> "I suspect no deep diving sub did 50 MOD dives before non-essential crew were taken," Rush said.
This right here. Just a casual dismissal of what an expert said because he didn't want to do that. An expert whose advice he explicitly sought out to make sure what happened wouldn't happen.
Bucking the recommendations of those experienced in the activity you are performing because you feel you are special and your pluck is going to vindicate you makes for a good film or episode of television, but it's a poor way to conduct your business.
The guy seemed to believe his own dogma. He was both sincere in his belief but also blinded by it. He was also a tenacious salesman —looks like he would lean on his (potential) customers pretty hard.
It's interesting to imagine how different the narrative might be if he'd been equally convinced the sub was safe but just didn't happen to be on that particular mission by sheer luck.
This combination is pretty common in start-up founders as well. Separating the ones who believe their own bs from the ones that have done their homework can sometimes be quite hard.
The lesson here is that skin in the game isn't really enough. You almost have to be delusional to start a company, so seeing the CEO take on a risk means very little.
You could say the same about Elon Musk or Nokola Tesla or many others. Just sounds like pure survivorship bias to me. "This crazy innovator died so clearly future innovators should listen to the experts!".
I think you are using it in the exactly opposite way. "Crazy innovator succeeds and makes it rich! Future innovators don't need to listen to experts!" is the "survivor" in this situation. The number of "innovators" to failed/died/etc will be much higher than the ones who are successful.
That was a simulated payload for a test flight. SpaceX actually has an extensive testing, certification, and quality assurance process. A lot of it is driven by NASA and a lot of it may seem like "regulations," but NASA created those regulations because of the number of people who have died along the way.
Musk is not an inventor. It's more apt to compare Musk to Edison instead of Tesla. Of someone who paid others to invent. Though not a fair comparison to Edison since even Edison invented things on his own. Remember, Musk has an education in economics.
Elon Musk's successful companies were all him just taking credit for what the experts he bought produced. How is that in any way related to what OceanGate did? People doubted that Elon's companies could deliver on their goals, but they didn't really doubt the fundamental safety or engineering practices behind them. It's not like for the Model 3 Tesla just decided that suddenly cardboard was a great way to contain a battery pack. And SpaceX has absolutely been doing test flights "by the book" like the generations of rockets before them?
But still risky; as clear from the recent rocket explosion; stage landing mishaps, space shuttles before them (the reason why SpaceX has a client in the US is because shuttles weren't reliable enough to continue)
Hopefully SpaceX is listening to pressure hull tests and Nasa now pays attention to ambient temperatures and orings.
