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Science Technology

Robotic Gliders Soar Underwater 208

Posted by michael from the soon-to-be-militarized dept.
zymano writes "Yahoo has this tech news on ocean gliders that can go on journeys for hundreds of miles and last for weeks using pumps that push ballast water in and out to subtly change their buoyancy. This enables them to alternately rise and fall through the ocean as they glide forward. Oh , $60,000 if you want one." See our previous stories for more information.
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Robotic Gliders Soar Underwater More

Robotic Gliders Soar Underwater

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  • Dear Santa (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikesab ( 652105 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:45PM (#7549028)
    You know the rest.

  • Finally (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Maybe now we'll be able to explore the final frontier of our own planet.

    • not so fast.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by greechneb ( 574646 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:58PM (#7549157) Journal
      from the article

      Preliminary analysis of the design suggests its shape should produce speeds up to 10 times as fast as today's gliders, which fly at a pokey half-mile an hour

      That is a whopping 5 miles per hour... you won't be able to swim with many schools of fish - or keep up with that russian sub, unless you are being towed by it. It is neat, but slow.

      • Yes, I also did the mental calculation to convert the "NEW, IMPROVED, 10X AS FAST!" to the rather modest speed of 5mph. (Er, that roaring top speed is about 8kph for the rest of the world.)

        But, compared to the speed of ocean currents, it makes all the difference in the world. I think the Gulf Stream is only 4mph. At 1/2 mph, your glider needs to take care to avoid being plankton. At 5 mph, care is good, but you can get headlong into a modest current if you feel the need.

      • Re:not so fast.... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rocketsled ( 676050 )
        Since the Navy has been backing it I'd say that this is autonomous sensor or worse autonomous weapon. So swimmin' with the fishies is not at the top of their priorities.
    • Maybe now we'll be able to explore the final frontier of our own planet.

      Forget our planet! Explore Europa! I couldn't find many good links very easily, though I remember the discussion of such a sub that could be sent to Europa to explore its ocean. In addition to a lot of benefits, like simplicity, resistance to icing and mechanical failure of propellers, etc, such a sub has the benefit of making Europa's exploration virtually contamination-proof - you don't need the seals around propeller shafts, etc.

  • Double dupe! (Score:5, Funny)

    by wankledot ( 712148 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:47PM (#7549050)
    The previous post was a dupe too.

    Hot Dupe On Dupe Action!

  • Imagine the possibilities (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:48PM (#7549066)
    I'd bet the US military would love these things. You could easily weaponize these things! From mine sweeping to hunting down enemy subs these things would rock.
    • I'd bet the US military would love these things. You could easily weaponize these things! From mine sweeping to hunting down enemy subs these things would rock.

      I think you have to make a distinction between making into a weapon (true weaponizing), and making a detection/surveillance/tracking system.
      • I tend to think the surveillance/tracking applications are more significant. There are already lots of way to deliver nukes. There aren't many ways to effectively guard against subs. Now, what is tricky here: these things are both their own problem and solution. It seems like guarding against these gliders might be most effectively done by the gliders themselves.

        I can imagine these things evolving into a rather effective means of monitoring ocean borders. It would simply become impossible to sneak into an

    • Re:Imagine the possibilities (Score:5, Funny)

      by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:07PM (#7549227) Homepage
      You could easily weaponize these things!

      Yeah, and you can easily verbize things as well...

      Cheers,
      Ian

    • The gliders are as efficient as they are stealthy, which has drawn the interest and backing of the U.S. Navy (news - web sites). Potential military applications include mine detection, surveillance and patrol, Navy officials said.

      Half the story is about military applications and development.

    • Re:Imagine the possibilities (Score:5, Informative)

      by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:32PM (#7549438) Homepage
      From mine sweeping to hunting down enemy subs

      No. That is not the obvious use. The obvious use will be delivering a nuclear (or large conventional) payload in the middle of an enemy port undetected. These things can be made as stealthy as the submarines never ever got. They make no noise. They can be made to have near zero magnetic signature. If you are not in a hurry they can go half the way acrosss the pacific if needed.

      Fsck... The possible applications outright scare me. And at 60K they are only a fraction of the price of a missile. The only problem is navigating in shallow water, but this can be solved as well at around 60 more K.

      • The obvious use will be delivering a nuclear (or large conventional) payload in the middle of an enemy port undetected.

        That's the obvious obvious use.

        The subtle obvious use: disguise this thing underwater bomb a manta ray, so it can turn Aquaman into shark fodder. Finally, a chance to prove what a second-rate superhero that guy really is!

        -kgj

        • Re:Hunter and Prey (Score:2, Informative)

          by bar-agent ( 698856 )
          Aqua-man has become quite the hard-ass. He cut off his own hand and grafted on a harpoon instead. He no longer takes shit from anyone. He now acts like what he is, the king of 73% of the Earth's surface. He's got armies, sea monsters, and a chip on his shoulder.

          Kind of like Namor without the pretensions, and with a beard.
          • Aqua-man has become quite the hard-ass. He cut off his own hand and grafted on a harpoon instead. He no longer takes shit from anyone. He now acts like what he is, the king of 73% of the Earth's surface.

            Yikes! Okay, I take back what I said about him -- this guy is the bad-ass of the deep.

