Missing Titan Submersible and Adventure Tourism

The biggest of ironies in 2023 is that a submersible filled with adventure tourism enthusiasts exploded while in search of the sunken Titanic that infamously took the lives of thousands. The worst part of all: both were preventable. The Titanic was considered “unsinkable“ and the ship contained only half of the lifeboats needed. As a result, many passengers died of hypothermia in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic ocean. The Titan submersible‘s founder negligently ignored alarms raised by experts and even fired their own engineer who proceeded to alert authorities of the poor design of the vessel. On social media, a small portion of the general public disrespectfully makes statements resenting the fact that the world cares so much about “stupid billionaires“ who risked their own lives and that of rescuers. Spending a lot of money that one has on adventure tourism is not the point. The point is- when does it become too risky?

Ever since I read about Richand Branson’s vision of Virgin Galactic in National Geographic when I was young, I wished I could go aboard and into space one day. Of course, when tickets are actually affordable. Today, a single ticket costs $450,000- nearly twice as much as OceanGate.