Titanic tourist sub goes missing sparking search

[Jared0425]

Well that, and also there aren't a lot of options - I believe the list of DSVs that can reach the Titanic is Alvin, Sea Cliff (if it's still operational; I haven't seen an update since 2005), Nautile, Mir 1 (out of service), Mir 2 (out of service), Konsul, Rus, Shinkai 6500, three or four Chinese submersibles, Deespea Challenger, and Limiting Factor. Of those, none carry more than two passengers (with Deepsea Challenger being a single-occupant craft and Limiting Factor only carrying one observer) and only those last two are privately owned and not controlled by a government agency, military, or oceanographic institute. I believe the Mir submersibles and Nautile were the only ones that were ever "hired out" for private endeavors on the Titanic wreck.

Sea Cliff has been sitting partially dismantled at a Navy warehouse since 2011. I can't link any articles to it, but I know people who work at the warehouse (they store stuff from the Iowa's and other obsolete platforms) who told me she's just sitting there.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Sea Cliff has been sitting partially dismantled at a Navy warehouse since 2011. I can't link any articles to it, but I know people who work at the warehouse (they store stuff from the Iowa's and other obsolete platforms) who told me she's just sitting there.

That's what I thought - supposedly Sea Cliff was transferred to WHOI in 1998 and then returned to USN active service (but still operating out of WHOI) in 2002; the last photo I'd seen from Navsource.org was from 2005 of Sea Cliff in a shed at WHOI looking a bit rough around the edges.

Submarine Photo Index

 

[Jared0425]

That's what I thought - supposedly Sea Cliff was transferred to WHOI in 1998 and then returned to USN active service (but still operating out of WHOI) in 2002; the last photo I'd seen from Navsource.org was from 2005 of Sea Cliff in a shed at WHOI looking a bit rough around the edges.

Submarine Photo Index

I was led to believe that she was in something far bigger. I think she is on ice because of Alvin being kept alive and we don't have another DSV if we lose Alvin.

 

[BRT]

The cost associated with the rescue mission has been reported to be around $1,200,000, and will likely climb a little higher than that. The US military budget in 2022 is $766,000,000,000.

If you graphed these on the same scale, and gave 1 pixel to the rescue mission, it would take 247 iphone 11 Pro Maxes to graph the military budget. I think calling it peanuts is pretty fair

It doesn't matter what they say it is. All the assets were already purchased and all the personnel were already going to be paid. Additional costs would only have been fuel and maintenance.

 

[Brett Hatch]

It doesn't matter what they say it is. All the assets were already purchased and all the personnel were already going to be paid. Additional costs would only have been fuel and maintenance.

Agreed, the cost would be mostly consumables, as you say. And maybe some stuff like overtime wages, or reimbursing the commercial operations which helped out. Anyway, that's not a number I came up with, that's the Post reporting on a defense budget expert's opinion. It would not surprise me if when all is said and done, that number grows or shrinks a bit, especially if a large investigation follows.

The point I'm making is that being mad about the cost of the rescue operation, is just not the right thing to be mad about. The military and the coast guard are very expensive. If we sat down as a society and decided that rescue operations shouldn't be done, yeah, we would all save a couple dollars on our taxes. But we wouldn't be making an improvement -- having these resources ready to deploy as emergencies arise is worth the cost. Akimbo hit the nail on the head a few posts up when he said this:

IMO, everyone deserves the same life saving effort and is a shared expense for the common good.

 

[Dan]

Christine Dawood interview after the accident

 

[Blasto]

SAR services exist to search and rescue people. It's literally their whole raison d'etre. It's also normal for the armed forces to share their SAR resources in peacetime.

So for me, no reason to complain about SAR services spending their efforts on a high-profile case, unless they abandoned some other search and rescue operations to do this. Even small SAR operations can be expensive, but I'd rather they be undertaken whenever needed, than the services sitting idle waiting for a cost-effective case.

 

[chillyinCanada]

 

[Angelo Farina]

SAR services exist to search and rescue people. It's literally their whole raison d'etre. It's also normal for the armed forces to share their SAR resources in peacetime.

So for me, no reason to complain about SAR services spending their efforts on a high-profile case, unless they abandoned some other search and rescue operations to do this. Even small SAR operations can be expensive, but I'd rather they be undertaken whenever needed, than the services sitting idle waiting for a cost-effective case.

I agree entirely.
I served as a Firefighter, and during my service I also helped int the accounting and administration of the fire brigade.
Money is considered wasted when there is no action and you spend the whole day doing nothing.
Whenever you are called in action, all the money invested in equipment, training, wages, etc. suddenly becomes justified and well spent.
That is one of the best purposes of the taxes we pay: to build and operate a public infrastrucure ready to intervene when needed, providing rescue and health treatment for free in case of accidents.
This includes public health and hospitals, ambulances, heliambulances, firefighters, coast guard, alpine SAR, etc.
Civil countries devote great effort and proper resources to these public and free services.

 

[BoltSnap]

I rather the US spends tax money on Coast Guard rescue missions than spending it in the Ukraine where and when Euros should be doing it. The difference in costs is probably at least a couple of orders of magnitude not counting human life costs (our servicemen that maybe endangered in Ukraine war).

P.S. The Canadians contributed a great deal to the rescue but no one gives them enough credit. Canadians are very nice people (except two Canadians I know).