Sir Richard Branson Quietly Shelves Virgin Submarine Plan 47
An anonymous reader writes with news that Sir Richard Branson's goal of diving to the deepest part of the ocean has been put on indefinite hold. "Sir Richard Branson has quietly shelved his latest adventure: an ambitious plan to pilot a submarine to the deepest points of the world's five oceans. The entrepreneur had a grand scheme to explore both space and sea. But his plan for the first rocket ship charging passengers for trips to the edge of space is in jeopardy after the craft crashed during a test flight, killing a pilot. Now Sir Richard's dream of exploring the lowest points on Earth is also on hold. Virgin Oceanic's DeepFlight Challenger submarine was unveiled in a blaze of publicity in April 2011, with Sir Richard describing its mission as 'the last great challenge for humans.' He had hoped the 18ft-long submarine, designed to 'fly' along the ocean floor, would make its maiden voyage to the bottom of the Pacific's Mariana Trench – at a depth of 36,000ft, the lowest known point on Earth – by the end of 2011, or failing that, by 2012."
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What do submarines have to do with Liru [photobucket.com]? (should be SFW)
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Why are you telling me this? Did you reply to the wrong comment?
Simpsons did it (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe he should ask James Cameron to borrow his deep-diving submersible [wikipedia.org].
Re: Yes, and... (Score:2)
No one will ever need more than 640 kB of memory for a personal computer...
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pretty sure space is the last great challenge. just got a hunch about it.
I'm Pretty sure it's death actually. I don't know of anyone who has overcome that yet.
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Well, there are many legends about various individuals who did such a thing. However, if there's any truth to the legends then those individuals are obviously keeping a low profile these days. Can't say I'd blame them - they'd probably start a war between those who would make them laboratory subjects and those who would make them gods. And I can't imagine either option would actually be very appealing, at least after the first few centuries.
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They're keeping a low profile, at least until The Gathering...
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Just wait and it will come. Where's the challenge?
No so easy as throwing money at it, is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Apollo programme was 4% of GDP, by itself. If I understand correctly, to date it has been the most expensive and ambitious applied sciences and engineering project that mankind has ever undertaken. I commend those that want to push the private bounds to recreate Apollo-type objectives, but even with techological improvements and increased knowledge from learning from the past it'll still be VERY expensive and VERY difficult.
Re:No so easy as throwing money at it, is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
If he actually threw money at these stunts it might help, but everything he does is on a - relatively - shoestring budget. Branson is really nothing more than a publicity seeker. If something works he gets all the kudos while the people who did the actual work you never hear about. And if it doesn't , well he'll just smile than kilowatt smile and do the whole humble awww-shucks-can't-win-em-all schtick and quietly steer the media onto his next stunt. Its getting really tedious.
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Right now in this political environment, progress will only happen with the few crazy err umm eccentric folks. With the money and resources to attempt it.
Now unlike the government failure is an option. Branson lost a test ship, so he just as a PR issue to fix. If this happened on a government funded watch, you will have congressional hearing (which will never turn out good) The guy who can't point his finger down will take the blame. The next years budget will get cut.
Re:No so easy as throwing money at it, is it? (Score:5, Informative)
The Apollo programme was 4% of GDP, by itself
The Apollo program cost ~$20B, over the better part of a decade, during a time when the US GDP was rose from around $600B to $1T. So, it used roughly 0.3% of the GDP over that time period.
Re:No so easy as throwing money at it, is it? (Score:5, Informative)
4% of the Federal budget, not GDP - and even then, it only touched that value for two years.
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Good! (Score:2)
Space exploration is a pretty good challenge on it's own. He should focus and bring it to practical success and then consider having more grand plans.
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PR or not, you have to hand it to the man for dreaming big when we all decided the other way. Sure, you're not going to hit 100% on ALL your targets. But the ones that *do hit will be the ones that matter.
Can't say I'm surprised (Score:3)
Branson has a track record of seriously underestimating the difficulty of the challenges he picks. Plus he seems to believe he can replicate serious engineering achievements - eg space flight - on a shoestring budget. Well sorry, but you can't. And I suspect the same goes for his submersible. Diving down 7 miles takes some seriously well thought out and strong engineering, not just some recreational sub with a few extra inches thickness of hill.
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Branson has a track record of seriously underestimating the difficulty of the challenges he picks. Plus he seems to believe he can replicate serious engineering achievements - eg space flight - on a shoestring budget. Well sorry, but you can't. And I suspect the same goes for his submersible. Diving down 7 miles takes some seriously well thought out and strong engineering, not just some recreational sub with a few extra inches thickness of hill.
Very true. Submarines are very complex craft that operate in a very hostile environment, and driving one takes skill, practice and teamwork. Flying along the ocean floor may sound fun and straightforward, and it is until you accidentally hit something and Davy Jones starts letting his water into your people tank.
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What's really interesting about this tale is that is was designed for Steve Fossett [wikipedia.org], a friend of Branson's for a single dive into the Marianas trench. It was bought off of his estate (along with a catamaran mother craft) for a measly one million dollars. At that price, one of the oceanographic institutions should have picked it up as it would be pretty useful for shallower dives - lots of interesting places in the ocean not quite as deep.
But Branson, the PR hack that he is, wanted to take it down repeated
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Well, if some rich guy is going to throw his wealth away, I'd rather he did it this way than on a personal zoo and a diamond-crusted Ferrari.
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Although, I have to admit, if *I* was rich I'd take the diamond-crusted Ferrari.
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Branson has a track record of seriously underestimating the difficulty of the challenges he picks. Plus he seems to believe he can replicate serious engineering achievements - eg space flight - on a shoestring budget.
You're overestimating the capability of SpaceShipOne/Two. It goes to space for all of a couple minutes. It does not go to orbit. The engineering requirements aren't nearly as tough. We've been sending unmanned vehicles up there since the early 40's, and manned ones up since the late 50's, back when NASA was still called NACA.
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Not to mention his bullshit about fighting global warming with a $3B investment. Collected all the publicity and goodwill when he made that announcement and never followed through or did anything of significance
under the sea (Score:1)
When the impact of this news sinks in Virgin's stocks are going to take a dive...
(So sorry)
The Virgin Submarine Plan (Score:2)
Sounds like a really bad porn movie.
Lazy headline writers - where's the "Deep Six"? (Score:5, Funny)
>> Sir Richard Branson Quietly Shelves Virgin Submarine Plan
"Quietly shelves"...really? From the department of less crappy headlines, here's a couple of freebies:
"Branson Deep Sixes Own Submarine Mission"
"What Do Sir Richard Branson and the Red October Have in Common?"
"Virgin Dive Aborted Before Anything Gets Wet"
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Virgin Submarine Plan - the "Eaten Alive" of enterprises...
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And why don't we have a Seawater Nutter Troll?
suck it up and lets move on people. (Score:2)
>> his plan ... for trips to the edge of space is in jeopardy after the craft crashed during a test flight, killing a pilot.
This is ridiculous. One death and a whole project is in jepaoardy? If previoyus generation had been so risk-averse, the whole of mankind would have never have gotten anywhere. No cars, planes, or even basic surgery.
Suck it up, learn from it and and lets move on, people.
Virgin submarines? (Score:1)
I didn't even know they could have sex.
Rule 42 people, get on it.
Think global! (Score:2)
More appropriate headline (Score:1)