Richard Branson Announces Virgin Oceanic Submarine 122
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.'"
Re:37,000 feet deep? (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.