My Experience Aboard The OceanGate Sub — With David Pogue of CBS

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2023-06-27

YouTube video id: WcEjISrdQl4

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcEjISrdQl4

David so great to have you here welcome
to the show thank you so much
so just to start off how did you first
hear about this sub because you know it
does strike me that so many people have
you know heard about it but it was news
to most of the world so where did you
first encounter it uh Stockton Rush the
now familiar name the CEO of Ocean Gate
and the designer of the sub uh was a fan
of our show
and he sent over an invitation to our
producers that said we we could
accommodate three of you on our support
ship for one of our nine-day Expeditions
and there's room for two of you on an
actual dive into the Titanic
um
somehow The Producers thought of me
maybe because my science background
science explaining background and I was
so excited I see a lot of stuff online
about like his his boss is probably
forced him to do that or risk firing him
like it wasn't like that I was it was my
answer was in all caps let me at it so I
was I mean I could not imagine a more
thrilling assignment but you're going 12
000 Feet Under the Sea and you're going
way deep
and there must have been and we're
obviously going to get in some of the
safety stuff but what sort of goes
through your mind in terms of safety is
it just like oh well this guy is going
down there anyway so we should probably
be okay or what are the calculations
that run through your head when you get
an invite like that I mean one thing
that's been missing from all the
discussion about me not that this is
about me but I have been lynched on
Twitter
um one one of the things that I don't
think most people understand is that
I've been I've hosted 20 specials for
Nova on PBS these are science specials
and the team I work with there has a
philosophy of really telegenic
experiments and so to illustrate various
scientific points
they've had me ride in a demolition
derby car they've had me hand gliding
they've had me Swimming with Sharks
they've you know tried to freeze me in a
chamber
um it's all in the name of you know
making interesting memorable television
and I always agree because I just don't
think anyone would want to kill me on
camera I don't think that would be a
good look especially Ocean Gate whose
purpose of this is obviously to draw
attention to their outfit
um I I just took that as a given that
they want to look as good as possible
um
as it turns out they were very unhappy
with the story but oh really well
because so there is this moment in the
story where you talk about how it's a
great story by the way if you're
listening I recommend folks check it out
but there's a moment where you highlight
how so much of it has been Jerry rigged
effectively where there's a light from I
don't know something like a home a
camping store and it's now this is
apparently standard with Subs but it's
controlled by a retro retrofitted
PlayStation controller and there's this
amazing scene in your report where
you're like on the sub descending and he
shows you the PlayStation controller and
you kind of lose your mind I mean what's
going through your mind so you'd
obviously trusted the safety you're not
gonna get you don't think you're gonna
get killed on camera
um I I don't know like I would imagine
you'd want to do a little bit more
planning than that but then you see that
the way that this thing has been built
and there's like only the only way to
open it is from the outside
are you starting to question your
decision to go on that when you see that
stuff like what is going through your
mind then
um no there were so many reasons to
believe in the safety of this sub first
of all he told us it had been designed
in collaboration with NASA Boeing and
the University of Washington we should
talk about that at some point secondly
it had made 20 uneventful Dives to the
Titanic depths and back
without a blink thirdly probably the
most famous one of the most famous
living Titanic explorers in the world pH
narzole was on board as an Ocean Gate
employee he had been
looking over the design construction and
testing of the titans of merciful and
fully approved and this guy has been on
every Titan submersal every Titanic
submersible there ever was he was on the
mirror from Russia he was on the notil
from France
um so he's seen them all and he
approved the design and went down on it
every trip
um and he ended up being there when it
did implode so he lost his life as well
that's right
um there is a very obvious culture of
safety among the crew I mean this thing
is run like a rocket launch with
long countdowns and checklists and
inspections and mandatory twice daily
briefings even if you're not diving you
have to be there where they go through
every single line of every single
