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Long-Running Underwater Robot Lost At Sea
this_boat_is_real writes "Somewhere off the coast of Chile a pioneering underwater robot named Abe lies in a watery grave today. The Autonomous Benthic Explorer was one of the first truly independent research submersibles, being both unmanned and un-tethered to its launching ship. While on its 222nd research dive on Friday all contact with the craft was lost, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has announced."
Great, battle of the Titans in real life? Something tells me this is too much of a coincidence!
the shrapnel created by a glass sphere implosion at two tons per square inch was enough to shred armored steel antennas and hydrophones. what chance do you think a flimsy balloon would have you fucking ignorant idiot ?
You think there is a mechanism of recovery more robust than the device itself? The pressure that sub handled was ungodly.
Well, may it's not lost.
Maybe the sub truly is autonomous, as in "having autonomy; not subject to control from outside; independent"?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
From the WHOI press release: "ABE was equipped with several independent systems to bring it back to the surface at the end of a dive or should a fault occur. The Melville remained in the vicinity to see if ABE had resurfaced, at first searching for ABE’s strobe lights in the darkness. Researchers tried to establish radio contact with ABE in the event it had surfaced, but attempts turned up nothing."
Protip: the people that design these things can, and likely do, fit square pegs in round holes.
Suggesting "durrr, attach a balloon" is, in my not very humble opinion, insulting to the engineers behind these things.
I believe empty glass or ceramic spheres are used since they provide a lot of buoyancy from a small volume.
To get the required buoyancy using oil, instead of having a sub about the size of a car, you would end up with something the size of the ship it is deployed from.
Just like a rocket or the space shuttle, I'm sure these machines are highly optimized by people who (unlike us) know what they are doing.
The idea of being a passenger on a submarine or rocket designed by slashdot are equally unappealing.
And maybe, just maybe, one of the glass flotation spheres had a flaw in it and it imploded, like they said.