Hey Kids, Want to Visit the Titanic? Only $250,000
Explorers Web, 11 Sep 2022

If you’ve never seen the Titanic in person, you’re not alone. But you can become part of that small coterie soon. As part of a trip with OceanGate Expeditions, you can visit the wreck of the Titanic next year alongside a crew of dive experts, scientists, and filmmakers. The caveat: it costs a quarter of a million dollars. Still, the experience promises to be a singular one. Scuttled under about 4,000m of North Atlantic Ocean water, the RMS Titanic rests about 600km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The ship sank in 1912, taking about 1,500 souls with it. Divers first found its wreckage in 1985. Tour visitors are called “mission specialists”. That could register as amusing but actually, the company requires its clients to train for some mission-specific tasks while at sea. Submersible navigation, piloting, tracking, communications, maintenance, and operations all make the checklist. Mission specialists make one submersible dive during the voyage and assist on the surface when other teams dive. There’s room for six such positions on the mission, the brochure adds.

You can view details and download a brochure by going to https://oceangateexpeditions.com/titanic.

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Woman Who Completed Lifelong Dream To Explore Titanic Says She ‘Lost It’ Afterwards
Independent, 12 Sep 2022
(Paid access required to view full article.)

Renata Rojas had been obsessed with the Titanic for more than half of her life when she looked out the window of a submersible, 4,000 metres under the North Atlantic, and saw the doomed ship’s spectre appear hauntingly from the depths. She thought she’d cry – but she was far too busy.

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The Man Who Predicted the Sinking of the Titanic
History of Yesterday, 15 Sep 2022

Robertson’s novella draws many similarities between the fictional SS Titan and the RMS Titanic. The book mentions the ship’s perceived “unsinkable” attribute that many assigned to it due to the advanced technology used to construct it, an attribute shared by the RMS Titanic. It is also predicted that because of this perceived attribute, less-than-usual safety precautions were taken when equipping the ship with safety equipment, mainly manifesting through the lack of lifeboats.

Editor’s Note
The book, Futility or Wreck of the Titan, is actually a good read. The article accurately relates the similarities, but the fictional Titan was different and hits the iceberg dead on. Robertson always denied his book was inspired by anything supernatural. The version of the book I have also includes one or two other stories. One is about an attack on the United States by Japan long before it happened! Back in the time he wrote it, Japan had emerged as a major power and was flexing its military muscle (such as defeating the Russians and taking Port Arthur from them). So a lot of people were worried about a Japanese attack on the US (I know because I read a lot of letters written by people back prior to World War I about their concerns). Robertson took what he knew about ships and crafted a clever story about a big new ship that suffers catastrophically on its maiden voyage with a shocking loss of life. The book would likely have been forgotten had not Titanic occurred making it a prescient book. It does beg the question-if he saw it as a real possibility how come the people who built and ran the ship didn’t? Like the question as why every culture has a version of meatballs, you may bang your head fruitlessly against the wall on this one.

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Titanic True Story: Were Third-Class Passengers Locked Behind Gates?
Screen Rant, 18 Sep 2022

As seen in Cameron’s movie, there were clear separations between first, second, and third-class passengers on the Titanic, and they had designated areas where they could walk around freely. In accordance with US immigration law, the Titanic had to have gates between the ship’s decks in order to avoid the spread of diseases, but these weren’t used in cruel ways as seen in the movie. Third-class passengers were in the bowels of the ship and thus didn’t have direct access to lifeboats, but they weren’t purposely kept behind gates to avoid getting to the lifeboats, and third-class stewards were reportedly instructed to have passengers put on their lifebelts and go to the deck, but many refused.

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With autumn now officially here, it is time for the pumpkin! Here are some helpful tips from the Muppet Labs on carving your pumpkin.

 

Shop for everything Halloween at the Halloween Store!