The Ocean Sciences Building: A Modern Marvel
The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle stands as a modern, four-story structure with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street.
Lockdown and High-Pressure Testing
On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, the building was slowly being locked down. Red lights flashed at the entrances as students and faculty exited under overcast skies. Inside, a few people prepared to unleash one of nature’s most destructive forces: the crushing weight of about 2 miles of ocean water.
Testing the Cyclops 2 Model
In the high-pressure testing facility, a black, pill-shaped capsule hung from a ceiling hoist. This 3-foot-long model of a submersible, named Cyclops 2, was developed by a local startup. Engineers carefully lowered the model into the testing tank nose-first and secured the tank’s 3,600-pound lid. They began pumping in water to simulate a submersible’s dive. At sea level, the atmosphere exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). At the Titanic’s depth, the pressure is about 6,500 psi. The pressure gauge on UW’s test tank read 1,000 psi and kept increasing—2,000 psi, 5,000 psi. At the 73-minute mark, as the pressure reached 6,500 psi, there was a sudden roar and the tank shuddered violently.
“I felt it in my body,” an OceanGate employee wrote in an email later that night. “The building rocked, and my ears rang for a long time.”
“Scared the shit out of everyone,” he added.
The model had imploded thousands of meters short of the safety margin OceanGate had designed for.
OceanGate’s Ambitious Journey
Initial Reactions and Criticism
The disaster captivated and horrified the world. Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGate’s choices, from Titan’s carbon-fiber construction to Rush’s public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation. Organizations that had worked with OceanGate, including the University of Washington and the Boeing Company, released statements denying their contributions to Titan.
Revealing Internal Documents
A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to The Zero Byte by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development. These documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub project, although their work did not make it into the final Titan design. The documents also reveal a company culture where employees who questioned their bosses’ high-speed approach were dismissed as overly cautious or even fired.
Most notably, the documents show how Rush, driven by his ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGate’s progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titan’s hull.
A representative for OceanGate, which ceased all operations last summer, declined to comment on The Zero Byte’s findings.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush aboard the Cyclops 1 in 2015.
Photograph: Courtesy of Mark Harris
Meeting Stockton Rush
First Impressions
I met Stockton Rush on June 24, 2015, while reporting on OceanGate for New Scientist magazine. A former flight engineer and tech investor, Rush was already styling himself as a subaquatic Musk. “I wanted to be the first person on Mars until I realized there was nothing there,” Rush told me at a city center dock in Seattle. “But in the ocean, there are new life-forms, things people have never discovered.” Rush believed that Earth’s oceans, not outer space, were where humanity would find refuge from existential risks like climate change. “My goal is to move the needle,” he told me.
Testing the Cyclops 1
Employees were prepping OceanGate’s prototype submersible, the Cyclops 1, for its deepest dive to date. The sub was a cylindrical, steel-hulled design rated for dives up to 500 meters. OceanGate had acquired it a few years earlier and refurbished it, adding LEDs and a PlayStation controller for easy steering, and replacing an ugly exterior cabin with a sleek white plastic fairing to protect components outside the hull. Together with the large acrylic viewport, the effect was a sort of one-eyed robot shark. Up to five people could squeeze inside—which is what Rush and I were about to do, for a test dive in Seattle’s Elliott Bay.
Encountering Challenges
Ninety minutes later and 130 meters deeper, we were totally lost. First, the thruster software glitched, leaving us floating just above the seafloor. Then the sub’s compass acted up. The shipwreck we aimed to explore, a rail ferry that had once carried Teddy Roosevelt, was nowhere to be seen. All I could spy outside the Cyclops’ forward dome was the occasional salmon dancing in the frigid water.
As I began to feel the chill seeping through the sub’s steel hull, Rush asked me to open my iPhone’s compass app. He wanted to compare it to the one on his phone. The headings did not match, but he rebooted the thrusters and we set off in what he was pretty sure was the right direction.
“You’re heading in exactly the wrong direction,” said a faint voice transmitted via an acoustic link from the support ship tracking us on the surface.
We eventually located the sunken ship, its rotting bow emerging into the Cyclops’ headlight. It was an otherworldly experience, made more thrilling by the hint of danger.
Learning from Mistakes
Back at the dock, Rush brushed off the problems we had encountered. This is exactly why OceanGate started with the Cyclops 1, he said, rather than anything capable of diving deeper. “I could have built a multimillion-dollar version and all of a sudden I’ve got to figure out really stupid stuff like the magnetic compass,” he told me. “The Cyclops 1 is getting us ready. When we do the Cyclops 2, then all these bugs will be out.”
Introducing the Cyclops 2
The Cyclops 2, which Rush renamed Titan in 2018, was already on the drawing board. Rush believed he had the biggest bug—how to make a vessel that could safely dive 20 times deeper than America’s nuclear subs—worked out. He would use a modern wonder material: carbon fiber.
The Promise of Carbon Fiber
Carbon-fiber composites are some of the strongest materials available to engineers. They are formed of thin strands of atomic carbon within plastic resins, layer upon layer, then cured carefully at high temperatures. The resulting composites can be both stronger and lighter than titanium, and it was this combination that caught Rush’s attention.
### The Development of the Carbon-Fiber Titan Submersible
Introduction to Carbon-Fiber Submersibles
A carbon-fiber submersible, like the Titan, could match the size and weight of a steel submersible such as the Cyclops but dive up to 12 times deeper. This innovation would make it cheaper and easier to deploy at sea, while also being more buoyant, reducing the risk of getting stranded on the ocean floor. Despite carbon fiber’s widespread use in cars and rockets, no one had ever used it for deep-water submersibles before. Rush aimed to be the pioneer.
