Adventure tourism has been around for awhile.
Thrill-seekers in search of that adrenaline rush have no shortage of activities to make the pulse pound, whether it be sky-diving, zip-lining, downhill cheese-chasing, para-sailing, garbage truck racing, what have you.
But if you’re a billionaire, well, that’s a whole different playing field. And today, two prominent ways for the well-heeled are space and undersea tourism.
The recent tragedy involving a submersible at the wreck of the Titanic, some 700 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, is a case in point. Six souls lost their lives as the submersible they were in imploded under the intense pressure of water some 3,800 metres below the surface of the North Atlantic. A massive rescue effort involving several countries revealed the debris field left by the submersible on the ocean floor some 500 metres away from the wreck of the Titanic, the famous passenger liner that went down on its first voyage after striking an iceberg back in 1912.
Among the six people aboard was a British billionaire, a Pakistani multi-millionaire and his son, all three designated “mission specialists” because I guess that sounded better than adventure tourists.
According to others who have gone on other past trips down to the Titanic, the ride down and around the wreck is fraught with peril and danger, with many reporting episodes of panic among crew as they felt around in the dark almost four kilometres below the surface of the ocean.
The latest trip featured a submersible that had all the hallmarks of a science fair experiment gone horribly wrong, including a one button controller that was converted from a video game controller. The argument was what did you need other buttons for? The submersible was only really an elevator that had two options: down, and if all went well, up. This was not to be confused with a submarine that can manoeuvre on its own, has a propulsion system, and can navigate about. The whole thing was totally inadequate to the task it was given, and was subsequently crushed under the ever-increasing water pressure as it descended to the bottom. Now it, and its occupants, will remain on the bottom forever.
I guess that’s part of the deal. When you put yourself in such extreme and inhospitable conditions, you can’t very well expect the rest of the world to come after your remains for a proper burial up top. So these six people, god bless them, share the same enduring fate of those over one thousand Titanic victims who never made it off the sinking ship.
An underwater tomb, four clicks down.
An awful lot of expense went into the search and rescue operation, and that’s completely understandable. Yet, when one thinks of the over 20,000 people who have perished on rickety boats in the Mediterranean trying to escape Africa for a better life in Europe, you get a sense of the disparity of effort when it comes to billionaires versus impoverished migrants. It’s a real eye-opener on whose important and who’s not.
Although I hope I’m wrong, I’m just waiting with anxiety for one of these billionaire rocket launchers that take people (rich ones) up to near-space. As the shuttle Challenger exploded back in 1986, so too could other things go wrong for privately funded sub-orbital platforms. Elon Musk’s Space X has had the recent misfortune of having one of its launches meet misadventure as the rocket exploded just above the launch platform. Anyone inside the cabin of one of these things will simply cease to exist, with nothing left of them to really point a finger at. No rescue missions for sub-space adrenaline junkies.
And if you plan on climbing to the peak of Mount Everest, don’t be surprised if you don’t find a four-lane highway extending to the top. It’s an extremely dangerous and punishing trek, and people die all the time chasing the thrill. And if you meet misadventure and die up there, you stay up there, unless you’ve got the rare guide with the ability and inclination to drag you down.
All in all dangerous stuff. Sky-diving is dangerous but normalized, and there’s always the risk of death, which is why you sign all the disclaimer documents. So I guess these extreme adventure activities are no different.
Hell, just getting in your car to get a loaf a bread can be fraught with all manner of danger that can lead to serious injury or death, especially with all the drunken idiots that are out there with suspended licences at all times of the day.
I guess if you pays your dime, you takes your chances. In some cases there are bodies left to bury for some sense of closure. And in some cases, unfortunately not.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 