spreadsheet about every single component
and confirm that it's been recharged and
refreshed and ready and Polished they
cancel these Dives
on the least with the least provocation
you know the tiniest thing our CBS dive
was canceled at 37 feet down because
the way they the way they do this is
they have a big floating platform maybe
five feet high and 20 feet square the
sub is bolted on top they sync the
platform let the air out until it's 35
feet under water because the water is
calmer Under the Sea so that's why they
do it that way it's much more dangerous
to try to launch in bobbing waves and
then they send scuba divers to detach
the sub from the platform and the sub
drives away so on our dive
there are these black
four foot oval floats at the corners of
the platform that just keep it facing
the right keep it upright and on this
dive two of them came untied and started
floating away on the sea well
that has nothing to do with the sub the
sub was fine we were done with the
platform part I just thought it was a
stupid reason to cancel the dive and I
was annoyed but again
now it looks different as I look back on
it and part of their culture
was
we don't even tolerate Little Things
so there are many reasons to think that
this was okay I didn't sleep the night
before just because well the ship was
rocking badly and I had a lot to process
and I had a One-Shot chance at this this
is our only chance to go down
and maybe there was some lizard brain
screaming for survival it might be
unconscious in some way so one of the
things I've wondered about this the
whole way through is is this sub like
was this sub something that was pushing
forward exploration or was it simply a
very expensive Disney ride for people
who wanted to go see the Titanic well
this is something else that not a single
news report has mentioned it was a
combination science Expedition
and
Extreme Adventure tourism opportunity so
what I mean by that is there's five
seats on the sub
there's always a pilot
there's three paying passengers and then
there's a scientist on board every dive
there is a scientist he is there to show
you what you're looking at this is
there's a marine biologist there's an
undersea archaeologist
um
and if you think about it Stockton Rush
could have sold that seat to another
passenger he could have made another
quarter of a million dollars per dive
but he didn't he in effect the
passengers are subsidizing science and
there was a long interview I did with
two of these scientists and I mean they
are doing publishable actual research
one of the things they were doing that
no one else can do is longitudinal
studies of the wreck and what that means
is over time so this outfit goes down
five times a summer
and this was its third summer so for the
first time in history these scientists
can observe the Titanic
over time not just the deterioration of
the hull but also what's growing on it
on our dive they were doing e-dna which
is this really cool technology where
they grab water from around the sub from
around the wreck and then they bring it
back on the surface and analyze the DNA
they can tell every Critter that's been
near the Titanic in the last 24 hours
amazing and every time they do that they
see new Critters including species that
have never been seen before so this was
very much a scientific Endeavor as well
as a consumer one and Alex have you ever
heard that in any of the news reports I
have not
so it's good that we're here talking
about it
one thing that I also wonder about going
down to the Titanic is that it feels
almost a bit a cob like the fact that
people like people who came up on the
sub that you were on seemed Overjoyed
about the photos they had gotten and the
views they had gotten of this wreck but
effectually effectively what they just
did was
visit one of the world's largest
underground graveyards right where so
many people lost their lives and one of
the most tragic ways possible so can you
help like explain a little bit about
like the thrill of seeing something so
historic balanced with the fact that it
it's really a tragic place to visit not
an exciting place to visit or maybe it
is but we do that though we visit
Gettysburg we visit the Taj Mahal these
are graveyards we do that to honor the
people who died in those events so um I
had a long conversation with Stockton
Rush about this and he said I think that
the people who object are
are wrong because first of all this
wreck won't be there in 50 years it's
going to be a lump of rust
and if we're not there filming it
shooting it making models of it
then it'll be gone and no one will be
able to learn anything from it and uh he
did joke we don't have a gift shop
but we are
we are no different
from any other famous grave site that
people go to show their respects
absolutely and it is just pretty wild I
mean how the Titanic has been just this
thing that's
stuck in the globe's Consciousness I
