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Your Own Luxury Submarine!
cheapo writes "Not exactly computer related, but fun none-the-less. Someone on my boating mailing list turned me onto this website for your own personal luxury submarine. For a mere $78 million, you can make all the other folks at the marina jealous with a 213 foot toy." That 78
million dollar price tag might seem steep until you discover that it comes
with its own docking mini sub. Now thats a bargain!
Does GPS work on board when it is submerged?
I saw this on the discovery channel. Supposedly they are all custom made. Steve Jobs has one that will dock in his 200ft yacht, and a Japanese customer wanted one with a laser cannon mounted on it so he could shoot fish. Sounds like Dr. Evil!!
I have trouble beleiving that those large portholes (aprox 6' dia) depicted on the interior view can handle the 1000' rated depth. Total pressure is almost about 1.8 million lbs.
Thats a lot for any transparent material, I don't have my engineering texts at work, anyone care to calculate what the stresses involved would be.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Just get 9 of your rich fellow executives together and you can purchase your very own DD(x) Land Attack Destroyer.
Comes complete with 5-inch/62 extended range guided munitions and 155mm Howitzers, land attack missiles and of course, Tactical Tomahawk missiles.
No need to worry about the wife catching you fishing with your buddies either as it use stealth technology to give it almost no radar signature.
By the way, this ship has a fully robotic mini-sub to allow scouting in unfriendly water ways.
With a price tag of $750 million, they are just as affordable as these silly luxury 'subs.' Besides, you know what they say about submarine people don't ya?
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It's a scam. There are engineering and metelurgical reasons why subs have he shapes that they have. The large portal windows seals for one thing wouldn't stand the pressure at the depth the sub claims to go.
One clue to the scam is that there is no actual sub just "artist's conceptions". Another is that for someone seling a 78 million dollar product, their website design is amateurish.
Gotta love the internet though...the web of a million lies...
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
They have some Luxury Submarine FAQs that people may find interesting. My favorite:
What type of people buy luxury submarines?
Interested buyers tend to share one trait, they are all wealthy.
My comment: well, yeah, people living paycheck to paycheck generally don't buy $78 million dollar items.
Of note, during the initial two and a half minutes of SRB boost, there is no method of aborting the flight or taking actions to save yourself (such as bailing out, etc).
For instance, if 30 seconds after launch or so (when the shuttle passes Max-Q) the Hydrazine tank in the nose ruptures and begins to fill the shuttle with toxic fumes or fire, the crew would not be able to do anything until two minutes later when the SRBs seperated. During this time, they could die, even as they stared at flames burning towards them over a period of a minute or two.
Additionally, if one of the high pressure SSMEs (the main engines) ruptured explosively during boost, shearing the retaining frame that holds the orbiter to the external tank, the tank would detach improperly, potentially knocking the shuttle into the airstream where, like with the Challenger, the aerodynamic forces would tear it apart. This could happen within less then a second, so once again, your analogy is in error.
if you download their pdf file you will see some pics of some of their smaller subs.
As far as the largest one it seem they have not made it yet.
The reason they kind of hide their picuters of submarines, is because the actual boats look kind of ugly.
They are made to look like an yacht when surfaced, but the part thats underwater looks like a tube and breaks the continuity.
When they draw pictures they cheat, so they draw the bottom to look like the bottom of an yacht with large windows.
Visibility underwater is such that you'd need to be very close to something to see it at all. Coral reefs with fish and stuff, and you'd want to be within 20 feet, more likely 10. There's simply no way you can manoever a 200 ft vessel to within an irregularly shaped reef. Not a surface ship, and certainly not a submarine.
For deeper stuff, you're going to need some seriously powerful white lights. Water filters out the higher frequency light first, so all your reds start disappearing after about 60 feet. For wrecks and stuff, you'll need a huge bank of lateral spotlights (not shown on artists impression because artist didn't take physics), and still be unable to get close enough to see anything.
With sufficient lighting, you may be able to go to depth and see some really nice mud.
Me - I'd buy 7 trips to orbit instead.