right environment of resources, productive and efficient people, encouragement of critical thinking and creativity, and a chance to recover. The latter is my concern, as over the years it seems like while there are some breakthroughs, in the last 20 years or so, some technology doesn’t have a drastic breakthrough but an upgrade. This leads me to wonder that the economic risks to fail has impacted the technology industry not have a way for innovators to have that chance to swallow their pride and accept failure when something doesn’t work. I think failure is a key component to a lot of the discoveries this country has contributed to the world, there are lessons that are used to achieve a different project, but there has to be ways for these people to know they have that chance to restart. The understanding of they restarted, they are at least further in their projects as they gained knowledge from their past work. It makes me wonder if Rush put himself to accept the risks cause he didn’t see that chance to start again. The issue with his philosophy for me is that he gloated and taunted the idea of taking risks to gain new heights, but he seems like someone who had serious miscalculation issues of how to operate the whole thing that it got over his head, that the risks became a ‘do or die’ scenario that instead using critical thinking skills to come up with solutions (that probably would have helped Oceangate to not get into that mess) he resorted to not take risks but become reckless. I can’t say he was at a point he was on suicide mode and was playing Russian roulette, what we can observe he had pride issues to not listen to the facts, especially the criticism of the results were not matching up with his demands. That maybe his issues started from closer to step one and that would result in scrapping the whole project versus if the issues were something like step 10 that perhaps had a chance to fix, it’s harder to fix something that requires addressing the issues of the first step: the design and what materials were used in this case. While deep diving is a dangerous operation, it is surprisingly one of the safer operations seeing as ironically there is no regulations involved. Most of the deep dive communities are avid loving of discovering the deep ocean waters, it’s a small but close community that had each other’s backs. The fact it took now after over a hundred years of subs exploring our oceans to face a self sabotaged disaster is remarked when what this community of deep divers must keep in mind of the dangers of it. While everyone is giving Boeing a hard time with their horribly run operation and businesses that has backfired, people would be very surprised at how many air flights go wrong since we were able to fly, just by mechanics or human caused factors. It takes an awareness to understand what capabilities a person actually has, and just how unmerciful Mother Nature truly is, no matter how much we think we can defy the odds. That’s why it takes baby steps to make certain achievements, and the chance to learn from failures might seem like a step back, but it can also be a step forward gaining that experience and knowledge to get closer to that goal. There has to be irony in how Rush disregarded the risks, but couldn’t cope with the failure as a result.
I agree, I thought her persona was interesting. Couple of things about that. She may have been nervous testifying to the Coast Guard under oath. And, she cried when she gave her closing statement. So, I think working for OceanGate and then the disaster is really troubling to her. I think she was naïve to the risks, thought they were doing something worth while, and then when the worst happened it was a true kick in the gut.
Hi, thanks for your nice comment. Glad you enjoyed it. I am working on a video now that questions the degree of "partnership" OceanGate actually had with NASA and Boeing. I think you will be amazed.
Thanks for your comment. Yep, I misspelled "lightning" a couple of times. Sorry about that. This video has many annotations and it is difficult to proofread all the layers in a video editing program timeline. It's not like a Word document and there is no spell checker. Sorry, it troubled you. I hope you enjoyed the content which was presented in a thoughtful and serious manner (no hype). Thanks again.
I dont understand why reaching the titanic* and selling the trip was Stockton's bet for profit. The real money is mining recources from the ocean. He already knew about this huge demand for mining more so why not that? Did he perhaps required it to be certified first? I feel he either was forced to have the titanic trip due to Wendy's request/influence and thus both steer away at that idea OR he himself could not admit to himself he was wrong for trying it in the first place
It’s probably mostly due to certification and the stuff he would need to put on that submersible to make it be able to mine. I think he thought the trips would be easier money and companies asking to do scientific research as well were an added bonus
jup indeed he took 4 people,s live an the entire entourage is to blame for this due to the stupidity of Oceangate, it was only about the MONEY not about ocean exploration the MONEY RUSH
He reads off as a certain type of nepo who has very little skills and qualities to actually help him and society. In some ways this just reads off as a project to look like a valuable member of society. Some people who are nepos are able to learn how to operate and manage the resources they have to improve their investments, however there’s a good number that want to avoid the work yet live comfortably with the lifestyles they grew up with. Rush seems like the latter to me.