mean it is there's something about it
right that just captures people's
imagination to maybe they put themselves
in the place there I'm curious what you
think it is that is it the
maybe it's nature pushing back I mean
it's kind of ironic right but it is
nature pushing back about humans you
know belief that they can control the
world and impose their will on it I mean
I think I think that's most of it I mean
there have been many shipwrecks
some much more dramatic some much more
cool looking underwater
um but it's this one because it was this
the ship that couldn't sink and it was
its first maiden voyage
and uh and of course the movie The James
Cameron movie
kind of made it up popular pop cultural
icon so I think all those things
continue to
make it a singular icon yeah so what was
your first thought when you heard that
it had gone missing
the first thing I thought was oh my God
these media making a big deal out of
nothing you know I'm sorry to say but I
mean I knew I had been with this thing
long enough to know that it glitches all
the time all the time they all do the
mirror the Alvin the nautil all of these
submersibles glitch all the time and
through all this through this whole
conversation let's keep in mind what
phnas really told me all submersibles
are prototypes these are not mass
produced there was not a 1.0 and this is
2.0 they are all one-offs and that means
there are no
spares there's no mass-produced parts to
swap in so things go wrong all the time
James Cameron had to cancel Dives the
Alvin had to cancel Dives the No Deal
had to cancel Dives there's a Chinese
one and a Japanese one all of them
glitch all the time on our week over the
Titanic
um you may remember that uh there was a
team of paying passengers who went down
and got lost
I don't mean they were out of contact
with the surface ship I mean they were
lost they they didn't know where they
were they couldn't find the ship there's
no such thing as GPS underwater so what
they do is in the control room on the
surface ship they can see both the sub
and the pieces of the wreck and they
Direct
the ship using text messages sent as
acoustic pulses through the water radio
waves don't travel through water either
by the way so only acoustic pulses and I
have this great picture of the codes
that they use the text messages are like
are like three characters long you know
like you know xxy means we've reached
the bottom and so on
um so the control room on Deck has to
direct the sub which way to go to find
the Titanic and on this occasion
for some reason the Ocean Gate GPS
system and the ship's own GPS system
were disagreeingly with each other
so they kept sending instructions down
to Stockton in the sub
and
giving him bad directions and we had a
GoPro in there and we recorded all this
and you can just hear them going you
just said we're 100 feet off it to the
right and now we're 500 feet off it to
the left you know what's going on yeah
um and they came up they came up after
four hours they never saw anything they
saw a boiler but they didn't see the
ship
um and so when I heard that the thing
was missing
I thought oh okay so it's a it's a comms
glitch
then
then I heard a couple hours later
that this news was coming out 24 hours
after it lost moms that's a different
matter then
you know my stomach dropped out of my
body so let's go back right into your
experience when when you said I mean
basically it's like sitting in a tube
um and how long were you down there and
what was it like when you were when you
were there did you and did you have any
worries like what have I just done I
would be I would be freaking out and I'm
not claustrophobic or anything like that
but
um it's it's not bad it's it's like uh I
like to say it's like a minivan it's
it's tubular so the walls are rounded
but the floor is flat there's no chairs
um it's very modern looking very cool
looking uh you know the the hull of
course is a carbon fiber cylinder five
inches thick and you may not drill
anything into carbon fiber you may not
interrupt that surface so they did
something very clever they inserted a
sleeve
like think of a like a rolled up poster
inside its mailing tube right that
pressed up against the carbon fiber and
they could connect things to the sleeve
this sleeve was metal with perforations
all around it and Stockton put the
lights
on the outside of it so it's shown
through the little holes and gave the
whole thing a really cool modernistic
look
um so yeah so you sit on the floor it
holds five people it could even hold six
people
um you're sitting with your back against
the curved wall with your legs
alternating right side left side and
then Stockton sits or or the other pilot
Scott sits against the back wall uh
facing forward
um it's not cramped it's I mean you
can't stand up but you can shift you can
stick your legs out you can sit
cross-legged
there is
um a titanium Dome at either end
