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Robot Submarine Maps World's Deepest Sinkhole
holy_calamity writes "The world's deepest water-filled sinkhole has finally been mapped — by a robotic submarine whose descendants may one day swim on one of Jupiter's moons. The last attempt to find the bottom resulted in the SCUBA diving depth record and the death of a diving legend. The sub's sonar found that the divers had descended to only about 10m from the floor. The sub's mapping also indicated that the sinkhole, which is over 300m deep, could connect to even deeper caves."
Mel's Hole
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
> robotic submarine whose descendants may one day swim on one of Jupiter's moons
Wow, robot submarine sex! I wonder if it has the hots for one of those mars rovers...
> The sub's mapping also indicated that the sinkhole, which is over 300m deep, could connect to even deeper caves.
So begins the journey to the centre of the earth
I wonder if I can get spare parts for it at my local West Marine store. ;) http://www.westmarine.com/
This reminds me of the amazing (and sobering) story of Dave Shaw, who perished in a deep freshwater cavern trying to recover the body of a fellow diver. Quite a read, if you have 20 minutes.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
It must me.
"So is the BSD licence even more 'free' (than GPLv2)? Yes. Unquestionably." --Linus Torvalds (TinyURL.com/2vugzl)
From the article:
The robotic probe is operated by a team of geologists from the University of Texas
and then this one:
Miles Pebody, who builds and operates autonomous underwater vehicles for oceanographic research at Southampton University, UK
So are they actually operating this thing from Texas? The article is not clear on that. Really though, are they in Texas operating it? The article also references a Jupiter mission which I assume will be remotely operated so controlling it from Texas while it is in Mexico should be possible.
Wow. Just wow. This guy was trying for a 1000' dive? This guy did a 400' dive on air? Just as a few notes. With the PADI (recreational) diving, you can hit about 90' before you have to start dealing with decompression. 130' and you start hitting nitrogen narcosis as O2 gets toxic as the pressure increases. I've got buddies who are crazy enough to hang tanks and do 160' on air, and even they both admit that one was feeling a bit drunk/stupid from air and had been rescued by their buddy. After the third time, they gave up on the deep O2 dives.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Rule number one: never send a man to do a robot's job.
I can understand the "man" taking Mel's hole away from him, possibly to store with the Ark in that large warehouse.
But shutting down his wombat-rescue operation? That's just plain mean.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wow, a robot sub in a sinkhole... didn't we have machines capable of going MUCH deeper, say to film the Titanic, MANY years ago? I am not impressed.
Unfortunately, he didn't get very far.
What?
Why didn't they use a bathyscaphe for this descent, then?
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Sorry, that's an understatement, this hole is not going deep enough!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I heard it was pretty crappy, but some people hated hyperion and endymion, too.
How does it relate to those, in style and content?
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Not as new as knowing it's finally been mapped, and someone died doing it.
My robots caresses your moons. You're right, baby this sh- is hot.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
By a Jupiter moon they probably meant Europa (haven't RTFA). It would be a good place for a diver robot, because it is covered with deep water (and ice on top). At least according to AC Clarke (but ACs don't have much credibility on slashdot, do they?).
You almost got me. Ironically, my college network's internet filter saved me. It IS good for something...
Dick Cheney's top secret bunker has been located in a sinkhole. ;)
"Pebody says getting such a heavy craft is unlikely to make it to Europa, but believes exploring the environment closer to home might be a more realistic goal. "Lake Vostok under Antarctica would be a good precursor to Europa," he suggests."
So the builder even realizes that the chance of going to Europa is not a possibility. Talk about an angle to get funding money. I guess they thought that Europa sounds cool, and was referenced in movies so Joe and Jane Taxpayer can better understand why they need money.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
This is why I have "Always show link domains" selected in my preferences. :)
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
Altogether now:
We all hack in a robot submarine, a robot submarine, a robot submarine....
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
Whoever modded it troll seems to have lost the humor in parent post...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
They finally probed Laura DiDio's vagina!
..called the Goatse Explorer. It's going to map the world's deepest bunghole.
We all die. Sooner or later. We all die.
:-) People did die. Some people died doing dumb ass things, and some people did everything right and died anyway. Some people thing that we who push the limits have a death wish, that's just not true. When you push the limits you have to want to live. Sometimes you have to fight very hard to live.