Even if the Titan submarine was 100% safe, you have to ask the question: How many people really want to go see the Titanic for the price of 1,200 Disneyland day passes? We're not talking about first-class accommodations, either. There isn't even a bathroom on board the Titan. There's no heat to keep warm at the frigid depths of the North Atlantic. There's just one measly window to look outside. I just don't see the allure of such a voyage. I can kind of understand the cost of an expedition to the top of Mount Everest. In that case, people do it because of the physical challenge. That, too, is not really my cup of tea, but I do understand the point of it. I think that the correct price for a safe journey to see the Titanic would be about $40,000, or about the same as what a climber would pay to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Of course, the logistics of a trip on Titan cost much more than that, and there's the rub. The value of such an experience is way below the actual cost. Extremely wealthy people may be willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money to say that they've directly viewed a relic such as the Titanic, but there aren't very many of those. Stockton Rush laid a hard sell on his prospective clients, as well, and the harder the sell, the more worthless the sale. Of course, Titan was not safe. It was badly engineered. Even I would have my doubts about riding to the bottom of the sea in a tube made of plastic. It doesn't take a genius to question the safety of such a vessel. I don't really feel sorry for any of the people who died on Titan's last trip. They lacked common sense. They believed that money can buy anything. They failed to understand that no amount of money buys safety. In fact, when large amounts of money are involved, avarice and greed take prominent seats at the negotiation table.
Thanks for your comment and your points are well taken. I had a section in this video. as I was making it, where I did make the comparison to paying to be guided up Mt. Everest. I took it out to save time, but I was using the same analogy you thought of. Now it can cost $40,000 to $100,000 to pay for an expedition to climb Everest and a lot of those people are not even real mountain climbers. They just have the money, and the time, are in reasonable shape, and they want to do it. I am not saying it's easy by any means, but they are basically walked up the mountain by a Sherpa on a pre-determined path (I couldn't make it). But at least it's a physically demanding task so they deserve some credit. Paying $250,000 to be driven to the Titanic requires no effort on your part. It's just a really expensive and dangerous tourist attraction. The other thing I had in a part of the video, that I removed, is; that if you pay to go to Everest and you don't get to summit that season, your guide company doesn't let you come back next year for free. That was a huge financial risk for Stockton, giving "seats" on upcoming expeditions away. He didn't have enough capacity to offer that. Back to the analogy, they have plenty of capacity to offer that on Everest, but they don't.
I honestly never understood how seeing the titanic is something one would even want to do. The views are garbage and you can see more if you just watch James Cameron on his expeditions all from the comfort and safety of your own home. For the amount of money one pays you’d think there would be at least a real control and not an Amazon Xbox controller
@@cosmokramer5055 I agree with you. But for some people, there is this fascination with it. I don't think people fully understand how dangerous it is to be at those depths. Those depths are for professionals with professional equipment.
For someone that has a more fascination with Titanic cause of her history, I’m honestly a little peeved at the notion of this site being used as a tourist attraction. Have zero problem with exploring to study the site or at least recover artifacts to keep the stories of these passengers alive for generations to remember there were people on that ship that had their own stories that’d we would likely never know of. It just screams hubris not just cause of the dangers but this looks like it’s taunting and lack of respecting this in the end is a gravesite. Hubris at play again. Naming the submersible Titan of all things should have been that slap in the face reality how this was treated as a gimmick and not the respect Titanic and her passengers deserved. Very little care or consideration of the big picture.
Bay’s testimony was chillingly PR minded with no regard for truth or integrity. She may have very well admired that clown but those who enabled his “vision” are culpable. Her breathy calculated replies made me livid - these people are ruining the world in disguising greed and exploiting genuine fascination with exploration and/or a better planet. Musk comes to mind and he’s killed far more than 4 but without investigations. Yet. Musk
I agree with you. Thanks for your comment. Bay was seeing both sides of the story, so she had to know the entire thing was a mess. She knew that the finances were horrible. And, she went on the expeditions so she knew the operations side also. And in 2023 she was the "lead" on the dome closing crew before a dive! Her education is for being a school teacher! And she is now in charge of making sure the dome is closed properly with people inside, going down to 3,800 meters. You should listen to her testimony when she is asked by the Coast Guard Marine Technical Advisor what "torquing" a fastener is (regarding sealing the dome); she is clueless, and it's hilarious and frightening at the same time. If you want to hear it yourself, go to the Coast Guard Hearing video for Tuesday, September 24, and skip ahead to 2:01:50.
