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New Ideas on Clearing Land Mines?
LaoK asks: "Afghanistan's millions of land mines continue to pose
a threat to civilians, and a potential hazard for
international forces mobilizing to strike the terrorist
suspects and their Taliban protectors. After reading the
recent comments brainstorming the idea of hydrogen fuel
for jetliners, a discussion of practical (and hopefully
inexpensive) ideas for clearing mines seems like another
good topic for this technically-minded gathering. One of the most useful things the international community can do to aid the Afghan people in a post-Taliban era is to finish cleaning up this mess." Such techniques would find ready use all over the world. Has anyone heard of safer techniques in mine removal, or is it still a large and dangerous guessing game?
I remember reading something in pop sci or pop mechanics about a helo with a chain net that would get dragged across mined areas to disturb the mines and cause them to blow.
I also once saw an article about some kind of tank with a plow like front end that would upturn the ground. It took care of the mines, but probably is slow work.
FP
DRACO-
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
A while ago, there was a New Scientist article about the Bush Administration wanting to break the Ottowa Treaty, because they wanted to create a so-called "intelligent" mine field.
The basic idea was that the mines could move themselves around, and communicate with other mines, so that when some were blown up or cleared the other remaining mines would rearrange to cover the whole area.
Kinda scary, huh? And that's coming from the Americans!
Dave.
Hacker/genius John Walker (founder of Autodesk) proposes the construction of minerats, autonomous mine-clearing robots.
k., Lego Minestorms?
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Howstuffworks has a page about clearing landmines and here is another page that describes how it can be done. The US Army even has a page about different ways to detect and remove mines. There is a UK company/charity that is developing an anti-mine robot. During the Gulf War, the military used small rockets to shoot lengths of explosive cord into a mine field. When the cord exploded, it would detonate the mines near the surface. Detonation of fuel-air bombs is another technique that I've heard about. Unfortnately, most of the land mine resources on the web that I've found appear to be charity/activist pages about the need to get rid of land mines, but very little on how to actually do it.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
The company I work at is developing fast and effective detection equipment. Best thing of all it's remote controlled. No worries about being blown up! Somehow I don't think it's cheap though. It's meant for clearning paths for relief convoys and the like. See here: Foresight
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
This article defines & explains the afghani land mine problem in full. Excellent article!
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
There was an idea out to send Cows suffering from Mad Cow disease somewhere in that region - Perhaps Kashmir, but it might have been Pakistan itself. A ghoulish idea, but innovative. It would shorten the suffering of the animals, and get rid of some landmines as well.
Maybe before trying to get rid of existing landmines, the US could finally sign the treaty banning landmines. Along China, they are the last to oppose banning of landmines. It is nice to know that the profit of the US military industry is more important than stoping more kids of loosing one leg (or their life for the less lucky ones).
On second thought, maybe the last choice in the list should be Anne Tomlinson.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
One method is to use large explosives to detonate mines. I would prefer multiple 10kt nuclear devices to clear all mines in Afghanistan. Seriously.
Ship livestock to the mined areas that have been diagnosed with BSE (no, not BSD). Let them roam free, and tell the inhabitants not to eat the gibs. This concept has made it into a game called Unexploded Cow.
:^)
And before anyone flies off the handle, I'm just kidding.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Consider 1 million land mines, robots @ 50 per
robot * 100 mines per robot is expensive.
Smarter robots require more money.
What is needed is a very safe reliable method
to clear a lot of ground quickly.
One is bangalor torpedo and mentioned rocket and air fuel.
Need cheaper methods please.
The full spec sheet on Afghanistan can be found here: Afghanistan
Afghanistan. In the year 2000, an average of about 88 mine and UXO casualties per month were recorded, a sharp decline from recorded casualties in 1999.
In 2000, mine action organizations marked and mapped about 126 million square meters of mine and UXO contaminated land, and cleared about 104 million square meters of mine and UXO contaminated land.
A total of 13,542 antipersonnel mines, 636 antitank mines and 298,828 UXO were destroyed during these clearance operations.
Mine awareness organizations provided formal mine awareness training to more than one million people. MAPA experienced a severe shortage of funds in 2000 and as a result could not achieve its operational targets for the year and had to lay off five manual mine clearance teams, two technical survey teams and two international experts.
Mine action operations were suspended in Badghais and Faryab provinces after seven mine awareness workers were killed in August 2000.
The Taliban and their opposition, the Northern Alliance, have accused each other of laying new landmines. The Northern Alliance denied use to Landmine Monitor, but admitted to an EU mission that they continued to use antipersonnel mines.
After reading some info on HERF devices and microwaves recently:
How about building a strong microwave emitter and sweeping the ground with it. Would that cause the mines to explode (due to heating up)?
Alternatively a strong electromagnetic field could fry the electronics, so the trigger wouldn't work anymore. If the mines are covered mostly in plastic, to avoid easy detection, they don't have a faraday cage to protect them from EM pulses either?
Only works for mines close to the surface I guess.
Disclaimer: it's just an idea, I don't know anything about mines and little about EM beam devices.
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.
look here
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Tape a CD-R containing Metallica MP3s to each mine.
Create a detailed map indicating the location of each mine as it is deployed.
When it's time to clear the mines notify the RIAA and give them the map.
Boom! go the mines and the lawyers.
We might as well NUKE'M anyways. Take out the land mindes, taliban, and Osama Yo Mama all with 1 ICBM with multiple independant warheads... :->