Titan Launcher Safe
Chris Richard
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"Was searching for something unique for my nephew and stumbled upon the Titan launcher. Huge hit! The entire neighborhood crew now takes turns saving the world in our backyard. It's durable, safe, and inspires so much creativity."
But many of its components seemed surprisingly cheap. For views outside the sub, Rush had installed store-bought security cameras. Ceiling lights were bought from Camper World. And for his steering unit? "We run the whole thing with this game controller," he said.
Second, he insisted that the important parts of the Titan were rock-solid, like the carbon-fiber body, for which NASA served as a consultant. "There are certain things that you want to be buttoned-down, and that's the pressure vessel," he said. "Once you're certain [the pressure vessel is] not gonna collapse on everybody, everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go. You're still gonna be safe."
"No. Two, three years ago I have a phone call with Stockton, and he explained to me that he was doing a lot of tests. He showed me some [of] the ways they were building the stuff. I say, 'Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I have no problem diving this sub.'"
I was also impressed by the sub's seven redundant systems for returning to the surface, from roll weights, to hydraulically-driven triple weights, to thrusters, to a variable ballast tank that inflates from a 10,000-psi air tank. Then there are sandbags that detach automatically after about 16 hours. "Even if everyone inside had passed out, their connectors would dissolve in sea water," said expedition manager Kyle Bingham.
Finally, the crew seemed to foster a culture of safety. There were checklists, inspections before and after every dive, and a "three-strikes" rule. If three things seemed out of the ordinary, no matter how minor, they'd cancel the dive.
I never did see the Titanic, and I wasn't unusual. In OceanGate's first two summers of Titanic operations, it spent a total of 50 days floating above the shipwreck site, but because of waves, bad weather and malfunctions, the Titan submersible actually made it to the Titanic only 12 times.
But through it all, Stockton Rush defended his unconventional approach: "I mean, anything when you're trying something outside the box, people inside the box think you're nuts. Same thing when Elon Musk was doing SpaceX. Inside the box, everything's scary."
But as early as 2018, there was concern about the Titan's design. A former employee says that when he raised safety concerns, Rush fired him. That same year, a group of submersible engineers urged Rush to seek certification of the Titan by a safety agency. Rush declined, saying that regulation would stifle innovation.
Rush told Pogue, "You know, at some point, safety just is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed, don't get in your car, don't do anything. At some point you're gonna take some risk, and it really is a risk/reward question. I said, 'I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.'"
Retired U.S. Navy submarine captain Alfred McLaren, who calculates he has spent a little over five-and-three-quarters years under the water, is not impressed by OceanGate's innovations. "I mean, would you fly in an airplane that somebody excitedly tells you, 'Well, it's gonna be a lot cheaper 'cause we found a new way of attaching the wings'? Yeah, right!"
McLaren theorizes that the Titan failed not because it was made of carbon fiber, but because it was made of three dissimilar materials: carbon fiber, titanium, and Plexiglas for the porthole. "When you have different materials, different molecular structure, they have different coefficients of expansion and compression. And then you make repeated cycles in depth? Of course you're gonna work that seal loose. And that's why submarines don't run around with any portholes at all, come to think of it. It's a weak point."
"I think there's a great, almost surreal irony here, which is Titanic sank because the captain took it full-steam into an ice field at night on a moonless night with very poor visibility after he had been repeatedly warned by telegram," Cameron said. "The arrogance and the hubris that sent that ship to its doom is exactly the same thing that sent those people in that sub to their fate."
Well, every year people do die skydiving, scuba diving, and climbing Mount Everest. Tragic every time, and yet, people keep coming. Some people just have that itch. For them, danger is the point. The risk of dying gives meaning to living.
The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company from the earlier Titan I missile. Titan II was originally designed and used as an ICBM, but was later adapted as a medium-lift space launch vehicle (these adaptations were designated Titan II GLV and Titan 23G) to carry payloads to Earth orbit for the United States Air Force (USAF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Those payloads included the USAF Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), NOAA weather satellites, and NASA's Gemini crewed space capsules. The modified Titan II SLVs (Space Launch Vehicles) were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, up until 2003.
Part of the Titan rocket family, the Titan II ICBM was the successor to the Titan I, with double the payload. Unlike the Titan I, it used hydrazine-based hypergolic propellant which was storable and reliably ignited. This reduced time to launch and permitted it to be launched from its silo. Titan II carried the largest single warhead of any American ICBM.[1]
The missile consists of a two-stage, rocket engine powered vehicle and a re-entry vehicle (RV). Provisions are included for in-flight separation of Stage II from Stage I, and separation of the RV from Stage II. Stage I and Stage II vehicles each contain propellant and pressurization, rocket engine, hydraulic and electrical systems, and explosive components. In addition, Stage II contains the flight control system and missile guidance system.[2] Stage I contained three gyros and the Autopilot. The Autopilot attempted to keep the missile straight during first stage flight and sent commands to the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) on the 2nd stage. The IMU would compensate and send steering commands to the engine actuators.
The airframe is a two-stage, aerodynamically stable structure that houses and protects the airborne missile equipment during powered flight. The missile guidance system enables the shutdown and staging enable relay to initiate Stage I separation. Each stage is 10 feet (3.0 m) in diameter and has fuel and oxidizer tanks in tandem, with the walls of the tanks forming the skin of the missile in those areas. External conduits are attached to the outside surface of the tanks to provide passage for the wire bundles and tubing. Access doors are provided on the missile forward, aft and between-tanks structure for inspection and maintenance. A removable cover for tank entry is located on the forward dome of each tank.[3]
The Stage I airframe consists of an interstage structure, oxidizer tank forward skirt, oxidizer tank, inter-tank structure, and fuel tank. The interstage structure, oxidizer tank forward skirt, and inter-tank structure are all fabricated assemblies using riveted skin, stringers and frame. The oxidizer tank is a welded structure consisting of a forward dome, tank barrel, an aft dome and a feedline. The fuel tank, also a welded structure, consists of a forward dome, tank barrel, aft cone, and internal conduit.[3]
The Stage II airframe consists of a transition section, oxidizer tank, inter-tank structure, fuel tank and aft skirt. The transition section, inter-tank structure and aft skirt are all fabricated assemblies using riveted skin, stringers and frame. The oxidizer tank and fuel tank are welded structures consisting of forward and aft domes.[3]
The first Titan II guidance system was built by ACDelco. It used an IMU (inertial measurement unit, a gyroscopic sensor) made by ACDelco derived from original designs from MIT Draper Labs. The missile guidance computer (MGC) was the IBM ASC-15. Stage I contained three gyros and the Autopilot. The Autopilot attempted to keep the missile straight during first stage flight and sent commands to the IMU on the 2nd stage. The IMU would compensate and send steering commands to the engine actuators. When spares for this system became hard to obtain, it was replaced by a more modern guidance system, the Delco Universal Space Guidance System (USGS). The USGS used a Carousel IV IMU and a Magic 352 computer.[4]
Titan II missiles were designed to be launched from underground missile silos that were hardened against nuclear attack. This was intended to allow for the United States to survive a nuclear first strike by an enemy and be able to retaliate with a second strike response.
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