Possibly, for the first time since the Watergate Scandal, a new scandal hasn't had to add 'gate' to the end eg Pizzagate, Gamergate etc. It's like it was designed to be a scandal, and we can't call it OceanGategate. Some things are just almost a cliché from the outset eg 9/11 happening on the date that corresponds with the US emergency phone number.
For $100 million they could have had a fully classed and functioning Triton Sub, easily. Something tells me the number is off or Stockton was dumber than we thought
Agree. I was surprised when I heard Karl Stanley testify that he got that number (100 million) from the co-founder of OceanGate Guillermo Sohnlein. I think Guillermo would know. Regarding a Triton sub; the thing is, a 5-person titanium sub from Triton would be big and heavy, and remember Stockton was trying to use the LRT concept and get away from needing a ship with a crane to put a sub into the water. But I still agree with you. The entire thing did not work out as Stockton had hoped. The business model and up to killing himself and others.
I won't repeat millions of comments how carbon fiber submarine pressure hull is somewhat dumber idea than lead zeppelin. They knew it, hence their "sound crack detectors", which are equally dumb idea, but evidence they knew of the first one. I'll talk a little about the financial side, as someone professionally familiar. First, 100mil is a very rich budget, given what they had to show for it. It's far less money than many laymen think, but it's still a good money for what ended up as a garage operation. Titan sub, as shown in detail many times, hardly looks 5mil to make - that's being generous. But just for the clean argument, let's value that can at 10mil. 20mil, counting the failed first one. Still looks like they had 80mil R&D budget to figure out you should use some other material. Quite implausible. But given that Stockton is said to top the company up with his own money, embezzling outside investors does not necessarily comes up high on the list. SO, either they proclaim far bigger investments than actually used, or (possibly "and"), and this would be my #1 guess, the classic "startapitis" took hold: first 50 mils went to lavish "pr events" and celebrity endorsements and fancy office and gold-plating the miniature sub souvenirs and such, and then infinite money started looked finite, finite deadlines vice versa, and they suddenly have to "pivot" to penny pinching. A classic story, and it always does wonders to the quality of the end product. But still, where is the money? Second, their operational economics doesn't make much sense to me either. For the opposite reason. Just wet chartering a good ship for 2 weeks out to the ocean could run up 500k easy. Add to that company's own personnel, dock services, not to mention maintenance of the sub itself. Meaning 3x150k "mission specialists" hardly break it even, and even more and at 250k would still net essentially spare change. Again, I'll be extra generous and give'em 2mil/year in all expenses, staff, ship, service, all (that's unrealistically low). at 250k/"specialist", 3 persons, they only break even at 3 dives. 6 dives/year earns 2.5mil pre-tax. On 100mil investment. You are literally better off buying T-bonds and chilling on the beach. What the funny business? Same as with the CF hull, this "napkin business plan" of mine looks consistent with them donwscaling on the ship, saving on storage and maintenance, raising dive prices 70% a year, e t.c. But still, it just does not make sense at the basic level. Didn't they do the math at all?
Great comment, thanks. I agree with you. I wouldn't have been able to guess the investment amount on my own but Mr. Karl Stanley testified to that number which he stated got from Mr. Sohnlein, the original co-founder. Mr. Sohnlein was most likely a small investor at the beginning and I am assuming he kept in touch with Stockton through time and Stockton, and as a partner and an investor probably did have the real number told to him by Stockton. So, the 100 million that Mr. Stanley stated is probably true. Regarding costs, I also agree with you it seems on the face of it, it seems high. But I imagine the R & D costs were high. That deep-sea marine gear is expensive. Early on they fluctuated between 10 and 30 employees, that's expensive. What does it cost to bring the whole rig and a bunch of employees to the Bahamas for testing? Then ship it all back to Seattle and engineer and build another hull and put the sub back together again. Then ship the sub across country to Maryland to the Deep Sea Testing Facility for testing. I don't know; on, and on, and on. I guess it adds up. He should have quite after the Bahamas hull failed and cut his losses then. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
That NZ Navy boat was a second hand North Sea tender and was listed at around 16million on boat broker (though somehow it cost the NZ government 60mil. We could put that down to public purse shenanigans and upgrading the seating with sheepskin seatcovers). He could have bought a similar tender, paid for its operation costs for a decade, and built a fleet of Titans for 100million. But, I suppose he got the money, and spent the money, in fits and starts, which was clearly incredibly wasteful.
