The U.S. government is trying to stop a planned expedition to the sunken Titanic shipwreck that could recover items of historic interest.

The U.S. government is trying to stop a planned expedition to recover items of historical interest from the sunken Titanic, citing a federal law and an international agreement that treat the shipwreck as a hallowed gravesite.

The expedition is being organized by RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia-based firm that owns the salvage rights to the world’s most famous shipwreck. The company exhibits artifacts that have been recovered from the wreck site at the bottom of the North Atlantic, from silverware to a piece of the Titanic’s hull.

The government’s challenge comes more than two months after the Titan submersible imploded near the sunken ocean liner, killing five people. But this legal fight has nothing to do with the June tragedy, which involved a different company and an unconventionally designed vessel.

  • Stamets [Mirror]@startrek.website
    197·
    1 year ago

    It isn’t a grave site.

    A grave is where someone is purposefully buried. This was a disaster site. There are no bodies. It was well over a century ago.

    There’s a strong case for documenting history. There’s a strong case for documenting the science of newly found bacteria and organisms around the wreck.

    There is no case that this is a “gravesite”. Ground Zero wasn’t left alone. Pearl Harbor has a whole fucking gift shop memorial/boatride floating above one of the ships. Why is it suddenly that Americans are getting up in arms over a ship they’ve got no reasonable claim to. Sank in international waters, it’s passengers were primarily from Europe, the ship was from Europe, the company that owned it was a British company but here comes America, yet again, acting like they own the fucking planet and everything on it.

    Not really giving a flying fuck what America says about international agreements when they break them constantly, back out of them last second, and hypocritical enough to do the same shit they’re complaining about.

    It isn’t a fucking gravesite. There’s a reason they reburied pretty much everyone in their own graves. I don’t row out a few hundred kilometers to go pay respects to my uncle.