Elon Musk can stick his submarine where it hurts

[chris_leyson]

Derbyshire Cave Rescue flew out some Heyphones developed by the late John Hey G3TDZ. SSB at 97kHz. Phil Karn's KA9Q post on facebook https://www.facebook.com/phil.karn.98/posts/10155276627256486. The British Cave Rescue Association have a special interest group who have been working on cave radio for decades. I remember when VLF loop antennas were the in thing but they didn't get very far. Heyphone technical details here http://bcra.org.uk/creg/heyphone/

[Mr. Scram]

Sorry, fanboys: V.Unsworth 1 E.Musk 0 

Thank you for your mature and substantial addition to the discussion.

[CopperCone]

A submarine is not the worst idea in the world, if you look at the cave system diagrams it says it takes a diver 11 hours to swim the distance. That is not easy. I would not be surprised if the navy seal fainted/passed out from sheer exhaustion.. imagine swimming under water for 11 hours? It's insane. If you are not super fit you can probably get a heart attack from being on dry air and swimming for so long. Is some kid on a trip going to be capable of that kind of fitness?

I wonder if they can make a long ass air line that has a buncha taps on it so you get an air port every 100 meters or so, so you don't get stuck without air incase there is a problem. You can bind/infuse a voice/signal line in it too so you don't have to rely on radio after its laid out, maybe just coils you can couple to with a special phone. using inductive coupling

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Unsworth:1 Musk:0
Sorry, fanboys...

Thank you for your mature and substantial addition to the discussion.

Thank you too for yours.

[wraper]

Thank you too for yours.

I hope nobody breaks your balls yet again, just in case.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/reball-repair-(the-rossman-video-and-such)/msg1623190/#msg1623190

[IanMacdonald]

.. it takes a diver 11 hours to swim the distance. That is not easy. I would not be surprised if the navy seal fainted/passed out from sheer exhaustion.. imagine swimming under water for 11 hours? It's insane. If you are not super fit you can probably get a heart attack from being on dry air and swimming for so long. Is some kid on a trip going to be capable of that kind of fitness?

Yup. Most people couldn't see the problem with the rescue but the sheer distance underwater was the issue plus the fact it wasn't a straight swim but very awkward. The team did an excellent job.

A sub would bring its own problems though, if the occupant had a problem with his air supply then no-one could reach him whilst underwater. Thus without thorough testing, not a sensible option.

[CopperCone]

I kind of imagined the submarine would have handles/ropes on the side so divers can swim/get pulled some along or behind it. Using it unattended would be a nightmare. Just for transporting people that were very weak from being in a dark high humidity cave for a lon time, probobly cramped/sore.

[ataradov]

I kind of imagined the submarine would have handles/ropes on the side so divers can swim along or behind it

That is my understanding too. The submarine is basically like a pod to hold someone unprepared for a 4.5 mile dive. Sure it is cramped, but probably beats being in the open water.

[CopperCone]

The benefit I can see is that you can carry a person that literarly fainted or is injured without risking hitting their head and such

What came to mind mind though is using a fuel tank that is supposed to go on the wing of an airplane, since its already streamlined and designed to be liquid tight. The propulsion does not need to be very efficient.

I would call it an underwater stokes basket not a submarine. Have a diver from the outside control the ballast and thrusters with a control he holds

[mtdoc]

The benefit I can see is that you can carry a person that literarly fainted or is injured without risking hitting their head and such

And prevent issues that arise when an inexperienced person panics when breathing underwater with a regulator. I’ve seen that happen. It’s not pretty.

[Mr. Scram]

Yup. Most people couldn't see the problem with the rescue but the sheer distance underwater was the issue plus the fact it wasn't a straight swim but very awkward. The team did an excellent job.

A sub would bring its own problems though, if the occupant had a problem with his air supply then no-one could reach him whilst underwater. Thus without thorough testing, not a sensible option.

Considering the involved rescuers asked for the development of the sub, that problem wasn't obvious or considered game breaking.

Divers at the scene report the kids were drugged to the point that they were unconscious and "proper knocked out". Though I'm speculating a bit, this seems to point towards the children being bundled up and packaged as not to interfere with the operation or endanger the divers. You can't have an unconscious kid with arms and legs dangling everywhere, so it makes sense to wrap and bundle things up. This is essentially the same that the sub tried to achieve, although drugging the children is a bit more crude, though also a bit more flexible. It's even possible that "We're worried about the smallest lad" means they're not sure he'll respond well to being drugged.

Of course people don't really fancy the idea of drugged up and knocked out kids shoved through narrow muddy tunnels like bags of meat, so it makes sense the situation is downplayed.

[CopperCone]

drugging wtf? what if someone vomits in the regulator

[Mr. Scram]

drugging wtf? what if someone vomits in the regulator

That's less likely if you carefully select the sedative. Of course, medicine has already fixed that problem too. You just make sure the people transported don't eat anything 6 hours before sedation. Considering there were rescuers in the cave with the group at all times, that's not hard to ensure.