I think Rush didn’t care if the sub exploded (more accurately imploded) or not, because he knew he was bankrupt and also reputationally destroyed. He was basically sui. c1dal at this point.
Rather than send a sub down to the Titanic I wonder why they couldn't just send robots down to the Titanic and beam the video back to the surface? The people in the sub were viewing everything on a video screen anyway they may as well have been viewing while in a comfortable ship as opposed to be cramped in a tiny submarine and you could have had more paying customers They had the viewing port in the submarine of course however it didn't look like they could see much out of it
Good comment. I think people should leave the Titanic alone at this point. There is not much else to be learned at this point. Perhaps send an unmanned ROV down to take new pictures every few years. Regarding the viewport, Stockton wanted a big viewport, the biggest ever for this depth. I think the view out of it would have been quite good. Also, he had a design change, and that was to make the back surface flat so as not to create a "curved" distortion as you looked out of it. However, that is not standard for the industry. The standard is a concave back, like a dome. This created a lot of controversy and the company that made the port would NOT rate it to 4,000 meters. It had to do with a stress point at the inner edge. It was rated for less than 2,000 meters by the company that made it (I can't find the exact depth number right now). Thanks for your comment.
They weren't selling research or trying to accomplish something they were selling the experience of seeing the ship with ones own eyes. Everyone in the ocean liner community has seen pretty detailed images of the Titanic. You COULD charge people a pretty penny to just bring them over the wreck site and watch a webcam but thats probably a thousand dollars not no 200K.
@@commodorezero Yes and no. Stockton was promoting the idea that it was important to do annual 3D imaging of the Titanic wreck to determine how deep sea wrecks deteriorate. He would say; there are hundreds of other wrecks that are also deteriorating and may release harmful substances as they fall apart. However, I would say that many wrecks are much easier to get to if you want to study that for the sheer science. So, maybe that's true, but it was also his marketing thing to do it at the Titanic. But it was also a just chore to have the "mission specialists/passengers" do the 3D video so he could skirt regulations for passengers in subs and make these folks feel involved; doing "science." All of this can be done just as well, more safely, and cheaper, with unmanned ROVS.
@@solareclipsetimer He didn't need to skirt regulations too much, because it turned out there ain't many for the specific profile of their dive: carry an item simply as cargo outside national waters - perfectly legal, whether that cargo looks like a barrel of herring, proper deep sea submersible, or some carbon-woven can nonsense - and then dive inside that item in international waters where very little regulation applies. The whole "mission specialist" ruse is just for PR, and it wouldn't have stood any scrutiny if it was, in fact, regulated somehow. At any rate, that wasn't the root problem, nor playstation joystick. Both could have well worked. What couldn't, and they have been told so many times over the years, is carbon fiber pressure hull. It's just absolutely wrong material for this application. And they sort-of-knew that, given their advertised "sound sensor alarm system" for the hull cracks. It's one dumb idea on top of another, but it is evidence of willful neglect: they knew that all other deep sea submersibles are made of metals because metals, in proper form and structure, resist compression progressively (think any spring you played with). CF develops cracks, delaminations, and eventually just fails catastrophically. Which is exactly what happened, surprise.
It seems to me Stockton Rush's fear of losing face was greater than the fear of losing his own life! It's just a shame he had no respect for the lives of the people that died or the ones he left behind!
I've known good people that ended their lives for much, MUCH less money, because they saw no other options. Stockoff RUSHED to his own demise to that he doesn't have to face all the consequences of his own doing.
