Alvin Submersible Retired After 40 Years Work

An anonymous reader writes "The legendary deep-sea manned submersible Alvin is retiring after 40 years of scientific work. Alvin has taken 12,000 people on over 4,000 dives, helping to confirm plate tectonics and continental drift. It discovered hydrothermal vents, salvaged a hydrogen bomb from the Mediterranean Sea and explored the Titanic. Alvin will be replaced by a larger vehicle that will come into service in 2008."

Parts

[nounderscores]

I'd hate to think of how much it would cost to replace some of the heavily fatigued major components that have been compressed and decompressed so many times.

And who is willing to make another alvin hull?

Might be better to build 2 of the next generation once it is proven, or build 20 of the original alvins from scratch, than to try and extend the service life of a sub that's given more than its due.

Keep it going until the replacement?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

Why not keep it going until at least its replacement has been proven to work reliably? It would suck to keep Alvin in mothballs and then find out its replacement craps out after 2 months! Is there any reason not to keep it going until then? You know, kind of like Hubble and its replacement?

Re:Keep Both

[TAGmclaren]

It is useful for a lot of research. Even though it is not as good as a new one, why not keep in it action?

At a guess, after 40 years of the pressure it's been subject to it may be cheaper to replace that guarantee structural integrity.

Anyway, I hope "retire" is accurate and not a euphemism for scrap (which unfortunately happens sometimes). It deserves a pastures in a museum somewhere, at the very least.

40 years ago...

[statebelt]

...cars still had fins and we hadn't gone to the moon yet. C programming was still way in the future (but LISP already existed). What an amazing piece of machinery to have had a useful life of 40 years. One can only dream that something that we build lasts that long. -Thomas

Re:Keep Both

[mikael]

It is useful for a lot of research. Even though it is not as good as a new one, why not keep in it action?

Undersea exploration is like space travel. You can get more capabilities by eliminating the human factor; the space/energy requirements for
manned submersibles can be reused for retrieved scientific samples, more powerful propulsion, longer exploration times, or greater depth (longer tethers).
You can now get little itty-bitty ROV vehicles that can go down to 300 etres (1000 feet) [videoray.com].

These can be scaled up in order to go down to greater depths; manned submersibles are limited to 6000 metres.
Remotely Operated Vehicles can go down to 7500 metres and beyond.

Re:Keep it going until the replacement?

[Hatta]

After 40 years of under going immense pressurization/depressurization cycles, it's probaby not as safe as it should be. This is a manned submersible after all.

Aluminaut is retired, too

[Animats]

Aluminaut [smv.org], the other deep-diving research submersible from the 1960s, is also retired.

They're all gone now, the record-holding vehicles of the 1960s. The Concorde, the SR-71, the Saturn V, Alvinn, the Aluminaut. All gone, with the will to replace them gone as well.