A Quick Dive Into How Submarines Work

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2021

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Submarines can descend thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, but to do so, they have to deal with an enormous amount of pressure. In this episode, engineer and pilot Bruce Strickrott of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution explains some of the fundamental engineering principles that allow submarines to dive so deep without imploding under the pressure.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:06.3	Hey everybody, Emily Kwong here.
0:08.2	So we check our listener inbox every day.
0:11.0	And may I just say that we love your messages.
0:14.6	They are thought provoking.
0:15.8	They get us thinking about story ideas.
0:17.8	And every so often, there's a question so interesting.
0:21.2	We must investigate, like this one from Five-Year-Old Corwin.
0:25.6	I wanna learn how to find and just make sub-amourines stay very, very not falling apart.
0:40.2	We when they go to the bottom of the ocean.
0:44.0	Bye.
0:45.2	Submarines.
0:46.2	Excellent question.
0:47.6	Adorably asked bonus points.
0:50.1	Corwin's mom, Rida, also wanted us to know they're both super fans of the show.
0:55.6	So Corwin, we are super fans of this question.
0:59.3	I guess what?
1:00.3	We called up an ocean engineer to help answer it.
1:03.2	My name is Bruce Strichrod.
1:04.5	I am the manager of the Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
1:11.0	institution.
1:12.4	So Corwin, Alvin has nothing to do with chipmunks.
	...

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