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Steve Fossett's Unfinished Project
MazzThePianoman writes "Steve Fossett left behind a secret vessel project called the Deep Flight Challenger. Fossett was funding the development of a winged submersible being designed by Hawkes Ocean Technologies in California. The intent was for the vehicle to be capable of travel to the very bottom of the ocean — the Mariana Trench, more than 11,000 meters beneath the surface. 'It would have dramatically, dramatically opened the oceans for exploration. It would have been a game changer,' said Graham Hawkes, the designer. Testing had been completed at Department of Defense facilities. Field testing was only four weeks away when Fossett's untimely death, a year ago, put the project on hold." Hawkes Ocean Technologies owns the design, but the vehicle itself is owned by Fossett's estate.
"Take Fossett off the grid immediately," he ordered. "We need to wrap this up with a minimum of red tape." The response was quick. Within a week, Fossett's "corpse" was found in the Nevada Desert, the naked visitors from Titan had their submarine, and the President had yet another embarrassing affair off his plate.
It was still Fossett's move, however. Much as he enjoyed false identities, Brazilian women, and homes built from Cold War nuclear bunkers, the time was right to begin his next project.
It would begin with a small dog, two pairs of socks, and a rolled-up copy of People magazine.
"The pressure is about 20,000 pounds per square inch, approximately 15,000 times the atmospheric pressure," Hawkes said.
I hope Mr. Hawkes was a bit more careful with the math in his design than the math in that statement.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
If Star Trek Voyager has taught us anything, when you need to go deep into the ocean, just send the bad boy Tom Paris with trusty sidkick Ensin Kim in the Delta Flier. Thats more than enough to get hte job done. The only downside is that Lt Paris may make everyone listen to some drawn out letter hes writing to his father.... and quite frankly, its too dramatic for my tastes.
WWPD - What Would Picard Do?
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of land, And danced the seas on laughter-silvered fins;
Deepward I've fallen, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-absent fathoms...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...propelled and plummet and swung
Deep in the sunless silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting currents along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of water.
Down, Down, the long, delirious burning blue I've bottomed the current swept depths with easy grace
Where never jellyfish, nor even tubeworm grew.
And while with silent, buoyant mind I've trod
The low untrespassed sanctity of the abyss...
Come on fellow Mechanical Engineers, what do we need to see the core of Jupiter? Lets design it and open source it, because it will likely not be seen in our lifetimes.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Landing a plane safely.
Color me skeptical... Quoting from the summary;
The vehicle, as shown, wouldn't seem to be capable of more than a fraction of that - the pressure hull seems far, far too thin.
Um - how exactly? Globally we have plenty of capability to reach all but the deepest portion of the oceans, and beyond archeology, a little geology, and exploring a few famous wrecks... There hasn't been all that much demand.
Quoting from the article:
Mostly because there isn't any real value in visiting the truly deep ocean - the view is not really all that impressive. Imagine being in a dry side canyon of the Grand Canyon on a cloudy night... with only a glo-stick for illumination. That's what it is like being down in the truly deep.
I don't know where he's been... But the ocean bottoms have been in the process of intense exploration and mapping for several decades now.
In deep water submersibles the occupied portion is a sphere to best resist pressure. The rest of the craft is filled with water at ambient pressure. The drawing in the article shows this one to follow that pattern. Your first comment is refuted.
The Trieste was a tethered bathyscape. It went down on a cable and back up again. No ability to survey an area. I'd like to survey deep trenches as possible nuclear waste sites. Put the stuff in wedge shapped containers and drop it into deep muck at the bottom of such trenches. If it's 20m down in muck under 7-11 km of water it's going to be easier to produce new nuclear material than to retrieve
An untethered deep submersible with ability to survey an area could find many useful things on the sea floor. Like how to harvest methane:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html
The land area of the Earth has been the subject of intense exploration for millenia yet we're still learning about it. Satellites, a 50 year old vehicle for exploration, have helped immensely. Why do you think a new undersea vehicle will not have a similar effect on ocean exploration?
If you spend a couple of seconds to check the wikipedia entry, you'll find that the Triest was not tethered unlike earlier vessels. The principle used was the same that makes a balloon fly - fill a container with something that is lighter than the surrounding medium to produce lift. The balloon uses hot air or helium, the Trieste used gasoline.
While I find the idea of exploring the abyssal regions of the oceans intriguing, I tend to agree with the GP poster in his opinion that the vessel pictured in TFA would not be capable of going there. The Trieste used a sphere with walls made of 5 inches of steel - somehow the bubble cockpit in the picture in the article does not seem like it has an equivalent structural strength.
Oh, btw - did anyone notice that Trieste's inventor was name Piccard? And that his grandson was part of the team that traveled around the world non-stop in a balloon? To boldly go where no man has gone before, indeed :-)