and remember that the floor
you know in effect cuts off part of the
cylinder
so what I'm saying is if you're in front
you can turn 90 degrees so you're facing
forward you can sit on the lip of the
floor with your feet hanging down into
the titanium Dome so it becomes it feels
more like a chair
yeah I'm going to get back into what
what happened with this
ill-fated Voyage but just to go back
quickly to your story so
was it like a pretty smooth ride and
then you just come up on the Titanic and
you take a look for you know 30 minutes
or so or
well remember I I never saw the Titanic
our guy was aborted but I of course I
interviewed all the people who did make
it down right um apparently it's really
cool
going down and I've seen the videos what
they can do is turn those subs external
lights off and you see these
bioluminescence like bioluminescent snow
and they're flying up past the porthole
um they're they're you know little micro
Plankton and micro shrimp but they they
have their own glow it's very cool it's
very peaceful they play music all the
way down they they just what do you want
to hear I want to hear Eric Clapton
um everybody has a sandwich and a bottle
of water it gets colder and colder and
colder
when you are at the bottom the water is
29 degrees and if you think about it
that's below freezing and that's because
salt water freezes at a lower
temperature than regular water so they
tell you to wear layers and bring ski
socks and bring a winter jacket
um and then the the subs external flood
lights have a range of about 12 feet
so usually you're just seeing empty sand
an empty Sandy plane in front of you and
then when you do find the Titanic
I mean you can hear on the GoPro they
just lose their minds
there there it just kind of like emerges
out of the Blackness this in this
prow Hall
um you got to realize it's partly buried
in the sand so it's even bigger than it
looks and as you get closer you know we
think of it as a big Rusty piece of
metal but as you get closer you realize
it's actually incredibly colorful you
can still see the red and black paint
um the critters on it are very colorful
the rusticles which are these
Rusty looking icicles are orange so yeah
I mean people who made it down say their
lives were changed yeah
and so okay you were initially like
pretty hopeful
after hearing that it had gone missing
it had been 24 hours but the scenarios
that you were thinking about was that
like they had potentially just lost
communication
right so so once I once they've been
gone for 24 hours I mean I didn't
I didn't like to think about this but
there are really only three things that
could have happened and so much of the
speculation online was so uninformed the
only things that could possibly explain
a loss of communication are number one
it imploded
number two it got to the bot it lost
power
so therefore couldn't communicate
because remember it wasn't yet to the
bottom when they lost communication it
was only an hour and 45 minutes in
so the second possibility is they lost
power and they got snagged on something
on the bottom either embedded in the
silt or caught on the Titanic there was
a submersible a few years ago that got
hooked on the Titanic's uh propeller and
they had to wiggle free that seemed like
a stretch and the third possibility is
they lost power
but the and so they were on the surface
somewhere bobbing
um one another thing that nobody else
reported is that this thing had so many
redundant life support systems it had
seven different ways of returning to the
surface you know they could dump
construction pipes they could dump
sandbags they could they had an air
bladder that make a balloon they could
dump their legs and so on
some of these were designed to work even
if the electricity went out
it was a manual mechanical lever some of
them were designed to work even if the
Hydraulics went out and one of these
backup systems would work even if
everyone inside was unconscious or dead
it was a time release 16 hour dissolving
sandbag hook so
if they were floating on the surface
there without power
that would be a really horrific way to
go because you'd be looking out the
porthole at the air you need but you
can't reach it because
you were bolted in
so I was hoping
that if they had to die that it was
implosion because they would not have
seen that coming it would have been
just cessation of Consciousness yeah and
James Cameron when he was asked about it
basically said that he knew that it was
it was an implosion from the beginning
there's a tremendous amount of pressure
we can talk about that that ends up you
know being pushed on the sub and what he
pointed to is that carbon fiber was
actually like it's very good for keeping
gas in keeping pressure in but very bad
for repelling pressure outward I'm
curious what you think about that
I mean you gotta remember this was this
is not a science experiment this this
