The Spartiates were the Spartan army’s core: they participated in the Assembly (Apella) and provided the hoplites in the army. He accomplished this by means of directives stating his intentions, rather than detailed orders, and he was willing to accept deviations from a directive provided that it was within the general framework of the mission. While there’s been controversy about the effectiveness of that effort, it provided experience and knowledge that will be invaluable in the event of another such accident. BP says that in the future, it will not take its construction contractors’ word that its wells are strong enough to withstand the extreme pressures to which they’ll be subjected. Additionally, BP says that whenever one of its undersea BOPs is brought to the surface for testing and maintenance, it will bring in an independent inspector to verify that the work is being done properly. This testing will be done by either a BP engineer or an independent inspector.

New federal regulations require that an engineer certify that the cementing can withstand the pressures to which it will be subjected. Federal investigators found that the disaster was the result of multiple mistakes made by oil company BP, including an improperly cemented seal on the well that allowed oil to leak, and the company’s failure to perform up-to-par maintenance and safety tests and to adequately train the rig’s crew, according to Time. Federal regulators hope to prevent those problems the next time around by requiring better documentation that BOPs are in working order, and better training for crew members who operate them. The GAR had at least three women who were members. The explosion and fire that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 killed 11 crew members and triggered an environmental nightmare. One of the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster was the failure of cement sealing, which lined the hole bored in the Gulf floor and held the pipe that goes down through the rig in place.

How do they prepare land for an oil rig? It took them until mid-July to succeed in installing a device called a capping stack, which finally stopped the uncontrolled flow of oil. Instead of fingers, the BOP is equipped with a powerful tool called a shear ram, which cuts into the pipe to shut off the flow of oil and gas. To make sure that the robotic craft can work the BOP, the government is requiring more extensive testing of the machines, including having the ROV dive and operate shear rams at the sea bottom. As oil industry officials later admitted during Congressional hearings, they were unprepared to deal with a disaster a mile underwater, and so the emergency team was forced to use tactics improvised on the fly, from trying to use robots to force the BOP’s shear rams closed, to lowering a 100-ton containment dome over the leaking well. Additionally, the feds now require BOPs to be equipped so that, in the event they fail to work, an ROV can take over and use its shear rams to shut off the pipe.

Some attempted to close the BOP’s shear rams, while others hooked up hoses and plumbing, installed oil recovery devices and built the relief well to stop the gusher. After the Deepwater Horizon exploded in April 2010, engineers struggled to figure out how to contain and stop the spill. Imagine pinching a rubber hose with your fingers to stop the flow of water, and you’ve got the basic concept, except that your hand would have to be more than 50 feet (15 meters) in length and weigh more than 300 tons, according to Newsweek. Additionally, engineers had to figure out how to utilize underwater robots to perform complex construction tasks, and had to become adept at using remote sensing technology to monitor conditions thousands of feet below on the Gulf floor. For example, oil industry engineers told Technology Review that the design of the Deepwater Horizon’s well was fatally flawed because of BP’s decision to install a continuous set of threaded casting pipes — essentially, one long pipe — from the wellhead down to the bottom of the well.