Richard Branson Announces Virgin Oceanic Submarine

It's the tripnaut! writes "Richard Branson has just revealed that he intends to build a vessel capable of exploring some of the deepest parts of the oceans around the world. The article further states: 'The sub, which was designed by Graham Hawkes, weighs 8,000 lbs and is made of carbon fiber and titanium. It has an operating depth of 37,000 ft and can operate for 24 hours unaided.'"

Comments

Re:Oh, Sir. Branson

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Quite frankly, you may think what you want of Branson's endeavours, but at least he's trying to achieve new and exciting things. He'd make more money setting up a law firm, a hedge fund, or selling razors with 6 blades, but he pegs himself as a visionary and that's what visionaries do.

I say the world is better off with a Branson that Yet Another Businessperson [TM]...

Re:37,000 feet deep?

[vivian]

Being a pressure hull, it will be at 1 atmosphere internally - there is no decompression for the occupants to worry about, which is the whole point of having a pressure hull.

Last I checked, 37000 is > 35838 feet, which is the actual deepest point in the ocean, so the sub is already overrated for even the deepest depth - let alone the rest of the ocean which is much much shallower - with an average depth of about 13000 ft.

The wreck of the titanic is at only 12600ft. I'd definitely pay a decent sum to go see that thing in a sub if the sub had a decent view-port you could look out of.

Re:Oh, Sir. Branson

[Z00L00K]

I agree, what he does is to keep a high profile with stunts like these, but it really improves the brand when he is involved in things that is more than just the usual TV commercial. Anyone can do a CGI with a fantasy these days using a pile of money, but putting that money into an event where you are actually achieving something real - or make a difference - then you do both your brand and the others involved a favor.

The submarine will hopefully provide additional knowledge.

"There are no failures, just more data".

Re:37,000 feet deep?

[hat_eater]

OMFG someone has been plunging my house into the abyss while I slept! Every night through my ENTIRE LIFE!!1!

Re:Oh, Sir. Branson

[Kozz]

Dear SLASHDOT:
What the FUCK have you done to the layout, styles and scripting on this god-forsaken site? I've tried both FF4 and IE8, but have the same problems:

• * hyperlinks in comments don't work, as if they've got an {onclick="return false} in them.
• * comments frequently do NOT show their moderation scores, and I have to keep opening ancestor comments until the scores are revealed.
• * The right-click context menu doesn't come up in FF4 unless I DOUBLE-RIGHTCLICK.
• * Sometimes when clicking on a comment (to expand from abbreviated mode), parent comments will be opened, and my window content scrolls, causing me to lose the original comment I was trying to read.
• * These <li> elements aren't displaying their bullet-points when previewing comments (and probably not after posting, either), so I've gotta stuff asterisks in front of each of them.

To be honest, I'm not one of those who has been carping about the new layout and design of Slashdot. I'm actually fine with that. But it's got to fucking work. Otherwise I'm ... oh fuck it. I'll probably come back anyhow. But you should know what a shitty job you've done of QA.

Moderators: us low-UID folks get a pass to rant once a year or so, don't we? Yeah, it's a bit vitriolic, but it's all truth.

Re:Oh, Sir. Branson

[Hatta]

Mark Slashdot.org as "Untrusted" in NoScript. Set your discussion style to "classic" in your user preferences. That will fix everything but the bullet point issue.