thing had been designed with experts it
had been tested many times Stockton
first made a one-third scale model
nobody talks about this he took it to
the University of Washington subjected
it to pressure pressure pressure until
it imploded to see what the level of
pressure was that it could handle the
carbon fiber also had an acoustic
monitoring system carbon fibers are
actual fibers they're like hairs and
when they break they make a little
Crackle and he had eight microphones
embedded that could pick up on the
crackling and he said you know in
testing they take it down to a thousand
feet and they'd hear it crackling and so
they'd come back up
then they go back down a week later to a
thousand feet no crackling this time
they go down to two thousand feet until
it started to crackle then they go back
up in other words the weak fibers had
already died so each so they they tested
it and tested it until there were no
more fibers
to pop
right um and that's so anyway there's so
CBS News posted on the CBS News website
the complete transcripts of the four
interviews I did with Stockton and if
anybody actually cares about the science
of it or the background or the testing
they did
they should they should go read the
transcript I'm not you know of course
I'm not a stocking Rush apologist but my
God the things people are saying you
know they they make it sound like he
built this thing out of Lego and threw
it in the water it's it was tested and
it was inspected by some of the greatest
Minds in submersibles so it's
it's not as simple as the guy was
shooting blind so how did this thing
implode then
um I believe that I interviewed a
veteran
Navy pilot for CBS and I I believe that
he's correct meaning submarine pilot
that it's not the carbon fiber
it's the dissimilar materials connected
to it so the titanium end caps and the
Plexiglas porthole seven inch thick
what happens is each of them has a
different coefficient of compression and
expansion in other words under pressure
under temperature change they each
expand and contract a little bit
differently
and I keep saying
wow uh he'd been down 20 times without
an incident that gave me reassurance
but but this Theory says no no that
shouldn't have given you reassurance
that's what should have terrified you
because that's called cyclic cyclical
fatigue every time the thing goes down
and back up again you're weakening it
so I believe that the carbon fiber did
not give way I think that his acoustic
monitoring system never went off
but what happened was all it takes is a
you know a couple molecules of water in
the scene between the carbon fiber and
the titanium or the titanium and the
Plexiglas
and it's over
David I mean you were like a couple
months away like if you had been there a
few months later you'd be dead how do
you feel about that uh it's it's worse
than that
um after our aborted dive
um they made two more that week
um the one that got lost and then the
one that was successful
and then we we came back to Shore and
they brought in the last group of the
summer and they made it down once
and so if you think about it the only
thing that separated the CBS crew and
the Fatal dive was three Dives I was it
was like it's like Russian Roulette so
um
it's honestly been a lot to process
um this has been a really rough week you
know there's there's anger there's
little survivor's guilt there's
unbelievable gratitude you know at the
luck and
uh yeah I'll be thinking about it for a
long time
David Pogue is here with us he's a
correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and
also the host of The Unsung science
podcast which you can get of your
podcast on your podcast app of choice on
the other side we're going to talk a
little bit more about the merits of risk
and exploration and a little bit more
about David's experience on the sub back
after this
and we're back here with David Pogue he
is the host of The Unsung science
podcast he's a correspondent on CES
Sunday morning and also the author of
many books you can go check them out on
Amazon or with your local bookstore
um David actually this is like the
second time we're talking on a podcast I
don't know if you remember but you are
on my my first podcast which I started
like 10 years ago I probably should have
kept it going it was called on the
program and it was kind of Jerry rigged
like the well anyway I won't make a
comparison but um we talked about your
very creative proposal video
um and I you know
we didn't really have sound we didn't
really have an audience and so I
appreciate it I guess things have
changed since then but um it's good to
be back on with you thank you you too
so let's talk a little bit more about
the merits of risk and exploration there
was a line we talked about it on the
show Friday when we were going over what
happened but there's a line that
Stockton Rush used where he said at some
