"What if" can be some what un-important, but asking questions and speculating are a part of learning and understanding. It is by asking questions that we can learn from to indeed not repeat the unpleasent moments in history.

Walter Lord, author of "A Night to Remember" stated that his facination with the Titanic stems from the "if onlys" - if only she had enough lifeboats, if only she had water tight compartments that were higher, if only the Carpathia had been nearer, and on, and on, and on.

That is part of the great appeal of the Titanic disaster, the fact that if only maybe one occurance in either her design or navigation, or shipboard routine went different, she may have wound up in the breakers yard after 20 years of service, instead of being at the bottom of the Atlantic.