Mountaineers have long climbed to the top of Mount Everest, and scientists in submersibles have descended into the Antarctic Ocean. In recent decades, travelers with deep pockets and little expertise have joined these explorers or even ventured further, paying to visit the bottom of the ocean or the edge of space and touch the literal boundaries of the Earth. But as the deaths of five people aboard the Titan submarine make clear, there are no obvious precautions in case something goes wrong.
This week’s tragedy highlighted the issues surrounding rescue operations and government oversight in this new world of extreme travel – who is responsible for search and rescue and who pays for it? Is it even possible to buy disaster insurance? It also raises questions about when the risk is too great and the dangers too great for rescue.
This all comes at a time when more and more thrill seekers are taking on riskier – and riskier – adventures and expeditions.
“People want these experiences, and they’re going to continue to want them and be willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for them,” said Anthony Berklich, a travel consultant and founder of the luxury travel service Inspired Citizen.
An adrenaline rush with a high price
Innovations in technology have opened up the possibilities of travel in recent years, and wealthy travelers are willing to spend more to go further, especially when it comes to space travel and underwater exploration.
“Some people like watches, other people like exploring, because that’s how they get their kicks,” says Roman Chiporukha of Roman & Erica, a referral-based luxury lifestyle and travel agency based in New York City, and the SpaceVIP service, which connects customers with space tourism operators.
According to Triton Submarines, a Florida-based company that offers “submersibles for superyachts,” about a million tourists a year go on some sort of underwater excursion. (These large, ultra-luxury, and customizable underwater craft reportedly cost between $2.5 million and $40 million to build, and count “Titanic” movie director James Cameron as an investor.)
The expeditions can range from short submarine tours, such as a $180 two-hour trip diving 100 feet under the waves of the Hawaiian island of Maui, to an overnight stay at Lovers Deep, a submarine hotel equipped with a chef and butler. taking passengers through the reefs of St. Lucia in the Caribbean for nearly $300,000 a night. The Titanic expedition to view the Titanic cost $250,000 per person.
Diego Gomes, 36, a medical director from Seattle, visited Antarctica in February. He booked a crossing with Seabourn Cruise Line, where most cabins start at $10,000, and after reaching the Antarctic, he was able to glimpse the ocean floor in Seabourn’s Expedition Submarine.
The experience, Mr. Gomes said, speaking before the Titan’s fate was known, exceeded his expectations. The public, he said, “never hears about marine life in Antarctica, which is why I signed up for it.”
Before boarding, he and other travelers were given a tour of the safety features on the submarine, he said, and were in constant communication with the ship as they descended 300 feet.
“I felt extremely safe,” he said. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
Then there is space tourism. The industry is booming, with billionaire-led companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX already successfully launching suborbital spaceflight. Virgin Galactic, where suborbital spaceflight tickets start at $450,000, said in a press release it plans to launch its first flight next week.
“With the launches of Blue Origin and Virgin last year, and the images from the James Webb telescope, there is a renewed interest in space and it has become the cultural zeitgeist,” said Mr Chiporukha. His SpaceVIP service, he said, has seen a 40 percent increase in requests this year.
And little training is needed for aspiring space travelers. Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, whose passengers included “Star Trek” television star William Shatner, says passengers can “fully train” for the experience of soaring 60 miles above Earth in just two days.
If things go wrong
Insurance and support systems are available for many forms of adventure travel. Those wishing to climb Everest can join expedition companies, hire Sherpas to guide them along the ascent, and purchase travel insurance to provide various protections up to the mountain’s great heights.
If things go wrong, companies can often step in to get you to a hospital or conduct a rescue in the field, if and when they know where you are. A helicopter can pick you up if you freeze while trying to climb a peak in the Himalayas. If you’re caught up in civil unrest abroad, former Navy SEALS can come get you.
Nick Goracy, a spokesperson for Servius Group, a company that offers private travel security on a case-by-case basis, said fees could fluctuate between five and six figures.
Then there are travel assistance companies that offer annual memberships for security needs, medical evacuations, and rescue services. Covac Global offers “fully indemnified” medical and safety evacuation packages, including search and rescue, costing about $2,800, with up to $1.3 million in costs covered, said Ross Thompson, the company’s CEO.
