Learn From Your Mistakes

Opinions below are my own, not those of Lichess. It's my blog.

First of all, on a positive note allow me to offer high compliments to GM NoelStuder for making obvious something we should already know (failure to critically analyze data can result in simple blunders):
https://lichess.org/@/NoelStuder/blog/how-to-improve-by-playing-online-blitz-analyse-every-single-game/CUEUnfYs

Humans have been studying disasters ever since "Wan Hu" (whether true or allegorical):

Early in the sixteenth century, Wan decided to take advantage of China's advanced rocket and fireworks technology to launch himself into outer space. He supposedly had a chair built with forty-seven rockets attached. On the day of lift-off, Wan, splendidly attired, climbed into his rocket chair and forty seven servants lit the fuses and then hastily ran for cover. There was a huge explosion. When the smoke cleared, Wan and the chair were gone, and was said never to have been seen again.

America does not require high school students to learn statistics or demonstrate literacy in statistics. So many accidents and disasters could be prevented if only we weren't dumb! Granted, mistakes aren't always obvious, but as a society we need to learn how to better communicate about risk (and viral media aren't helping in that regard).

Wales will forgive my copying Space ShuttleChallengerdisaster, as I need to identify key details for a pattern to emerge:

• On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 feet (14 km) above the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft while in flight.
• The cause of the disaster was the failure of the primary and secondary redundant O-ring seals in a joint in the shuttle's right solid rocket booster (SRB). The record-low temperatures the morning of the launch had stiffened the rubber O-rings, reducing their ability to seal the joints. Shortly after liftoff, the seals were breached, and hot pressurized gas from within the SRB leaked through the joint and burned through the aft attachment strut connecting it to the external propellant tank (ET), then into the tank itself.
• In 1980, the NASA Verification/Certification Committee requested further tests on joint integrity to include testing in the temperature range of 40 to 90 ºF (4 to 32 ºC) and with only a single O-ring installed. The NASA program managers decided that their current level of testing was sufficient and further testing was not required.
• In December 1982, the Critical Items List was updated to indicate that the secondary O-ring could not provide a backup to the primary O-ring, as it would not necessarily form a seal in the event of joint rotation. The O-rings were redesignated as Criticality 1, removing the "R" to indicate it was no longer considered a redundant system.
• The Challenger mission was originally scheduled for July 1985, but was delayed to November and then to January 1986. The mission was scheduled to launch on January 22, but was delayed until January 28.
• An overnight measurement taken by the KSC Ice Team recorded the left SRB was 25 ºF (−4 ºC) and the right SRB was 8 ºF (−13 ºC). In addition to its effect on the O-rings, the cold temperatures caused ice to form on the fixed service structure.
• The launch was delayed for an additional hour to allow more ice to melt. The ice team performed an inspection at T–20 minutes which indicated that the ice was melting, and Challenger was cleared to launch at 11:38 a.m. EST, with an air temperature of 36 ºF (2 ºC).
• President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give the State of the Union Address the evening of January 28. After a discussion with his aides, Reagan postponed the State of the Union, and instead addressed the nation about the disaster from the Oval Office.
• Soon after the disaster, US politicians expressed concern that White House officials, including Chief of Staff Donald Regan and Communications Director Pat Buchanan, had pressured NASA to launch Challenger before the scheduled State of the Union address, because Reagan had planned to mention the launch in his remarks.

You can read more details about the politics involved either on Wikipedia or basically anywhere else; the Challenger disaster was foreseen and whistleblowers went unheard. Had the mission been postponed, 7 brave astronauts would still be with us today, teaching us how to assess risks. Initially the O-rings had been thought to be a redundant system, and initially the launch was imagined to occur under far safer conditions.