point safety is just a 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
you know in retrospect I'm curious what
you think about that line people are
saying I mean this is kind of what we
spoke about when we were on Friday we do
a show on Friday talking a little bit
about
um the week's news but basically like
there's a difference between like being
open to risk and preparing for every
possible
outcome and then also just taking
Reckless risk so actually like actually
hearing you now I'm thinking okay maybe
this wasn't as Reckless as I thought in
the beginning but to hear that line
about safety it does I think that's kind
of what set off a lot of people about
Stockton saying well come on get come on
man what were you doing I mean he did
a lot of sort of swashbuckling for the
camera and it did not age well I mean no
he said all kinds of things and on our
follow-up story for CBS Sunday Morning
um that appeared on Sunday you can find
it on YouTube
um
you see more of that kind of stuff where
you know he he I mean his other line is
when you when you think outside the box
all the people still in the box think
you're crazy and
um
he says it when you'll see on camera he
said he's saying it with a smirk he's
he's trying he's trying to be a little
provocative he fancies himself fancied
himself with a little bit of Elon Musk a
little bit of Steve Jobs to whom he
compared himself often
um
and I have to say that's not a red flag
um
no because you don't know yeah I mean it
seemed like he'd done it he'd done it 20
times yeah he built a sub that nobody
said could work and and done it to the
Titanic depths 20 times
I should also say there's another part
of this story that that nobody's talking
about and that is that he started out as
an aerospace engineer and he built and
flew his own airplanes he made his first
plane out of fiberglass a composite
material and all the experts said
exactly the same stuff you can't do that
it won't work you're gonna kill yourself
today guess what every airliner in the
world is made of Composites he's very
proud of that and I think that had
a big effect on his psyche I think I
think that made him feel like I do know
what I'm doing with these unusual
materials and when people started saying
you can't use carbon fiber for the sub
of course he's going to say oh my God
I've seen this movie before
everybody says you can't do it a new way
and trust me you know 20 years from now
everybody will be doing it this way and
he said that he said that I asked him
if carbon fiber is so great and the
reason he loved it is its strength to
buoyance rate or buoyancy ratio in other
words most of these Subs are made of
titanium they're very heavy if you put
them in water they sink this thing if
you put it in water it floats
so that's a good thing for a sub to have
and that's why he loved it
but
he said I asked him if it's so great why
isn't everybody building the
submersibles this way and you said they
will
would you get in another sub built out
of carbon fiber after seeing what
happened
um I mean I would I would need to know
if it's tested and stuff but but yeah I
don't think the carbon fiber failed I
don't think maybe I'll maybe I'll turn
out to be wrong and yeah and I'll I will
be sorry I appeared on your podcast but
it seems to me at this moment that the
most likely thing that happened is
something in the scenes between the
different materials
you know you've referenced it a couple
of times that there's like a national
narrative or an international narrative
and then your belief of what happened
and it's kind of interesting for a
journalist because typically we're on
one side like we're telling the story
and the subject is like come on like you
got some parts wrong you kind of are in
this really interesting position where
you're both you know you are a
journalist telling the story but you're
also someone who's experienced this and
in some part subject and even though in
your report they complained about but
I'm curious what your perspective is
having been so deep inside the story and
then seeing the way that the story's
been told nationally like
can you reflect on that for a minute
what's that been like it's it's been
like nothing I can possibly describe you
and I both know how social media works
we both know how misinformation
propagates
but this thing was nuts I I was on One
show at one point one TV show and I'm
waiting to go on and they are they're
reporting on the on the disaster and
they put up a graphic this is a national
network uh it's a it's a schematic of
how you sit in the sub
and it shows the five people sitting
like a conga line like with my feet on
either side of your butt and your feet
on either side of the next person's butt
all facing forward and I'm like what
that is this and then on the side are
four bullet points all four of which are
wrong the first one says only one person
can stand up at a time
what
that doesn't make any sense for like