I've pushed many limits, mostly jumping out of reasonably good aircraft. I've also gone big water rafting where death was a real possibility. Been scuba diving in places where I really should not have been (OK, that wasn't co clever). All that time I had no real dependants. I have scars and broken bones to show for my troubles. But I also have experienced life in a way that most people never will.
It is intense like most people cannot imagine. The highs are Huge.... so are the Lows. Sometimes there's an adrenaline rush, sometimes you have to cope with massive stress and stay calm. Often your life depends on not doing stupid things. Sometimes you do stupid stuff and survive in spite of yourself.
Mostly you train, you prepare, you check, you have someone else check. Then you train again. When you do sometime stupid and survire in spite of yourself, you are glad that you're still able to be pissed off at your self.
You don't consider death on a regular basis. You tend to re-evaluate when a friend gets badly broken. I have a lot of friends who have gotten badly broken - most jumped again. Modern medicine is pretty good as far as acute traumatic injuries are concerned - mostly.
I never really planed on dying
You also re-evalute as life changes. Now that I'm married with a child, I would not even consider doing some of the things that I used to do. I'm glad I did them. Some days life was slow and easy, some days life was a freight train. I enjoyed both. Now I find other challanges.
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
The world's largest known underground lake is Lost Sea, in Tennessee between Chattanooga and Knoxville. It's worth stopping off if you're ever in the area. Back in the 1970's, a group of divers tried to map the lake. The bubbles from their air tanks dislodged so much debris from the ceilings of the caves that they were unable to complete the project. I wonder if something like this robot would be able to finish the job.
Now, the next time I go to the world's deepest sinkhole, I won't have to worry about getting lost. Is it on Google Maps yet?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
It was raising awareness of a particular disease. I can't remember the disease, but the poster stated something along the lines of
30% of people born with this genetic disorder will eventually die.
The corollary I presume is that the remaining 70% are immortal. While I don't want to die any time soon, I think being actually immortal could be a drag.
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
It's during the Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay interview segment.c astinfo.asp?pid=95
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/pod
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
... a stockpile of Iraqi WMDs.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
The summary is a little misleading(surprise, surprise). According to the article, "The sinkhole may be connected to even deeper caverns. At the bottom of the slope, was an area DEPTHX's could not probe. This could be simply a depression or the entrance to further caves. The researchers hope to send the probe back later this week to find out, and to explore any connected passages." The opening paragraph states that "A robotic submarine yesterday mapped the bottom of the world's deepest water-filled sinkhole in Mexico for the first time." Notice that it doesn't say "completely mapped."
I'm not trying to play down the achievement here. These explorers have done a great job and demonstrating the usefulness of ROV technology for exploring places where it is dangerous for people to go is very important. This should remind us that there are plenty of unexplored areas here on and in the Earth; that sense of mystery is a nice thing. There's been a lot of hoo-ha about how there are supposedly no places left to explore on Earth; this story should put a nail in the coffin of that idea. The subterranean parts of Earth and the open ocean depths remain largely unexplored.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
"All these worlds are yours save Europa. Make no landings there."
No the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_Spot is in Santa Cruz.
Then, again, how often do you get to read, as in "Olympus", about a human disemboweling a God? The human being Ajax of ancient Greece, this god cannot kill him without sticking an arrow is Achilles' famous ankle. This particular god cannot die so continues to suffer the pain of disembowelment for quite some time, until things get ever worse for that god. (I'll keep the name of the god out of this so as to not include much spoilage.) Not a concept I had ever mulled over before. Thankfully. (As for god-killing, you'll have to read the books to see why and how, etc.)
Good stuff All of it!
Why not train a dolphin to do the exploration? Strap a camera and sensors to it and let it do the work. Once we have that technology we can strap lasers to them!
If you're interested in Shek Exley's story, you can find it in the book Caverns Unknown to Man, by Steve Dalcher. The book is out of print, but can still be found in some tech diving shops, particularly those near the freshwater caves in northern Florida (where he grew up and cut his teeth).
The man really was a god among divers, and saved uncounted divers through his use of accident analysis to create a safe methodology for cave diving. The ones who die, do not follow his methods (and yes, that includes his final dives).
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
How do I know? I've been to the lab. I met the team, I touched the robot, and I read the source code.