If that's true then that is one more thing that Nissen lied about. According to Nissen everything was all Stockton Rush and the guy at Spencer doing the design work for the hull.RTH10260 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2024 12:19 pmHow come? He only produced a cylinder to customer specs. He was not involved in evaluating fitness for purpose.RVInit wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2024 11:47 am Roy Thomas, a representative from ABS, one of the "classing" organizations, is testifying now. Oh my. If the owner of Spencer Composites is watching this presentation he will likely be drinking heavily tonight. I don't know how he is going to avoid lawsuits.
Thomas is being quite thoroughly about why carbon fiber composites are not good materials for pressure vessels for deep sea operations. I was aware of the general "not appropriate material", but this guy is giving specific details as to the difficulties of creating a thick carbon fiber component that would have the same properties throughout the entire thickness. Sounds like it is next to impossible to create such a thing, but also how to evaluate the end result.
It's not that I take Nissen at his word, he came across as a super sleazy person. He was all in for the paycheck and the four year ride as long as he didn't have to take responsibility for anything. His testimony was cringe and I couldn't believe he wasn't grilled more seriously by the board. I would have left him crying "I want my mommy!!!!" Tried to pretend he pushed back on things, but there is no way he pushed back. Several people that actually DID push back testified and they didn't last long at all. A young woman that worked on the navigation for several dives simply mentioned to Wendy Rush that she is familiar with some computer software that could help with teh navigation and she was immediately relieved of her navigation duties and told "we have experts that designed this" and reassigned to some menial task before being sent home on the next helicopter flight off the ship. So, the idea that Rush allowed Nissen to go from zero to hiring 25 employees to directly work under Nissen while all the time NIssen was "pushing back" is simply not believable. The one and only push back resulted in his being fired. At some point Nissen had convinced Rush to pretty much fire anyone that might compete for Rush's attention and in the end NIssen was the only one left to sign his name on the line that certified the sub was ready for passengers. At that point is when Nissen realized signing his name to such a thing might not be in his best interest. So, after four years of living in the light of Stockton Rush's sun, he did say "no" to that request.
That said, supposedly the specs for the hull were done by Spencer Composites and their website indicates that they do design work for composites as well as the fabrication, so it's not outside the realm of belief that they helped design this thing. Here is their list of services
https://www.spencercomposites.com/wordpress/?page_id=11