You might have seena story going around this week with the headline âThe only manned submersible that could reach the missing Titan is owned by Steamâs Gabe Newell,â in reference to the leader of the worldâs biggest PC gaming platform. This is true, in a purely hypothetical sense, but also kinda pointless since said submersible is nowhere near the Titan (or Titanicâs) location and couldnât help in the rescue efforts even if it was.
That said, I still want to talk about Newellâs submarine (which isnât really his, as though it was his personal ride, he just owns the company that operates the sub). While we donât yet know what exactly has gone wrong with the Titan, videos rediscovered this week show that the vessel was, relative to the conditions it was supposed to be used in, alarmingly basic.
Itâs easy to say this in hindsight now, but itâs incredible anyone ever got in that metal tube at all, let alone paid $250,000 to try and get to the bottom of the ocean in it. Especially when you look at the Titan and compare it to the sub Newellâs company owns, which is called the DSV Bakunawa
How did Valveâs Gabe Newell get a submarine, anyway?
Back in November 2022 Valve co-founder and owner Gabe Newell spent âan undisclosed sumâ buying a bunch of stuff from billionaire explorer Victor Vescovo, who a few years earlier had funded development of the Triton 36000/2, a submarinein which he completed the âFive Deepsâ series of explorations, which saw him pilot the craft to the bottom of all five of the worldâs oceans.
He didnât purchase it personally; instead the sub, itâs accompanying surface vessel and three robot landers (collectively known as the HES, or Hadal Exploration System) were bought for a company Newell owns called Inkfish, an oceanic exploration firm whose first mission is going to be taking a deep dive into the waters off the coast of Curaçao and performing research with academics from the US, Norway and Australia.
âWhat Mr Vescovo and his team have accomplished with the Hadal Exploration System is extraordinary,â Newell said at the time of the purchase, on a website that has nothing to do with video games. âIt represents a truly unique tool to the marine science community, and we hope to carry on its tradition of enabling critically important research into the deepest regions of the oceans.â
Anyway, enough history, letâs take a look at this submersible itself, because I want to start talking about how cool this thing is. While most undersea vessels carry depth ratings, designed to signify the extent of their intended safe operational use (the Titanâs, for example, is 13000 feet, or 4000 metres) the Bakunawaâformerly known as the Limiting Factorâhas been rated âfull ocean depthâ because not only has it literally been to the bottom of the ocean, five times, it has been pressure tested for depths of 14,000m, which is 3000m deeper than the deepest point in the ocean, just to be safe.
Designed with exploration in mind, rather than billionaire tourism, theBakunawa âaffords scientists the opportunity to compare rich data-sets spanning the full gradients of depth, temperature, salinity and other factorsâ. With seating for the pilot and one other passenger, it was designed from the ground-up as a vessel that would spend most of its time going up and down, rather than forwards and backwards, hence itâs odd, bulbous shape.
It has a 65kWh battery, which is enough for 16+ hours operation at a time, with a further 96 hoursâ worth of emergency oxygen supply available. Itâs also relatively easy to service and maintain, even in remote areas, with the Five Deeps team testifying that its âessential systems are designed with simplicity and reliability foremost of mind. Maintenance can be carried out at sea using standard tooling, while repairs can be carried out by skilled shipsâ crew, if required.â
The Valve presidentâs submarine is well-designed
Perhaps most importantlyâagain, given the Titanâs cavalier lack of safety certificationâthe Bakunawaâs builders, Triton, say âalthough the process is expensive, arduous and time-consuming, [international safety classification] is the best guarantee that a submersible has been developed thoughtfully, carefully and with engineering rigourâ, and that after the completion of the subâs fifth and final ocean descent in 2019, it could be âinsured by standard maritime agents and should give peace of mind to any sub passengers that they will be as safe in their dives as on any other commercially-rated vessel.â
I know this is starting to sound like Iâm rattling off the bullet points from a car brochure, but the important thing to remember here is that these arenât abstract boasts, or spitball projections made by reckless techbros building what Iâve seen described this week as âThe Juiceroof the Seaâ; this submersible has been put through it, passed with flying colours and is now ready to cruise the oceans helping us get a better look at the roughly 80% of the ocean floor we know nothing about.
Am I only posting this because it was bought by a video game billionaire, and has now been thrust into the spotlight by the Titanâs disappearance? Partly! But that piece of trivia is what got me looking into the sub, and Iâve now spent all day learning (and now writing) about this mostly because I just think itâs cool, in the same wayI think a lot of weird vehicles are cool. Itâs a highly-specialised piece of super advanced technology thatâs allowing human beings to explore places weâve never been, itâs doing it in ultra HD and itâs doing it all for science. Like Seaquest DSV, but on a smaller budget.
If all this sub talk has you interested in seeing how the thing actually works (itâs going into space but in reverse, basically), this video (with Vescovo piloting) of a descent to Challenger Deepâthe deepest point on the ocean floorâgives us a great look.