Now, let's examine OceanGate's Titan disaster which participants claimed they were doing for scientific purposes (and didn't mention tourism; members of the submersible community mention certification requirements for commercial tourism):

• On 18 June 2023, Titan disappeared in international waters in the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 400 nautical miles (740 km) off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Customers who travelled to the Titanic with OceanGate, referred to as "mission specialists" by the company, paid US$250,000 each for the eight-day expedition.
• The submersible, carrying five people, was part of a tourist expedition to observe the wreck of the Titanic.
• Communication with Titan was lost 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the wreck site.
• In 2022, reporter David Pogue was onboard the surface ship when Titan became lost and could not locate the Titanic during a dive. Pogue's December 2022 report for CBS News Sunday Morning, which questioned Titan's safety, went viral on social media after the submersible lost contact with its support ship in June 2023.
• A remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) discovered a debris field containing parts of the Titan.
• Concerns had been raised about the safety of the vessel. OceanGate executives did not seek certification for the Titan, arguing that excessive safety protocols hindered innovation (EDIT: and thereby impede scientific discovery).
• OceanGate claimed on its website as of 2023 that Titan was "designed and engineered by OceanGate Inc. in collaboration [with] experts from NASA, Boeing, and the University of Washington."
• According to OceanGate, the Titan had seven backup systems intended to return the vessel to surface in case of emergency, including ballasts that could be dropped, a balloon, and thrusters. Some of the backup systems were designed to work even if all aboard the submersible were unconscious; there were sandbags held by hooks that dissolved after a certain number of hours in the water to release the sandbags, ideally letting the vessel float to the surface.
• Titan was a 6.7-metre-long (22 ft), 10,432 kg (23,000 lb) vessel was constructed from carbon fibre and titanium. The entire pressure vessel consisted of two titanium hemispheres, two matching titanium interface rings, connected by the 142 cm (56 in) internal diameter, 2.4-metre-long (7.9 ft) carbon fibre-wound cylinder. One of the titanium hemispherical end caps was fitted with a 380 mm-diameter (15 in) acrylic window.
• In 2020, Rush stated that the hull had been downgraded to a depth rating of 3,000 m (9,800 ft) after demonstrating signs of cyclic fatigue. In 2020 and 2021, the hull was repaired or rebuilt.
• The Titan made its first dive to the Titanic in July 2021. In total, OceanGate undertook six dives to Titanic in 2021 and seven in 2022.
• According to November 2022 court filings, OceanGate reported that in a 2022 dive the submersible suffered from battery issues and as a result had to be manually attached to a lifting platform, causing damage to external components.
• The voyage was booked in early 2023. Rush approached Las Vegas businessman Jay Bloom with two discounted tickets, intending for him and his son to be on the trip. Bloom turned down the offer over safety concerns.

While we all imagined the nightmare scenario of, "What if the crew are trapped?" experts foresaw the actual problem: the experimental craft is not certified and therefore unworthy for commercial tourism. You don't need me to perform a safety analysis of all the potential problems with this craft: experts everywhere have strong opinions about this, but the craft is not certified.

Why wasn't it certified? Perhaps there is a pattern of cost-saving measures...

• You can see a video of Rush demonstrating the vessel's interior and its improvised decoration, including a touch screen control. (Interestingly, using game controllers to operate a craft has been done before; personally I think every other aspect of the craft is more suspect than the controllers.)
• Rush told Travel Weekly's editor-in-chief that the carbon fibre had been sourced at a discount from Boeing because it was past the company's standards for use in its airplanes.
• Titan disappeared in international waters in the North Atlantic Ocean, Customers were referred to as "mission specialists" by the company (EDIT: and the CEO mentions journeys being done for scientific research purposes, perhaps to avoid regulatory scrutiny).
• There are many other comments you can find in the Wikipedia article and elsewhere on the internet which I don't need to repeat here. Curiously, the "whistleblower" tarnished his reputation if you read that civil litigation... it's difficult to know who to trust, although the submersible community is mostly a close-knit community which for decades have been carefully following safety standards so maybe start by trusting their wisdom.

How much was saved in costs? Well, if one could estimate the time and materials costs of producing and testing a submersible and the fuel costs of a submarine carrying it halfway down, one could hazard a rough guess... hopefully less than the cost of building a spacecraft, and hopefully after a few years it pays for itself. Maybe someday we could play chess from the bottom of the ocean...
https://youtu.be/98uLNUCz6r0
https://youtu.be/o9KUZ-zEdoU

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Photo credit: NASA