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Space Technology to Conquer Everest
Roland Piquepaille writes "These days, the European Space Agency (ESA) is busy sharing its space technologies. Last week, in "Space technology hits the slopes," it said that the ski maker Rossignol hopes to beat the world speed skiing record of 250 km/h by using skis stabilized by a mechanism developed for ESA's Rosetta spacecraft. And today, the ESA announced that a satellite-based Health Monitoring Kit developed by the Canadian company March Networks and co-funded by ESA, will help climbers to escalate Everest. Of course, this kind of technology can be applied at lower altitudes. This overview contains other details and references about the March Networks Health Monitoring Kit."
At 250kph, all you need after a crash is a shovel. Motorcyclists who crack up at this speed usually end up scattered across several counties, so I don't see that a skier is going to be much safer (save that there are somewhat fewer obstacles).
With Everest, the problem everyone faces is that there's precious little air to breathe up there, so unless you're Andean or a Sherpa, you can only survive for a limited time without supplemental oxygen. No amount of monitoring will change this, although it may be able to identify afflicted individuals in time to save them (mostly from doing something stupid while impaired) and keep them from pushing any further. Any technology truly sufficient to overcome this would be seen as "cheating" in some sense, as is claimed by purists about O2-assisted climbs of any sort.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Have ESA made a pen that can be used in zero gravity yet?
http://www.spacepen.com/usa/history/index.htm
I've posted on slashdot regarding the urban legond of nasa developing a spacepen. According to what i've read it was not developed by nasa at all but rather by Fisher which was sold to Nasa at $5.00 a pop.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I have skied at over 140kph (that's circa 90mph) down red runs (in the 3 Vallees) in the past. That's measured using a GPS, so add a few mph to take account of the angle.
:-) but bear in mind that you're more likely to slide on snow than on asphalt.
Believe me, you really don't want to fall over! I am an instructor, and felt confident even at those speeds, but the biggest danger is as the article says: the vibration. With modern parabolic/carving skis, the slightest angle on the ski will result in it trying to turn away; if this is not what you want, it could be curtains. Those small vibrations you feel skiing at a "normal" 30mph are multiplied dramatically at 90mph. It's not a thing I would recommend to any skier who is not an expert.
Re crashing, I would hope that one would simply slide a long way; so long as you don't catch an edge falling and start tumbling, you should hopefully be OK. A motorcycle rider will probably correct me here
http://blog.grcm.net/
Lots of factors.
On most large mountains (himalayas, denali, aconcagua etc) the standard approach involves spending a couple of weeks acclimatising and moving your gear up the mountain. This involves lots of going up and down with huge packs. Very gruelling.
Then you wait for a break in the weather, get yourself to the high camp and prepare yourself for "summit day". You start before dawn, you are freezing cold, you may be on bottled oxygen but the lack of o2 still makes you feel absolutely knackered.
Then you get to the top, turn around and go back down to your high camp. If you are too slow then you turn around at a prearranged time and make damn sure you are back before it gets dark.
Things that can go wrong:
- taking too long & getting benighted. You have to be pretty single minded to get up there in the first place. Determination + oxygen starvation can lead to trouble.
- change in the weather. Can happen very fast and catches lots of people.
- slip on descent. Heading downhill is a lot harder than going up. Snow slopes can be tricky in descent even with axe & crampons. On everest you generally get fixed lines to clip on to, but you can still get severely damaged.
- general "objective dangers" - avalanche (usually lower down), people falling on you, that kind of thing.