multiple reasons no one can stand up and
if they could why would it only be one
person it's a cylinder anyway
um
yeah it's been really distressing and
you know the the hate that I've had to
endure much of it was based on this
information
um on the fourth of our five days above
the wreck uh there was this dive as I
mentioned they could not find the
Titanic and they spent four hours
tooling around in the dark and then had
to come up
um and so everyone's like why didn't you
report that you lying sack of
I did would you look at the video would
you listen to the podcast that of course
I reported that of course
I was the one who broke the story of the
jerry-rigged parts I was the one who
reported how often they cancel the Dives
it just
it's anyway you're frustrating people on
Twitter of course yeah that one of the
things that I think have made people
skeptical well not of you I'm talking
about of these Ocean Gate people is that
they work so hard on message control
right and that's kind of something that
you did bring out in your reporting or
maybe more recently that they had
actually shut off the internet when they
couldn't connect with the sub and that
prevented anybody from tweeting about it
including people who might have widely
followed Twitter accounts so talk yeah a
little bit about it I mean I feel like
if you're there in the name of science
you allow whatever you know the
transparency you know to flourish but
that was not the case with Ocean Gate
you know I've spent a lot of time
focusing on that moment so during the
time that the sub was lost on the
seafloor the CVS crew and actually
everybody else was on the The Bridge of
the ship with the control room people
which is primarily Wendy Rush Stockton's
wife ran the comms and the various
experts and and scientists and
they shut off the ship's Wi-Fi
so we couldn't tweet we couldn't get
email and on Sunday just after just
after the news broke I tweeted about you
know this isn't the first time they've
had a disaster you know a problem with
the sub on my week the sub got lost on
the bottom and in fact they shut off the
Wi-Fi so I couldn't tweet about it and
what so what actually happened was I
went up to one of the Ocean Gate
staffers and said dude what's with the
Wi-Fi and his answer was we if this is
an emergency we're going to need the
bandwidth we're going to need
you know to call Coast Guard we're going
to need Communications and we can't have
a bunch of people tweeting and uploading
pictures
it's a plausible answer I don't know if
he was lying maybe they were just trying
to prevent bad news from sneaking out to
the public there's no way to know
um I was being a little bit cynical that
day and I said it was to stop us from
tweeting
um we'll never know
um there's also if you want to draw a
line between the data points you know a
similar question is why did it take them
so long to notify the Coast Guard that
the sub had gone missing I think it was
a number of hours
um but again
there's also a plausible explanation
which is these things glitch all the
time and usually it comes back right so
do you launch a very expensive
taxpayer-funded Manhunt if it turns out
that it was just a fluke that comes back
we did yeah I did get a question about
this on Twitter from
um someone this person joren who is
asking why taxpayers have to pay
millions to rescue uh the people who
took this huge risk aboard an unlicensed
vessel like for instance if you want to
climb Mount Everest you need to get a
permit so do you think it's like this is
a big point in the story that people
have talked about you know it's very big
government rescues
um that were basically were sent out to
people who did take a risk and you know
we have and this the other thing that's
been talked about is there was this you
know boat of migrants that went down off
the coast of Greece 800 people died and
you didn't see half of the government
resources marshaled there so talk about
that
I mean just it just makes my blood boil
I mean it's the white girl in danger
scenario and if you heard this term but
when there's a white girl in danger it's
National headlines or pictures on the
front page of our newspaper if it's an
identical black girl you just don't hear
about it it's
it's the same thing it's it's
billionaires
in a submersible to the Titanic that's
news that's exciting that we care about
but that hundreds of migrants in that
ship went down in Greece and I mean I
honestly I of course I was up to my neck
in Hell last week but my son comes in
and goes did you know that the ship went
down at the same time as the sub and no
one's talking about it it's it's a
conversation we need to have when you
think about government resources do you
do you believe the government resources
should go I mean if you're like let's
say you're the allocator of government
resources do you go to do the search and
rescue on the sub or do you send it
