I've heard some comparisons made between the Titanic & the Titan, mostly along the lines of something about a bunch of rich people boarding a fancy new vessel everybody thought was invincible & ending in a watery grave because they flaunted safety regulations.

But this is not an apt comparison. At all. 1/

Comparing the RMS Titanic with the OceanGate Titan is like comparing apples to school buses. And it isn't simply a matter of physical differences: the entire industries each one was a part of are completely different. So are the circumstances. So is the history. So is... all of it, pretty much. 2/

The issue of safety regulations in particular is a major difference. That we even have a concept of maritime "safety regulations" at all is due in great part to the sinking of the Titanic, not because she wasn't following current regulations, but because the regulations of the time were either inadequate or hadn't been established at all. 3/

For instance: Titanic had enough space for 40 lifeboats, but the White Star Line (the company that owned her) put only 20 on board - four more than the British Board of Trade decreed for a ship of her size. So she in fact *exceeded* the regulations of her time. 4/

She may have been going too fast... but this wasn't out of recklessness, necessarily, but because there was a long-burning coal fire in one of her bunkers, & speed was of the essence to get to port sooner. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041108020906.htm

It's may be easy to say the Titanic was populated by a bunch of rich fucks who were just interested in the latest, greatest, biggest thing - & while that may be true, her captain was no slouch & her crew had good seagoing experience under their belts. Moreover, the rich fucks didn't make up the entire passenger list. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/exhibits/titanic/passengers.php

We perhaps forget that air travel didn't really become a thing until the 1960s, & before then, people of *all* social & economic classes traveled by ship. Most of the folks on board the Titanic weren't just there to go on a cruise, they were actually trying to go somewhere - like the New World, to establish a new life.

Did Harland & Wolff use shoddy materials to cut costs? There have been studies done on the quality of steel used to make her hull, and while it's extremely brittle (especially at low temperatures), I haven't found anything yet which says her hull materials were that different from others of the time. It looks more like people built with the quality of metal they had, & didn't even know about thermal changes.

Here's a really boring paper about the Titanic's hull steel here, if you're into metallurgy: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-17a17f71ae2f9d4316c52e62d4650c9f/pdf

The VP of White Star did say at the time that he believed the ship was unsinkable. I'd say that this wasn't unique to that ship though, or even that company, or that particular man. It was more the hubris of the wealthy industrialists of an entire age. There, perhaps, is some comparison to the Titan, for the CEO of Oceangate seems to have had the same attitude. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/RMS-Titanic-the-unsinkable-ship/