This vehicle has acrylic viewports: do they “need” them, if since they have high def cameras? Or is it a kind of necessary real object rather than a digitized version of what you can see though the portholes?
I mean, adding porthole probably adds challenges to the design, no?
Sure, it challenges the design, but not nearly as much as putting people inside. It might be irrational to want to go there rather than watch a video, but that is just the way we are.
Vescovo's original proposal to Triton (the builder of the submarine) was essentially a steel ball on a cable. No portholes, nothing fancy, just drop him and reel him back up.
With this proposal, he was trying to anchor the engineers (pun intended) and ensure he'd get a workable end product instead of an expensive flight of fancy that couldn't achieve the mission, and also it fulfilled what he wanted out of the exercise — he's a goal-oriented, mission-focused individual and getting himself to those faraway places was/is job one.
Triton refused and engineered the viewports as well as other compromises that ensured attention was paid to the scientific uses of the submarine and its trips into the deep.
Probably to help against claustrophobia. I wouldn't want to be in a closed metal object thousands of meters in the water. I know it's only psychological, but it's probably enough.
I mean, adding porthole probably adds challenges to the design, no?
Guess it’s the “saw it with my own eyes” thing.