The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
QUESTION: If you could travel to space or to the ocean floor for free, but your safety wasn’t guaranteed, would you do it?
Talk about it….
NO!
No way to claustrophobic.Don’t even like rides at the amusement parks.
yes
Space the final frontier……
….wasn’t guaranteed? and not NASA certified? probably not…. if it were to NASA standards – maybe
NASA designed the the Space shuttle with a 1% predicted failure rate. They ended up with two failures, Columbia and then Challenger, in 135 launches or a 1.48% failure rate. Going to space, with its ~1% chance of death, is likely the most dangerous thing a person can do where its chance of death is deemed “acceptable” by some people. Traditional submersibles have an excellent safety record. I don’t think there has been a single death in thousands of trips.
“Innovative” submersibles such as Ocean Gates’ Titan have a much higher failure rate, you could say 100%, depending on how you look at it.
Yes.
How deep is “bottom of the ocean”? cuz there is much more life within 500 feet of the surface than at 5,000+ feet deep.
.
What altitude is “space”?
.
In the end, it depends on the organization who built and are operating the craft. The owner/CEO of OceanGate was a hack. Id fly with Musk or Bezos who have a better track record… and going into space offers more escape options.
.
Google up the Kola Superdeep Borehole. It was a fascinating project that made it to 40,230 ft. It turns out we can’t dig the proverbial hole to China. The first few feet down are easy but once you are just seven miles down the rock is already getting compressed to a thick oozy mass. It starts constantly pressing in on your borehole and your drill will get stuck as you try to drill further.
In early June 2023 China has started a similar project but they are already going in knowing they likely will not get as deep as the Russians with their Kola project. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/china-begins-drilling-one-of-worlds-deepest-holes-in-hunt-for-discoveries-deep-inside-the-earth
Sadly no. Id want to make sure id make it back home safely.
No, No, No. I don’t like to fly, although I do it, no other way to get to Europe. I also know the stats for dying in airplane crash is very low. My cousin was a pilot for SAS, had flown for 20 years, died from falling down a flight of stairs at age 38. As for the ocean I love the water, I have been on several cruises, and in growing up in Denmark because we have many island it was not unusual to have to take a ferry from one island to another. Now therre are bridges to the bigger islands. There’s even a bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo Sweden. However, If you go north of Copenhagen you can still take the ferry from Helsingor to Halsingborg, it’s a short ride, but very pretty. Even before the Titan incident I had no interest in going far down the in the water. You could not pay me enough money to go on the Titan or anything similar.
Hanne, I didn’t realize there was a bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo. We stayed with friends in Ystad Sweden in 1973 and took the hydrofoil from Malmo to Copenhagen and back to go to Tivoli.
The bridge opened in July 2000. It is very pretty, Wikipedia have a long article about it, and of course you can find pictures by googling it. The first time I visited Sweden I think I was about 10 years old, my mother’s girl friend from Copenhagen took me and her niece for the day. At that time (mid fifties) you could get things in Sweden that you couldn’t in Denmark, pineapple in cans, candy were cheaper, other food items. The ferry had special rates for those that wanted to go for a day of shopping. Now the there’s a special package to take the train from Copenhagen to Malmo, which I did with my cousin and her daughter when I was in Denmark in 2005. For those of you that complain about bridge tolls (and I’m one of those) the toll to cross is about $30.00
No thank you! Not even if it was!
So far, my surfaces have equaled my dives, and I have been successful in avoiding the ocean floor.
I used to SCUBA dive. I enjoyed it. That’s about it.
Nope
I did think the original Submarine Voyage at Disneyland was the real thing; when I was little…. My parents acted as amazed, so knew it was for real.
You had good parents!
YES!!
Terra Firma for me.
Agreed: Beautiful terra firma… with a an occasional swim in the ocean…and a gaze to the heavens!
No it’s all terrifying
The diving bell at Playland in SF was deep enough for me in a confined space. I’d definitely take a free ride to space, hopefully where someone has been before.
Space travel takes too long, but I wouldn’t mind checking out the coral reefs in the Pacific.
Dawg, How far down do you have to go to see the Coral Reefs? Someone I dated of and on for about 3 years from Westport Ct. Jeff C Simon, became a photographer and cinematographer, he did a lot of underwater photography. His website used to have a video of his explorerations, with his comments. He also did a lot about salt marshes. He took a picture of Jim Morrison from the fame Miamia concert, my friend was a witness at Morrisons trial. He worked on movies and TV series, Miami Vice for one. Unfortunately he passed away about a year ago and his website is no longer up.
Hanne, They can be anywhere from 20 feet to 500 feet.
Since recliner won’t fit, ain’t goin’.
I will settle for pictures or videos. Space travel is sort of a waste when you think about how far away everything is. If we ever go to someplace similar to earth you will need families to go and by the time you get there the old ones will be dead and the young youngs will be old.
No. I have no interest in doing either one, even if I could go for free. You’re putting your life at risk for what purpose? For the thrill? Just to say you did it? You don’t accomplish anything going as a space or deep sea tourist, and it’s irresponsible if you have other people depending on you. If you’re a single person and it wouldn’t matter to anyone else if you died, then sure, go for it if you crave that thrill. But that’s not the case for most of us.
SPACE, it has a better view, and maybe you can meet the aliens.
I’d go to space as long as the spacecraft was properly certified. When I was an engineering student at Santa Clara University, my physics professor was working with NASA on the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program. They were looking for engineering students to sign up as astronaut candidates to work for NASA upon graduation and then go to space to assemble it and get it operational. He asked if anybody was interested and he would forward the names to NASA. I got my name on the list, but the program was cancelled soon after that.
As a wise man of my acquaintance recently said about the Titan, “That’s what Discovery channel is for.”
I’ll watch it on TV – don’t need to go there.
Watching Yvonne Goolagong in the rain at Wimbledon cured me of the desire to see things in person.
Tough question. I close my eyes every night, wishing I had accomplished a little bit “more” that day. And I close them every night with nothing more than Faith and many years of experience that they will open again in the morning…. Imagine…… what if……
The human race is a pernicious virus. Viruses seek to survive by expanding. Before the human race expands and infects further, that effort and expense should be focused onto itself with the goal of curing itself from continuing to cause harm. Until humans “solve” themselves, we will only project and perpetuate our frailties and inabilities onto all future endeavors.
Yes, but not to the Titanic.
The Ocean
So fortunate to see the Titantic Artifact Expedition in SF years back at the Museum with my Father. Was simply amazing.
Kids too.