Last month, a submersible full of tourists headed for the Titanic crumbled under the pressure, killing everyone on board. By this point, we all know the story: Submarines are made of a funny lack of concern for safetyIts previous diving efforts have been besieged with problems, and the first time it tried to do its only job — hauling arrogant sightseers down to the site of another aquatic disaster — it collapsed like a Coke. This is the truth of the matter.
But there seems to be a certain Type of Guy who disagrees. Type of participant — then leader — adventure clubsomebody space tourismWho visit Challenger Deep to have fun. Someone write a full editorial in the Wall Street Journal about trying to visit the wreck of the Titanic and dying horribly in the process due to blatant disregard for the bare minimum of safety in deep water, is indeed an extremely important expedition. These men were the pioneersyou see.
But what did they discover? What did they pioneer? Richard Garriot de Cayeux, author of this op-ed, compares the Titan submersible to early airplanes, saying that without early flights (which are “derided as the stupid game of the super-rich,” “), we wouldn’t have modern consumer air travel. But air travel allows people to get to real places — other cities, other countries, places with infrastructure and people — in a way that submersibles like tiny windows. simply can’t do it. Titan doesn’t pioneer anything; it will not pave the way for a large-scale diving tourism industry because there is no incentive for it to exist. Technology is not the issue here.
So if Titan passengers weren’t pioneers, then at least they were explorers? Are not. Not a jot. Exploration is expanding the limits of human knowledge, going to a place where never had anyone before in the hope that we can learn something while we are there. Yuri Gagarin, Roald Amundsen, Don Walsh – these people discovered. The passengers on the Titan are trying to “discover” a place that James Cameron visited 33 times.
Titan’s passengers aren’t discovering anything, they’re merely trying to boldly go somewhere other people have gone. They didn’t pioneer anything but a particularly shameful way of dying – before the altar of cost-cutting and “disruption.” Don’t turn tourists into heroes.
