• mctoasterson@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Since the story came out people fixated on “lol he used a shitty gaming controller” but really that is one of the least sketchy design choices in the entire rig. Why reinvent the wheel and make a custom set of controls that are realistically another huge expense and potential failure point, when off the shelf solutions exist for that component?

    The corners that were cut are the ones involving the viewport/nose adhesion to the ships frame, and the structural integrity of the carbon fiber hull itself. They had test data suggesting it was a bad idea to engage in repeated dives with their design, and an even worse idea to operate at the depths they chose. They decided to ignore that.

    • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      That doesn’t explain why they used the wireless version of that Logitech instead of wired to control the thing they were literally inside.

      • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        To be fair, they’re under water and sharks have been known to chew through electrical cables

        • Tricky@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          3 months ago

          I suspect the wired cabling would be to control components inside the sub, not outside. And I say that only because it’s unlikely that wireless signals would penetrate the sub walls.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      Wasnt the carbon fiber body rated for like, 1/3rd the depth that they dove to?

      It was very NASA O-Ring vibes. “We did it once, so we can do it every time” at least until they cant anymore, and that cant is usually accompanied by regret and poor innocent people being salsafied.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      From what I can tell the lawsuit (which is against Ocean Gate, not Logitech) is really just calling out the controller as another example of willfully negligent behaviour.

      You’re certainly correct that the actual cause of the failure was the carbon fibre hull. Just a terrible idea on so many levels. Carbon fibre, by its nature, is good under tension, not compression. It was never going to function well as a pressure vessel underwater.

      There were a litany of terrible decisions made by Ocean Gate, such as not tethering the sub, because it was cheaper to launch it from a towed raft, but none of those bad decisions ultimately mattered once that pressure vessel failed. Those people were dead so fast that, to quote Scott Manley, “You go from being biology to being physics.”

      • buttfarts@lemy.lol
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        3 months ago

        You can always bring a second controller for redundancy. I would bet money the game controller had zero impact on the failure and I hate all the shade being thrown on this innocent controller.

        • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          3 months ago

          That game controller has terrible range, zero compatibility with any other device, and randomly adds inputs when the controller is more than 2 feet away from the receiver. It is reasonable to consider if uncontrolled movement contributed to the implosion, or a loss of control at a critical moment preventing return to the surface.

      • buttfarts@lemy.lol
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        The game controller is not managing life critical functions, that’s called a computer. The game controller plugs into the computer. The great thing about that is that you can bring a second (or even a third) game controller for redundancy.

        It’s just that the engineering choices that caused the failure are difficult to understand or communicate in sentence so the game controller is something any idiot can harp on about and sound smart.