I just read something by Neil Degrasse Tyson who explains that subsea work is HARDER than space. The pressure differential on the ISS is 1 atm. The pressure differential at the Titanic site is 400 atm. And that water stream when you are messing with the paddlewheel? About 1/5 atm!
Who can be invoiced? The CGs did the jobs that they are empowered and funded to do with the money we give them to do it. It’s spent. If a call for assistance goes out for which there a response, there’s no charge to anyone unless it proved to be a fake. Nothing illegal about getting yourself into a mess where the government is expected to, and often does, bail you out from, or attempts to. Consider the relative cost of student loan forgiveness, bank rescues, bankruptcy court, and endlessly on, etc., including every USCG deployment for search and rescue. Relatively speaking, the rescue attempt was pennies against those kinds of dollars!
I think we do. I can't imagine the company, which will now probably declare bankruptcy, has the assets to cover that huge search operation.
Must remember, according to reports, US Coast Guard Command may have known early or strongly suspected that the Titan did not surface. (Navy implosion sound data.) No need therefore for extensive continued search of surface waters. In the end all that was needed was to send an ROV to the deployment/dive site to search for the wreckage, etc., probably with location coordinates, and which was found rather quickly. I doubt anyone would be expected to reimburse for a willful search of an area “twice the size of Connecticut” for HIGHLY UNLIKELY survivors unless, perhaps, someone important actually requested it—family $$? We’re talking billionaire passengers here, afterall.
I don't disagree with any of the responses. But I can't compare these examples, which benefit a very large number of people and "society as a whole", to a search and rescue mission for a very limited number of people on a paid for excursion in an unsanctioned vessel.
USCG search and rescue services benefit a large number of people and society as a whole. Would we ask it to “pick and choose” would can benefit from a rescue financially and who cannot? In comparison, would we say that student loan forgiveness (government rescue) could not apply to students receiving loans to attend Duke, but who eligible if to attend Georgetown, etc.? And how would that benefit the > 50% of adults who do not attend college at all? No loan forgiveness (government rescue) for majors in studies with few career opportunities such as Fine Arts, but yes if majoring in a STEM degree, etc.? Similarly, no rescue forgiveness if at sea in an uncertified submersible for tourism, but yes if in a sailing dinghy in the middle of the San Pedro Channel w/o one’s boater certificate card, etc?
I don't buy the analogy to student loan forgiveness, which isn't happening, by the way. SLF is very unfair to taxpayers, and those who don't go to college. And, it's not even forgiveness, it's a subsidy, if it happens. But perhaps that's a topic for Sail's Call.
Ok, fine. Pick something else. FEMA (government rescue) will not help folks on the beach recover from hurricane damage b/c it’s “stupid” to develop communities there in the first place, especially on barrier islands, but will help folks living in fire-prone areas recover because it’s not quite as “stupid” to develop there? Or in areas prone to periodic flooding; banks of the Missouri? You all are missing the point. You cannot post hoc decide who is worthy to benefit from a government program to aid people in distress; whether or not they got there in that situation by their own design. Like buying a house on a barrier island in Alabama, etc., or going to sea in an unseaworthy vessel off the coast of Newfoundland.
I didn't miss your point, you just didn't make it in a very compelling way with the loan forgiveness analogy.
Lest anyone gets any ideas - No, that would be off bounds for Sail’s call too. Glad to see the thread moved past that. I’ll go back to slumbering now. Hope no one wakes me up again.
Yes, and you're right about that, and it certainly is the case that no one is charged for rescues:
I have been told, it is amazing with the right devices, planted in the in the correct locations can triangulate the location of 2 shrimp having sex. I am sure that is a sea story. That said behind every good sea story there is a factual beginning.