Partnership with the University of Washington
In 2013, OceanGate partnered with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory to develop the new sub. The university had experience with composites and underwater vehicles and had previously collaborated with OceanGate. Emails leaked to The Zero Byte reveal that UW researchers provided hundreds of detailed 3D CAD drawings for a carbon-fiber sub as part of a $5 million contract. However, the relationship soured, and UW claims they parted ways after just $650,000 worth of work. Former OceanGate employees confirmed that none of UW’s hardware or software was used in the final sub.
Boeing’s Involvement
OceanGate also announced that Boeing Research & Technology was assisting with the project. In October 2013, Boeing engineers Mark Negley and William Koch produced a detailed 70-page preliminary design. Despite this, Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal stated, “Boeing was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it.” The company declined to answer further questions.
The more innovative you get, the more testing you’ve got to do. It was pretty obvious that OceanGate wasn’t going to do the testing.
Will Kohnen, deep-sea submersibles expert
Challenges with Carbon Fiber
Negley and Koch highlighted potential issues with carbon fiber, noting that while it can be stronger than metal, it can also weaken unexpectedly. The manufacturing process can introduce defects, and the more layers a structure has, the greater the risk of a defect. Titan would ultimately have 660 layers of carbon fiber. The Boeing engineers recommended rigorous quality assurance and ultrasound testing of the hull to detect defects.
Manufacturing and Testing
OceanGate turned to Spencer Composites to manufacture the hull. Initially, a scaled-down model was tested, but it failed at pressures equating to around 3,000 meters. Subsequent tests with aluminum discs on the ends reached 4,100 meters without incident. However, new carbon-fiber domes again failed at 3,000 meters. The fourth test, which reached 4,500 meters before imploding, had a safety factor of just 1.18 for Titanic depths.
Damage to the scale model after imploding in the testing tank.
Photograph: Courtesy of a former OceanGate employee
Lack of Further Testing
Despite the test failures, Rush did not commission further models to test the interactions between new materials, citing high costs. Instead, OceanGate increased the thickness of the carbon-fiber hull from 4.5 to 5 inches and commissioned Spencer to build the real thing. However, the full-size hull was too thick for portable ultrasonic scanners, and a coating applied by Spencer further blocked the signals.
Expert Opinions
Submersible experts not associated with OceanGate suggested more extensive testing for a new design. Adam Wright, an engineer who worked on Steve Fossett’s carbon-fiber sub, stated they tested at least 10 scale-model pressure hulls to destruction. Chase Hogoboom, president of Composite Energy Technologies, emphasized that while carbon fiber is a sensible material if engineered and manufactured correctly, it requires significant investment and time.
Conclusion
OceanGate tested the model hull to destruction only once and never used the titanium components that would be part of the final sub. Instead, they relied on computer models and increased the hull thickness, despite expert advice for more rigorous testing.### The Titan Submersible: A Story of Innovation and Controversy
Decision Against Scanning
Rush, the head of OceanGate, decided that moving the entire submersible to a lab for scanning was too costly. This decision went against the advice of both Boeing and OceanGate engineers, resulting in no scans being made.
Key components of the Titan submersible
Design and Testing of the Viewport
Unlike its predecessor, Cyclops 1, which had a large 180-degree viewing dome, Titan’s front dome was made of solid titanium with a smaller 23-inch viewport in the center. This viewport, designed by Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s director of engineering, was to be manufactured by Hydrospace Group.
Will Kohnen, CEO of Hydrospace, expected Rush to test the viewport according to the rigorous standards set by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. These standards included testing at least five windows to destruction at high pressure, cycling a viewport from low to high pressure a thousand times, and subjecting another viewport to five times the intended pressure for 300 consecutive hours.
“The more innovative you get, the more testing you’ve got to do,” Kohnen says. “Over a period of years, it was pretty obvious that OceanGate wasn’t going to do the testing.”
Concerns and Warnings
By the fall of 2017, Kohnen was worried. In November, he sent Rush an email offering a serious discount to build a second viewport using a tested and certified design. Rush declined the offer.
Kohnen delivered OceanGate’s viewport in December, rating it to only 650 meters—one-sixth of the depth to the Titanic. He also shared an analysis, done pro bono by an independent expert, concluding that OceanGate’s design might fail after only a few 4,000-meter dives. Despite these warnings, OceanGate installed the viewport in Titan later that month.
Internal Disputes
As construction on the sub neared completion, the company advertised its first expedition to the Titanic in May. However, David Lochridge, who oversaw marine operations, became convinced that Titan was unsafe. In January 2018, he sent Rush a quality-control inspection report detailing 27 issues with the vehicle, including questionable O-ring seals, missing bolts, flammable materials, and concerns about its carbon-fiber hull. Rush fired him the next day.
Although Lochridge later made a whistleblower report to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Rush sued him for breach of contract. The settlement resulted in Lochridge dropping his complaint, paying OceanGate nearly $10,000, and signing an NDA.
Industry Concerns
Will Kohnen couldn’t forget about Titan and the foreboding he had about the whole enterprise. He thought, “We have a rogue element within the submersible industry.” In March 2018, he drafted a letter, signed by more than 30 crewed submersible experts, urging Rush to test the vessel with an accredited outside group.
4 Comments
Was the Titan Submersible doomed from the start?
Can we even blame the engineers for the Titan disaster?
That Titan disaster is just the tip of the iceberg!
Imagine if the safety protocols were actually followed for once.