You are referring to the title? In the title, I am using the word "broke" it to mean being out of money. That is the correct word in that case. See the dollar signs in the thumbnail, that's a hint. I am not trying to say the company was "broken." Thanks for your comment;
I feel Rush probably wanted to be in the billionaires' space race, which suited his qualifications, but didn't have the resources and drive for a project that big. So he built an underwater "spaceship" and followed a secondary passion. But he didn't know how to run a business or how to build things responsibly
I wonder he didn’t venture in space cause there were more qualified people in that industry that made him feel small. He seems to be the type with very abstract ideas, which could be a good attribute if one has the mindset to understand the basics. Seeing as he couldn’t handle basic criticism that was to actually help Oceangate, those abstract ideas were not going to be successful. He couldn’t even calculate how to run to not rely on selling these seats for an overpriced profit to create revenue. In the end this whole project became a drain on a business level that money would his main priority, everything else important (that likely could have fixed some of the problems) became second.
I know. Overall, the attempts had a huge failure rate. It seems like the sub was always having technical issues and the whole plan it too weather-dependent. They had to cancel due to the weather a lot.
I agree. She was smart and had a lot of experience with the technology of subsea tracking. She is working on a PhD. Other parts of her testimony that I didn't need to include here include discussed other aspects of the Titan "tracking" system that was designed poorly and out of date.
Research and development show his business imploded at the same rate as the sub (joke) it seems like a Futurama skit people visiting the titan in years to come
You know I agree, but it is also fault of the father for putting his child at that kind of risk. I read that the kid was apprehensive but did not want to disappoint his father. Sad
In my opinion Rush was a chancer and a narcissistic con man. Why build something out of a material that has known flaws. Why disregard sound advice and scientific fact. Why design something that you are sealed into that cannot be opened from the inside. The man was a nutcase adrenalin junkie who didn't care who he killed.
I think no matter what, he always planned to immortalise himself by dying on the project. His recklessness and adverse behaviour regarding safety for himself and others, you just cant think he planned on living long
To me, it's mind-blowing that someone would enter this vessel despite noticing that the back end is held together by a ratchet strap. I call that a clue.
Amber Bay sounds pretty damned chagrined. Of all the OceanGate people, Stockton got off lucky imploding (l am truly sad for his victims) as he doesn’t have to sit here and explain his arrogant ignorant stupidity.
Hi, thanks for your comment. That is a good point and I like the use of the word "chagrined." She gave honest testimony to the best of her recollection (I believe). She was on day 6 of the hearings, so I am sure she was aware of some of the subjects that were touched during the previous days. I think, to some degree, she felt she had the "wool pulled over her eyes" by Stockton. I actually felt for her when she gave her closing statement and cried. Her employment at OceanGate will trouble her forever.
SURPRISE SURPRISE ! the SAME OLD STORY ' MONEY stockton & oceangate never had the money to properly design ' build & certificate a safe re' useable submersible to meet their business plan Short cuts ' ignorance ' arrogance and lack of funds yet again result in avoidable deaths
Yes, maybe. You know, there are engineering failures all the time and they are just mistakes, things that are missed. I recent one that I followed the engineering closely on was the Florida Institute of Technology pedestrian footbridge collapse. I just recently watched a video on the Taum Sauk Dam failure. These engineering failures are going to continue to happen. The OceanGate story is so compelling because it has a single central figure, Stockton Rush, who is an enigma.
If you spend 100 million usd, and expect to recover even 5 million a month (weekly dives, all successful, fully booked for 3 months), EVEN then, you won’t make money for the first 8-10 years- assuming zero added costs! This was not just reckless- it was totally insane!
Yes, I agree with you. For some reason he just refused to give up. He knew it wasn't workable. He probably could have accepted losing the money he personally put into it, and I don't know how many millions of dollars that was. But I guess he didn't want to tell his other investors that their millions of dollars were gone?
I like your question. I think financially he saw it wasn't viable and got out. His other big thing has been space travel and colonizing planets, so he is back on that. His LinkedIn Account; "Founder & Chairman Founder & Chairman Humans2Venus Foundation - A global community of Venus-focused professionals dedicated to promoting Venus as a potential long-term destination for humanity." Not sure what that will achieve, but that's his thing now.
I’ve been watching the hearings and had a sense that there were money troubles with OceanGate, but this paints a much more detailed picture. Thanks for putting it together.
