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Robots To Search for Amelia Earhart's Lost Plane
raque writes "Following up on an earlier story, a group of aviation archaeologists will use underwater robots along with submersibles and sonar to search for Amelia Earhart's plane. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery will search this July for the aircraft, which went down 75 years ago. 'If there's wreckage there that can be recovered, we need to know what it is, how big it is, what it looks like, and what it's made of so we can prepare a recovery expedition that has equipment to raise whatever's there,' said Richard Gillespie, the group's executive director."
It could be a technology demonstrator, with or without the backing of the miliitary. It's easy to imagine using the same technology to recover more precious materials from pirate ships and what else. Who knows, maybe even NASA would be interested in knowing something they can send to the bottom of the presumably liquid Europa.
"and what it's made of "
I can tell you what it's made of right now. it was a Lockheed Electra 10E was built at Lockheed Aircraft Company to her specifications. Information about her plane was highly documented before it took off. Really scientists, have you not discovered the internet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Model_10_Electra
And I am certain that Lockheed will be glad to tell them what they made it of.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Actually, there's science refuting this. Ask any insurance company.
We should all know already that Amelia Earhart and her plane were discovered by the Voyager crew in the Delta Quadrant!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708976/
Wouldn't it be more efficient to get one of those numbered ticket dispensers? Then all the sexism could do something other than standing in line while waiting for its turn to come up.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The science purely says that it is cheaper, not that it is less likely.
Science is great and all, but it's useless if you're incapable of interpreting the data.
Not that what's less likely? The science shows that women are much less likely to be involved in serious accidents, and much less likely to die in those accidents. In short, their driving is less likely to result in serious and costly accidents. By any reasonable measure, a good driver is one who gets safely from A to B. The science tells us that women do this better than men by a significant margin. And since we're talking about a serious accident, I think the science is very applicable in this case.
:)
In other news, men certainly have bigger egos than women when it comes to driving.
making the Borg into a completely weak opponent
Borg was "a completely weak opponent", not winning a single set in nine matches in 1991 and 1992.
If you look at statistics per kilometer driven, there is little difference between the genders. Men tend to drive a lot more than women (at least in the US, I don't know about internationally). It seems both genders have their stereotypes that are unfounded.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
A little skepticism kicks in for me, is this an attempt to raise donations for an otherwise non-funded archaeological expedition ?
Given the letters from little girls with $2 donation being displayed in their "most important sponsors page".
I am not making the expedition wrong, just throwing what came to my head, after all this is the Internet, where I can say what ever I want and get away.
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
Since her crash, I believe she's been on Stargate, Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Dr Who, and at least 5 other shows. So she could be just about anywhere by now lol.
Queue the sexism. :( A very disappointing first comment.
I think you mean cue the sexism.
Maybe a woman would've known the difference.
The group doing this search are (in my opinion) looking in the wrong place. This island is about 350 miles away from Earhart's intended destination, Howard Island, and not on the "line of position" she would have been flying. In order to be anywhere near this island, Earhart and her copilot would have to be really horrible navigators and/or not following the standard navigation procedures of the day. I don't think either of them would have been this bad, even with the tools available at the time. Her copilot was a professional, who had a lot of experience doing this kind of navigation and I'm sure Earhart had some proficiency with the techniques.
Further, there is no way to know that the items found belonged to Earhart. There is no DNA to test in the bones and the cosmetic items where in common use. Nobody documented what personal items Earhart might have with her so there is no real reason to expect that this has to be where she ended up or that this is her stuff.
Another reason to doubt that this is Earhart is that it is unlikely anybody could survive a landing that puts the aircraft on the reef. Ditching aircraft of the day is going to kill you (by blunt impact or drowning) 99 times out of a 100. Making a difficult landing on a narrow beach and ending up on a reef in the process is even less likely.
Finally, there is some interesting evidence based on some measurements of the aircraft and radio configuration and various trained radio operators who logged hearing Earhart during the last few hours. This evidence puts Earhart fairly close to Howard Island before she ran out of gas. This evidence also shows that Earhart was navigating fairly well and following standard procedures in her attempt to find Howard Island. All this evidence supports the conclusion that Earhart was following standard procedures and was close to Howard Island and NOT 350 miles away.
What happened is simple. The radios on her plane didn't work either being broke or not properly tuned. Adjusting the tube radios of the day is a technically difficult task that's easy to get wrong and Earhart didn't have a lot of experience using them because they where not common equipment on aircraft of the day. With the radios not working Earhart couldn't hear the folks who could hear her and where trying to help her Earhart got close to her destination a few times and was flying a standard search pattern in somewhat unfavorable conditions and simply ran out of luck and gas. In my opinion she is within about 30 min of flight time of Howard Island on her reported line of position (give or take 10 miles or so) which is a huge search area of mostly water. If she didn't die on impact with the water, she would have drowned as the aircraft sank only moments after it came to rest on the surface.
Where it is nice to think Earhart survived as a castaway, it is nearly impossible for this location to be where she ended up.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
She has a robots.txt file. They'll leave her alone.
I hate to agree with that viewpoint but you're right. She was not even an average pilot by all accounts, she was in it for the publicity, so yes she was a feminist pioneer in that sense but there were lots of women in the 20s and 30s that were making changes for women. Earhart had a sugar daddy who constantly pushed her name into the press and I think in all reality she was the first "Pia Zadora." So-So Talent, bought publicity and she couldn't operate a radio. What happened was an accident brought on by the need to be the first woman to go around the world, this in a time when the Airplane was less than 30 years old.
Why everybody is spending this kind of money to find her lost Electra is amazing. Exploration is good but what are we going to see, museum exhibits of "Earhart" and her found items, just like has been done with all the Titanic memorabilia once this is over?
To Paraphrase SNL from the 70s.. "Amelia Earhart is still dead."
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
There's your next companion.. right there. Moffatt.. that's a freebee.
What? You're saying she landed in Springfield? And here I thought aliens abducted her and took her to the Delta Quadrant!
Free Martian Whores!
The! Science! Says!
Anecdotal evidence from NZ: My wife has her own car but when we're both in it, she prefers I drive it. There is little difference in insurance premiums for gender when you're over 25. My 3rd-most stolen turbo charged car was cheaper to insure with lower excess and higher value than my wifes old toyota starlet when she was 24 and I was 28.