towards migrants in distress what do you
think that
it seems like an obvious answer yes it
doesn't seem right it does not seem
right I mean the Coast Guard was asked
this question
and their answer was we are here to
serve doesn't matter the situation
that's what we do but
I mean
I remember one time I um
on my honeymoon I went to Australia and
we got to climb
Uluru that big bizarre Rock
Ayers Rock it's also called in the
middle of of the desert and everybody
gets heat stroke everybody passes out
everybody has problems they have to do
daily rescues of dumb tourists who bite
off more than they can chew and so I
read that a few years ago they just said
that's it nobody else climbs ulurum and
I mean that's
what I mean but besides like saying you
can't do this
and
the government forces will save you
is there another option
it's hard to say I mean it's more of
like where do you want to allocate
resources versus like because ultimately
they have to governments always make
choices that's sort of like the the
whole idea of governing is where do you
decide to deploy yeah
it's interesting that
I mean one of the things this really
highlights like actually your story
about that rock
um stories of Everest even in New
Zealand there was this white Island that
has this volcano that was another big
story where lots of tourists got caught
in this volcano
there's Everest of course and now we're
starting to see even more space tourism
uh what is it about
Humanity's desire or you the condition
of people that makes them want to go
explore despite the dangers
I mean I think that's it I think you
just said it is is there's a romance to
it there's an achievement Factor when
you do something dangerous and and
survive I mean you've outsmarted death
you know on the on the follow-up story
on Sunday morning
I said you know is this is this going to
be the end of Adventure tourism are they
going to shut all these things down
no I don't think so because like you
can't stop people from having that itch
for some people and I think Stockton
Rush is one of them
you know cheating danger cheating death
gives meaning to life
and I I'm not really one of them I've
never been skydiving or
uh you know visiting a volcano but
um but I certainly know people who are
like that and they are driven they are
driven to these extremes
after this yeah go ahead I mean just
like in the end if they know the danger
and they're aware
I think people should be allowed to do
what they want
after this experience do you think I
mean you're a big space guy like a lot
of your coverage is about space do you
think you'd you would get on one of
those ships and go to space Oh man
um
probably not I feel like there's no
change within you
yes yes
um I I think uh Rockets still
have to pour a record
um
to me this sub was Far safer than a blue
origin or a SpaceX I mean obviously that
looks insane now but it imploded yeah I
know but there was before and then
there's now I had different set of
information then
um
but thought about your rule that if
someone wants to take you on T you know
take you on something they're they don't
want to kill you
so that's altered a bit
yeah it has
it has I mean I I'm not sure I would be
able to do any more of these extreme
television stunts anyway just because my
wife
says it's not it's not happening I mean
when I saw her after this
news broke she just rushed in and she
just
she just held me so tight and she was
crying and you know that the fact that
we were three Dives away from
the end yeah it's a lot to process okay
last question for you I mean I think
this is the first story that you've
reported on where like the subjects of
your story died doing the thing that you
were reporting on
so what what is that
um yeah just reflect on that for a bit
as we end here
you know
when I watch
the footage of these interviews we did
with Stockton and pH natural a
I mean it was so recently they are you
know usually when we see footage of
older people who died you can sort of
tell by the medium you know it's VHS
quality if it was the 80s it's black and
white and jerky if it was the 1920s you
could tell by the medium that this
happened a long time ago and something
inside you says you know that they're
dead of course they're dead because they
lived a long time and then they died
this is different it's it's 4K it's high
it was 11 months ago and it just it just
doesn't seem right that those if there's
a mismatch to think that those people
I was just talking to have died
um yeah I have I haven't gotten used to
it at all yeah David Pogue thank you so
much for joining really appreciate it
thanks a lot thanks everybody for
listening we will see you on Friday I
want to say thank you Nick guatney for
handling our audio LinkedIn for having
me as part of your podcast Network and
yes we'll be up again on Friday with our
news breakdown we'll see you next time
on big technology podcast