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Titanic

Entry 133, on 2005-02-21 at 14:23:20 (Rating 1, Comments)

The Titanic is one of the great symbols of human arrogance and how we are always at the mercy natural forces. What could be more of a lesson to us than one of the world's great engineering achievements, the unsinkable ship, sinking on its first voyage? The wreck of the Titanic was discovered about 20 years ago and has been visited many times since. But, are some things so significant that they should be left as they are?

I listened to two interviews on the subject recently. First, from the discoverer of the wreck and a proponent for leaving it as it is, Bob Ballard; and second from a New Zealander who takes rich tourists down over 12,000 feet to view the wreck in small submarines.

There is an official salvor of the Titanic, with permission through international law to salvage objects from the wreck. In fact 8000 items have already been recovered, but not by the tourist operators. Ballard claims the submarines are damaging the wreck when they contact it, but the operator counters this by saying contact is minimal and that the ship is being destroyed by natural processes anyway.

I'm sure they are both right. Its not possible to operate submarines in that environment without doing some damage. The operator correctly points out that their weight is minimal (due to buoyancy) but their mass is significant (30 tons) and they would certainly cause some harm to anything they touch at any speed. But if the wreck is disintegrating anyway, what is the point in being overly cautious in preventing contact.

So what are the options? I think the Titanic is significant enough that it requires some special treatment, but if it is gradually disintegrating anyway, why not view it while we can? Ballard suggests it can be preserved using underwater repair technologies now available.

I think visits should be allowed but that a fee should be charged per visit. Since each visitor pays US$36,000 for the privilege why not charge $10,000 for a visit? The money could be used to preserve the wreck as much as possible. If that won't raise enough to do the job why not make it more? The people prepared to pay this much now would probably pay twice as much if they needed to so why not make them.

I generally dislike the elitist ultra-rich tourism industry, but this is a way it can be made to do something useful and contribute to preserving the thing it exploits. By the way, a statistic mentioned on one of the interviews is this: when the Titanic sunk, there were 29 women from 3rd class killed for every one dog from first class saved. Interesting priorities, and have things really changed that much today?

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