A Giant Ball Will Help This Man Survive a Year on an Iceberg
27 comments
·December 13, 2025monster_truck
croisillon
techcrunch does the url change too
smelendez
Yeah it’s frustrating how many legitimate media outlets have made their websites basically unreadable.
antonvs
*how many once-legitimate media outlets…
rendall
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I_dream_of_Geni
"The capsule is strong enough to survive a storm at sea or getting crushed between two icebergs."
The first part is probably true. The second part is folly. "Remember the Titanic".
danielbln
The Titanic wasn't crushed, it was sliced, wasn't it?
vineyardmike
The titanic was advertised as unsinkable and we know its history.
Advertising this capsule as uncrushable is a commensurate gamble.
margalabargala
Just make it out of carbon fiber. That's what they did with that uncrushable submersible that went to the Titanic.
bmitch3020
Missing from the article is any details on ventilation. You need fresh air to survive, which means non-water tight holes will be somewhere on that thing. Normally on a boat, they would be on the part that's above water. On a spinning ball, that wouldn't be an option.
My best guess is that it will be integrated in the center tube. Buoyancy ensures the center of the ball is usually above water, and one end of the tube would always be above water.
youngtaff
Also missing from the article is the fact that the maker hasn’t shipped any capsules yet… their site says you can pre-order one!
tokai
You only need to get rid of CO2. There would be oxygen enough in the sphere for quite some time.
imglorp
Yes, so now you're talking CO2 scrubbers, air monitoring, O2 replacement, cabin pressure management, and reliable power to keep all this life support running. It's basically a submarine at that point, all for $20k per pod? I'm skeptical this is practical.
Xylakant
I’m amazed by the idea that providing escape capsules would have saved many lives. The Christmas tsunami caused about 230 000 fatalities in a densely populated area. People didn’t even get to higher ground. Where are you going to store the hundreds of thousands capsules that you’d need to even make a dent in that number. And how will people get into those capsules within minutes of the warning?
tim333
Escape capsules is probably over complicating things. An inflatable life raft would probably be more practical. You can get them with gas cylinders so they inflate in a few seconds.
imglorp
And who is going to find all those capsuled people and rescue them? Rescuers will be swamped with hundreds of thousands of non-capsuled people who should logically take priority. Depending on how these things float, if they get swept out to sea, you might need a ship with a crane to lift the capsule aboard. Does it float nicely with the hatch open or do you have to stay sealed up to stay afloat? Can you float with air ports open or do all of you have to stay breathing that scuba tank in the photo; how long will that last? What will many -- thousands? -- of EPIRBs all going off at once do to the SAR system?
croisillon
there is only one way to find out
RealityVoid
> The survivors, including Nobile, spent a month wandering the free-floating pack ice, at one point shooting and eating a polar bear, until their rescue
This sounds like something Jules Verne could have written. In fact I seem to remember this exact plot device in a book a read when I was a teenager, but the name escapes me.
recursivecaveat
So when the flip starts you basically have a few seconds to strap in before getting tossed around the capsule as it tumbles down the side of the berg right? Even if you are strapped in I feel like surely you're going to come out very concussed at the least.
chis
His idea seems to be to detect the approximate timing of a flip or roll with sensors and then strap in and wait for it to happen. I have some serious concerns though lol. I mean if the ball rolled off a cliff on the iceberg and fell into the water I’m pretty sure it would be like trying to survive a crash at terminal velocity, and I doubt the racing chair would handle it.
onraglanroad
That is what I was thinking. Are you also strapped down for the toilet? It's going to be messy when it flips while you're evacuating your bowels.
And, overall, it seems incredibly pointless! If you have a survival ball like this, why not just let it float? Why put it on a dangerously unstable surface?
pstuart
> Why put it on a dangerously unstable surface?
I think that's the whole point? No "normal" person would think doing this is a good idea -- he wants the thrill of the ride with a minimum of recklessness.
You couldn't pay me enough to do this.
waldothedog
Not saying it’s full-proof but I believe it is a cage inside a ball w rollers so that the outside spins while the inside is at least somewhat stable. Nonetheless, they do mention that a full inversion is a worst case scenario due to the suddenness
tomasphan
No it’s a self righting interior. Read the article.
praptak
Stability of icebergs is tricky. They don't "become" top heavy as the article states, they are constantly top heavy.
The center of mass of the iceberg is above the center of buoyancy 100% of the time. What prevents the flip is a flat base which hopefully counters the small tilts by moving the center of buoyancy in the same direction as the center of mass.
Christ this website is terrible. Blogspam to the core, scrolling even a little bit changes the url to random other articles on their site