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[20200601_233900 UTC: updated to elide a couple paragraphs and update suggestion to read original article.--martyb]
US court grants permission to recover Marconi telegraph from Titanic wreckage:
When RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, crew members sent out numerous distress signals to any other ships in the vicinity using what was then a relatively new technology: a Marconi wireless telegraph system. More than 1,500 passengers and crew perished when the ship sank a few hours later. Now, in what is likely to be a controversial decision, a federal judge has approved a salvage operation to retrieve the telegraph from the deteriorating wreckage, The Boston Globe has reported.
Lawyers for the company RMS Titanic Inc.—which owns more than 5,000 artifacts salvaged from the wreck—filed a request in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, arguing that the wireless telegraph should be salvaged because the ship's remains are likely to collapse sometime in the next several years, rendering "the world's most famous radio" inaccessible. US District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith concurred in her ruling, noting that salvaging the telegraph "will contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking."
However, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is fiercely opposed to the salvage mission. The agency argues in court documents that the telegraph should be left undisturbed, since it is likely to be surrounded "by the mortal remains of more than 1500 people." Judge Smith countered in her decision that the proposed expedition meets international requirements: for instance, it is justified on scientific and cultural grounds and has taken into account any potential damage to the wreck.
[...] This latest ruling is bound to generate more controversy, given that the expedition's plans call for "surgically" removing the telegraph from the hull, risking further damage. (It's believed that the telegraph is located in a deck house near the grand staircase.) According to an Associated Press report, the company's 60-page plan calls for an uncrewed submersible to pass through a skylight. If that doesn't work, the expedition would cut through the roof, which is already heavily corroded. Then a "suction dredge" will remove any loose silt, and the submersible's arms will cut through any electrical cords.
The linked story at Ars Technica goes into considerable detail on the history of how several famous people vied for the claim of creator of telegraphy and wireless communications — well worth reading the entire article.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @05:49AM (3 children)
The rest of the world looks to the United States for leadership. Democrats dislike America and would like to diminish the United States to weaken our presence internationally. I'm glad Odumba only had eight years, so he couldn't complete his plan to make America puny and weak. As long as the Democrats don't get their way, American leadership is still what matters.
- snruter rotsac
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @07:31AM
Fucking Nazi! We will find you, and kill you, and sink you with topedoes and malasadas! Democrats are the real Americans, Republicans have sold out to the Ruskies, and Turtle Man's Wife's family.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by hendrikboom on Monday June 01 2020, @12:37PM (1 child)
No. It took Trump to do that by betraying alliances that made America a player on the international scene.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 01 2020, @02:20PM
Asking allies to pay more of their fair share for the expenses of those alliances does not constitute "betrayal."
NATO was created to hold the Warsaw Pact at bay during the opening moves of the Cold War. It also was meant to help war-torn Western Europe recover its military strength under an aegis that would avoid the mistakes of WWI (that is, to rehabilitate, not punish, Germany.) The US footed most of the bill to do that, and did for 70 years until Trump arrived. It had benefits for America initially, because it could sell its products to those places while their manufacturing bases recovered, and because it could exercise its leadership to American benefit. In recent decades, America's allies have used the money they were saving on defense to expand generous social programs and better the health, education, and general well-being of their populaces. America, meanwhile, has seen those indices slide for the last 40 years. The slide accelerated after NAFTA and various trade agreements under GATT, the WTO, and other mechanisms siphoned manufacturing out of the US and send it to China. The American middle class has been vanishing with it.
Those are real factors, and all the data substantiate it.
So under those circumstances asking those who have been saving hundreds of billions by charging it to America's account to pay more is reasonable. That you and others characterize it as "betrayal" demonstrates that the forces that have benefited from America's decline want it to continue. They don't want you to see news that contradicts that, nor see movies or television programs, or get any other sort of mass media message, that contradicts that. They want you to accept as natural reality that America should get weaker, and its people sicker and poorer. They want you to accept the inevitability of China's rise and imminent global supremacy. They want you and everyone else to accept that because it makes them personally richer to cast their lot with China than with their own countries.
Washington DC delenda est.