[MT]

Elon Musk thought that he could help to he contacted the people in charge. I don't see a problem here. It's a far more useful attitude than sitting back and saying that you will pray for divine intervention.

Or joining in another Musk hate fest.

Or Musk arse lick fest! its a thought choice!

[VK5RC]

Re 'drugging' ; Harris (the lead diver) is a really down to earth anaesthetist (anaesthesiologist for US) and clearly there would have been compromises between sedation on one hand and panic from inexperienced swimmers let alone cave divers on the other. I believe ketamine was used, and I suspect that part of the 'slowness' of the retrieval was getting the young lads in the best shape (physically and mentally) before the dive.
Musk's idea did seem a bit "out there" but there may have been some sections of the dive where it might have been useful. The guy who critiqued Musk, did come across as a bit 'wise after the event'.

[Mr. Scram]

Re 'drugging' ; Harris (the lead diver) is a really down to earth anaesthetist (anaesthesiologist for US) and clearly there would have been compromises between sedation on one hand and panic from inexperienced swimmers let alone cave divers on the other. I believe ketamine was used, and I suspect that part of the 'slowness' of the retrieval was getting the young lads in the best shape (physically and mentally) before the dive.
Musk's idea did seem a bit "out there" but there may have been some sections of the dive where it might have been useful. The guy who critiqued Musk, did come across as a bit 'wise after the event'.

I don't think there was a compromise. It seems they knocked those kids out. People might not like it, but it seems they took the practical approach. I think I heard reports they were training the children earlier on, so maybe they found out that was a dead end street.

Using ketamine makes sense. It doesn't suppress respiration and it's pretty lenient when it comes to dosage. The latter means vulnerable patients don't die as easily from dosing things wrong, which is a good thing when your patients are a diverse set of children of varying weight, age and health. It also means you can more freely administer it under less than ideal conditions. They use it in field conditions for the same reason, most famously in the Vietnam War.

[Muttley Snickers]

Some of the news reports we received down here stated that the rescue team failed to get an internet connection operational inside the cave, I still have no clue as to why they would even need such a thing, back in my day we used a pick not a ping.   

[Eka]

Some of the news reports we received down here stated that the rescue team failed to get an internet connection operational inside the cave, I still have no clue as to why they would even need such a thing, back in my day we used a pick not a ping.   

psychological for the parents, and kids.

[Mr. Scram]

Some of the news reports we received down here stated that the rescue team failed to get an internet connection operational inside the cave, I still have no clue as to why they would even need such a thing, back in my day we used a pick not a ping.   

Rescuing makes you hungry and pizzas needed to be ordered.

[Brumby]

While I give credit to the guy for what he has achieved, I'm not a fan boy of Elon Musk.  I'm also not a blind critic of anything he does.

HOWEVER, if I was trying to deal with a situation that had never been encountered before and obvious solutions were not at hand, I'd be looking for ideas from ANY quarter.  Sure you can get some weird and stupid ones, but have someone with the knowledge to triage and assess them, in case something unknown and/or unorthodox presents itself.

I'm sure that there would have been more than one person consider a mini-sub, but Elon Musk not only shared that thought, but had the resources to act quickly ... and he did.  The fact that it did not get taken up, is irrelevant to me.  Communication in any endeavour is often the key challenge and to compress that into a short time frame means any solution presented is going to have some elements that are going to be less than ideal.

Certainly one thing such a device could have aided was the isolation of the occupant from those involved in the rescue - something that was made very clear as being a necessary precaution.

Kudos to Elon Musk for having a go (IMO) and I would not be surprised to see a bit more development on this project, to at least get it to a practical operational stage.

[Mr. Scram]

You have to agree with that. A guy with advanced production capabilities, effectively infinite resources and not to forget teams of the sharpest engineering minds around is going to be able to have a fair go at a problem no one really solved before. They even seem to have come up with what boils down to the same solution; immobilise and package the child and protect the diver. When nobody knows for sure what's going to work, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks is a reasonable approach. They were cutting it close at the best of times and a day of heavy rain could have changed the situation quite a bit.

[ebastler]

the efforts of a well-meaning but self-important dilettante

I think that sums up Mr. Musk's contribution nicely.

[vis1-0n]

It was a useful option to have. Maybe for a single boy, maybe for a single incident, maybe for a difficult section it would have made a difference if the need  arouse.

[Dubbie]

self-important dilettante

Do you even know what that word means? You can call Musk a lot of things, but in no rational world is he a dabbler, or armchair expert. Sure, he employs a lot of expert engineers, but I’m sure most if not all of them will attest to his skill and knowledge in his fields. Granted, he is no cave diving expert. But he never claimed to be, and at all stages of the process made it clear that he was seeking advice from those that are. Like others have pointed out, nobody could tell how things were going to go, (even the experts) so I don’t know how you smug know-it-alls with a masters in hindsight, can have a go at someone with the means and ability to help, OFFERING to do just that.

[bd139]

When you have a problem the first thing you do is look for off the shelf solutions. There is one more now. That’s never a bad thing.