[franktankbank]

I don't like this interpretation of things. Its worthwhile to experiment and try things. They were basically mentally ill as a group and rejected genuine concern. Everyone wants to shit on the build but it was the human relations that killed it.

[nativeit]

Also, honestly, the build. That “genuine concern” they ignored was that the build was critically flawed. I don’t think anyone here would have these takes if a small group of curious engineers tried their hand at a composite submersible, it was when they kept doing it after all the qualified engineers had said, “This is crazy, I’m out.”

The build was kind of dumb, and I’m hardly an engineer. It’s common sense. Carbon fiber composites are interesting because they’re strong relative to their weight. Remove either of those features and they become pointless.

Who cares if a submarine is heavy?

[potato3732842]

A submarine needs to be light to be neutrally buoyant in order to fly though the water properly. Otherwise you have a bathyscaphe, which has some other not nice failure modes (in addition to the "implodes if you f it up" one) and are much less maneuverable and arguably the whole system is less durable more costly for high tempo operations. "Just build a tube strong enough and big enough to not need all that" is a better answer, if you can pull it off.