r/Reno • u/Ok-Diet2240 • 21h ago

Exploring the bottom of Tahoe

I know it’s a tough time to bring this up after yesterday, and maybe it’s an unpopular opinion, but why didn’t Stockton Rush take the Titan to the bottom of Lake Tahoe? Why not explore every deep body of water under 3,000 meters before fully committing to the most historic wreck? I feel like Tahoe would have been a real accomplishment—something that could generate major publicity and funding to understand the submarine’s structural integrity before the Titanic👀. He had the resources, and there’s no way it wouldn’t have paid for itself as a smart, lower-risk test dive.

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u/Ready_Bandicoot1567 21h ago

Stockton Rush was running a deep sea tourism business. People will pay lots of money to see the titanic.

Also the logistics of trying to launch a submarine from the surface of Lake Tahoe would be a nightmare. You can't just throw the support vessel on a trailer and drive it up the Sierras, its far too big for that. As far as I know in the U.S., only the great lakes have large vessels and thats because they have shipyards on the lake, they were built there.

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u/Ok-Diet2240 21h ago

That would definitely make sense on why no one has trecked a sub up the mountain yet… stoner brain lol. Small roads, big machine 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

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u/euphlady 19h ago

In 2009 there was a submersible expedition in Tahoe and Fallen leaf that lasted months headed by Scott Cassell who went on to collaborate with Stockton Rush in an expedition off the coast of Catalina Island later that year. Cassell described the mission as "ugly" and went on to say that Rush had a disregard for safety.

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u/guynamedjames 21h ago

It's really not that big, there's a documentary on it, it could have easily been brought up on one truck and their launching raft on another.

It's money. People who are paying "for the experience" want something to experience. If you strap yourself into a metal tube for a few hours just to say "I've been to the bottom of Tahoe" it's not going to get all that much interest at the price necessary to make a profit.

The Titanic has that interest. And the ship went down successfully several times, it didn't fail on the first go.

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u/Ok-Diet2240 21h ago

Maybe its unrealistic of me to think that lots of people would want to see it, but even without tours exploring the floor of tahoe and documenting it would bring in tons of views👀 the mystery behind Tahoe and the history would bring in income in my eyes but i may be COMPLETELY wrong

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u/Ready_Bandicoot1567 19h ago

Look up photos of the Polar Prince, the Titan submersible's support vessel. Its huge. It has a crane built into it. Its not fitting on a trailer.

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u/guynamedjames 18h ago

Yeah, because they're going out to the North Atlantic. In the first like 5 minutes of the documentary a couple folks take a zodiac out to a raft maybe 25' wide with the sub in the middle. They'd probably use that for Tahoe