To date, no customer has exceeded the maximum coverage, he said, adding that the most expensive evacuation, from Indonesia to Canada, was for a traveler with a critical case of Covid-19. It cost $400,000.
In the United States, federal and state agencies, including the National Park Service, cover the cost of search and rescue efforts, depending on where you are. For water rescues, the U.S. Coast Guard, which led the Titan rescue, is not legally allowed to charge for its operations, an agency spokeswoman said.
Three countries have deployed at least nine ships and multiple aircraft and remotely operated vehicles in the massive rescue effort to rescue the doomed Titan submarine. Experts estimate the cost in the tens of millions of dollars.
Mr Thompson has priced the Titan search and rescue at around $100 million, adding that ROVs are “very expensive to operate”.
“Ultimately, taxpayers will be responsible, because that’s where the Coast Guard budget comes from,” said Mikki Hastings, president of the National Association for Search and Rescue, a nonprofit organization focused on wilderness rescues.
But most domestic search and rescue teams are volunteer organizations, said Chris Boyer, the search and rescue organization’s executive director.
He stressed that the new level of extreme travel requires a rethink of the rescue efforts that can reasonably be made if disaster strikes.
“Can people do things like this and expect a voluntary response? Or do they expect a response from the agency and government?” Mr. Boyer spoke in particular about space tourism. “Who is going to do that and how does it work?”
As the Titan’s ill-fated voyage suggests, even established travel agencies run up against limits.
“There’s nothing you can do to help someone who is 15,000 feet below the surface of the ocean,” said Dan Richards, CEO of Global Rescue, which provides evacuation and rescue services. “We can only do what is humanly possible.”
As for insurance policies, there may be new calculations about insuring extreme risks, said Mr. Thompson of Covac Global. Old models may no longer make sense for complex rescue efforts whose costs are unprecedented. We are “a long way from someone saying, ‘I’ll cover the dive to the Titanic,'” said Mr. Thompson.
The Federal Aviation Administration oversees the regulation of commercial space tourism and requires operators to “have insurance or demonstrate financial responsibility to cover potential damage and injury to the public, public property and government personnel and property at risk from the operation” said a spokesperson. said in a statement.
Additional policies, such as insurance for participants climbing into capsules to travel to space, are a “matter between the operator and the participant”.
Supervised darkness
Regulations for these otherworldly experiences are also lagging behind the pace of the burgeoning market.
The FAA’s oversight of space tourism is limited to “protecting the public on the ground and others” in the country’s domestic and overseas airspace, the agency spokesman said. The FAA has no role in “regulating the safety of passengers aboard commercial space vehicles”.
And the “niche small market” of diving into the deep sea in a submarine to get a closer look at wreckage has little oversight, said Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime history expert and professor at Campbell University in Buies Creek, NC
There was little to no regulation regarding the Titan’s design. Classification of submersibles is not mandatory in international waters, said Dr. Mercogliano, a loophole that would allow OceanGate Expeditions to get around this step. The Everett, Washington-based company claimed the Titan was so advanced that certification from rating agencies would take years, a circumstance the organization described in a 2019 blog post as “an abomination to rapid innovation.” (The message has since been deleted.)
To further complicate matters, the Titan was operating in international waters, where it was not under the jurisdiction of any particular country, Dr. Mercogliano to it.
“There’s no real outside agency to make sure things like a redundant communications system are in place, or an emergency beacon that can be launched if necessary,” he said.
International maritime law requires all available ships to respond to distress calls in the sea, a regulation introduced after the Titanic sank more than a century ago and prompting this week’s massive search and rescue efforts.
Who should go?
Whether last week’s ill-fated Titan expedition will lead to better oversight remains to be seen. But the incident has sparked conversations between explorers and wealthy travelers about who exactly should embark on this kind of perilous journey.
West Hansen, a 61-year-old ultramarathon canoe racer and member of the Explorers Club, has paddled Russia’s 2,100-mile Volga River and the entire length of the Amazon River. Next week, Mr. Hansen, along with four other experienced kayakers, will set out to paddle the Northwest Passage. He believes that the tourists who “plod” in areas that “explorers just get to see” may have a false sense of security.
The urge to explore and test limits is deeply human, Mr Hansen added, but money “doesn’t diminish the potential danger”.
Debra Kamin contributed reporting.
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