Titan tragedy: Portrait of the founder of the ambition to explore the deep sea

(Dan Tri) - Stockton Rush - CEO and founder of OceanGate - is one of five people on the Titan submersible that disappeared under the Atlantic Ocean while exploring the wreck of the Titanic.

Turn passion into business model

Rush founded OceanGate in 2009, based in Washington, D.C. He turned his passion for exploring the ocean floor into a business model because he realized it was much more accessible than space. OceanGate organizes expeditions to explore the deep ocean, similar to how Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk explore space.

For years, the 61-year-old engineer and explorer has been helping the world learn about the ocean floor while also earning money from wealthy tourists who pay $250,000 to view the wreckage of the Titanic through a glass window. But Rush says the company has yet to turn a profit, due to expensive fuel and other high costs.

OceanGate began offering tours of the Titanic wreck in 2020. In 2021, Rush completed the first dive of the Titanic. "Like space tourism , we saw this as an opportunity to help people explore the wreck of this legendary ship," he told Detroit radio. In 2022, Titan made 10 such trips over the course of a few weeks.

"Why should we spend 1,000 times more money to explore the universe, when we can explore the oceans? The ocean is not for everyone and there is so much to explore," he shared at a conference held in Seattle last year.

Stockton Rush (left) in a submarine off the coast of Florida in 2013 (Photo: Associated Press).

In 2021, Rush also affirmed that if it is not possible to live on the surface of the Earth in the future, "the future of humans will be underwater, not on Mars".

Adventure tourism is considered a high-risk but lucrative business. With enough money, tourists can climb Mount Everest, go into space or dive to the bottom of the ocean.

"Money is not an issue for the super rich. They care more about experiences. They want something they will never forget," Nick D'Annunzio, director of TARA media agency, told CNN.

Early love for exploration

Stockton Rush was born into a wealthy family in San Francisco, USA. He majored in aerospace engineering at Princeton University and received a doctorate in business administration from the University of California.

His passion for exploration began early. At age 14, he received his scuba diving certification, and by 19, he had become the world’s youngest jet transport pilot, according to OceanGate’s official website. He flew around the world for Saudi Arabian Airlines, then moved to work as a flight test engineer.

"He lived a life that any young man would dream of. I felt like I was working with Henry Ford," Mike Reiss, one of the writers of the animated series The Simpsons, told WSJ .

For years, Rush had dreamed of space tourism and wanted to be a passenger on a space flight. But in 2004, he changed his mind when British billionaire Richard Branson took the first group of passengers into space.

"I realized this is not all I want to do. I don't want to go into space as a passenger. I want to be a captain and an explorer," he told Smithsonian magazine in 2019.

Stockton Rush (far left) with the 2021 diving team (Photo: OceanGate).

After founding OceanGate in 2009, Rush said the company acquired a tourist submarine in New Zealand. In 2015, it launched a submersible that could go 490m deep. Then came the Titan, which can go 4,000m deep, deep enough to reach the Titanic wreck.

“We realized that there are a lot of people who want to go on high-end adventure trips. There are people who are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to climb Mount Everest or go to the North Pole, and we combined both in our idea,” he shared at the GeekWire event .

The tragedy was foretold.

Rush said that like space exploration, diving to the bottom of the ocean also has its own challenges, such as the need to withstand the enormous pressure on the hull. "It's an engineering challenge. But once you do it, I think the risk is significantly reduced," he said at the Detroit 2021 program.

Rush had to cancel a visit to the Titanic wreck in 2018 when his ship was struck by lightning, causing electrical damage. His 2019 trip was also marred by problems with the mother ship used to ferry visitors and the submersible.

His company has also faced backlash from the submersible industry for skipping independent verification of the Titan’s safety. In 2018, the Marine Technology Association wrote to OceanGate warning that the decision could lead to catastrophic failure.

Stockton Rush opens the OceanGate submersible off the coast of Fort Lauderdale in 2013 (Photo: Associated Press).

Will Kohnen, president of the association, said most submersible manufacturers hire third-party inspectors to ensure consistency between design and manufacturing.

In 2019, OceanGate said the process was not safe enough, in part because the submersible operator was not sure it was following the right procedures. Kohnen also said that after receiving the letter, Rush told him the process would limit innovation.

Rush has always emphasized the company's disruptive nature. "If you don't break things, you can't innovate," he said at a conference last year.

He also said he was willing to scrap the design he was concerned about. If the cracking sounds didn’t subside on a second dive, he would scrap it, start over, and build another one.

In an interview with CBS in December 2022, he said that while OceanGate adheres to strict safety regulations, there will still be some restrictions. “If you want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get out of the car, don’t do anything,” he explained.

Vision of underwater tourism

Craig Sopin, an expert from the International Titanic Association, said that although Rush did not come up with the idea of ​​​​visiting the Titanic, he contributed to the expansion of this tourist attraction. "He wanted the whole world to be able to see the Titanic," Sopin emphasized.

In an interview with CBS , Rush said that OceanGate represents a new form of tourism that attracts not only wealthy adventurers but other groups of people as well.

"We have a lot of customers who mortgage their homes to go on this journey of discovery. And we have people who don't have to think much about money when they come in," he told CBS.

Diagram of OceanGate's Titan submersible (Photo: WSJ).

Rush has said the company is not yet profitable, due to high fuel prices and other costs. Although some of the Titan’s components are off-the-shelf, such as a sunroof handle purchased at a camping supply store and a video game controller to control the craft, Rush insists that it is a technologically advanced product.

Filmmaker David Waud said he visited the Titanic wreck with Rush in August 2021. He shared that Rush was a visionary and was always interested in exploring the ocean floor and sharing that experience with many people.

Some passengers on previous OceanGate expeditions said Rush's precautions put them at ease, even signing waivers that exempted them from liability if they died during the trip.

“I have never met anyone with such attention to detail. I have confidence in him,” said Mr. Reiss, who participated in a dive on the Titan last year.

Content: Phuong Lien

June 25, 2023

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