            Gets me thinking ... 73% of the earth's surface isn't quite correct, because the ocean is measured in terms of volume, not surface ... in terms of volume, Aquaman owns an even bigger piece of liquid real estate.

            -k

      • these would make lousy weapons (Score:5, Informative)

        by sbma44 ( 694130 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @04:15PM (#7550285)
        Yes, Hunt For Red October has taught us all that you've got to be vewy vewy quiet when you're on a sub, lest your noise be picked up by the other guy's passive sonar and used to find your position.

        But that's for sub-to-sub situations, when both guys want to hide their location. If instead of a submarine you're manning, say, Miami, then your best efforts to hide your location are probably still going to fall short. So you can use active sonar to find these things. And then blow them up with torpedoes or depth charges.

        Which shouldn't be too hard, given that the ferrari of the class moves at 5 mph. And there's not even any guarantee that these things can work in shallow water. Who even knows what "shallow" is in this case? I wouldn't be surprised if their effectiveness is crippled as soon as they run into a continental shelf -- keeping them quite a good ways off-shore. It seems logical to assume that their efficiency drops off the more up-and-down cycles they have to employ, and the smaller the surface/seabed pressure differential is.

        Finally, delivering nukes by sea is not a good way to get the most value from your military-industrial dollar. My understanding is that for maximum wrath-of-god effect, you'd want to blow a nuclear weapon up in the atmosphere over your target -- hence MIRV's horrible destructiveness. Ground level is not where you want to detonate. And certainly not at sub-ground level, in the middle of a gigantic heat-and-radiation absorber.

        Admittedly, you are not going to save your city by keeping that nuke covered with 10 feet of water. But it's just one more strike against this as a weapon-delivery system. (Bonus Simpsons paraphrase: "Three month ocean voyage? But I'm mad now!"). A good-old fashioned cargo container would be easier to obtain, easier to retrieve, and only somewhat easier for the feds to detect.

        • Aww man... you ruined all my fun. I was so excited to get scared and alarmist, but NOOO, you had to go and be calm and logical. WTF kind of Slashdotter are you?? ;)
        • You're right that air blast is the most effective delivery. Even "hard target" kills don't necessarily detonate in the ground. In almost every case, if an RV hits the ground, it's because something went wrong. Impact fuzing is usually a last-ditch effort to get some value out of an RV that failed to fuze correctly. However, the power of MIRVs is not that they detonate in the air (a single RV can do that). It's that several of them detonate in the air in quick succession, which means it sucks to be you
        • That is not entirely correct. Well if it was the coordinates for all russian 100MT watrheads would not have been guess where: 30-40 miles off the shore of California and New England. There were not many of those manufactured. Just enough to deliver the necessary effect - a nice cute tidal wave of 3-4 meters above the high tide mark.
      • The only problem with this is the time to delivery. Even the several weeks necessary to cross take the last leg (assuming it was dropped off as close as one can get to the enemy) could be unacceptible.

        If someone were to launch a bunch of them now, program them to quietly sit on the bottom near the shore, just in case there's a war.....
      • ... to stealthily deliver Navy SEALs (or other special ops types) to wherever it is that they get delivered to by sub and rubber raft now. A human on board would take care of the shallow water navigation and you could cover distances greater than a diver (even a SEAL diver) could swim.

        BTW they can't be too stealthy since blowing ballast at depth is a noisy job. Even at its quietest it's unique enough from ambient noise to be detected.
    • the only problem with hunting down enemy subs is that the glider is too slow to keep up with a modern sub. the article points out that the current design only does 1/2 mph, and the navy's latest design goes at about 5 mph (which has to be a w.a.g. because i am sure the actual figures are way classified.)
    • If I am Al Qaeda, it it a nice way to get a Nuke, Chemical, or Biological bomb into DC, New York, Miami, LA, San Diego, Houston etc.

      It is also a nice way to bring in literally tons of Coke into the USA.
  • Does this remind anyone else of a James Bond movie?

    I can hear the advertisements now: "You too can fight the henchmen of evil geniuses with our Ocean Glider. Help fight terrorism above and below the waves!"

  • I wonder (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mental_telepathy ( 564156 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:51PM (#7549096)
    What their towing capacity is? Can they run fiber out to my private island? Or, for the 20 foot ones, do rescue missions (Remember the trapped Russian Sailors in the sub?)
    • Since they're running on ocean currents these things are gonna have enough trouble moving themselves. They aren't going to be able to tow a cable or rescue anybody. To do that you'd need something with an internal power source.

    • Re:I wonder (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The US had the capability to save the Russian sailors on the Kursk. An article on Pravda claimed that no sailors survived the initial disaster. Later reports show letters that were written for a period of time after the inital explosision, but before the crew expired.

      It's a damn shame too. At the time that this happened, I don't think there would have been a US sub sailor who wouldn't have lent a hand. The DSRV crew would have had quite a feather in their cap. We are able to put the DSRV in the water a


    • This post is ridiculous. The advancement here isn't a better submarine. It's using ballast to raise this submersible and then having it glide forward as it descends again. It's not something you'd use for stringing cable (surface vessels are quite capable) or rescuing people trapped underwater (existing submarines are better).
  • Oh , $60,000 if you want one
    Why buy one of those, when you can get one of these these [boats.com] for a mere $20,000 more?

  • Cool Idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by randall_burns ( 108052 ) <randall_burns@@@hotmail...com> on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:55PM (#7549126)
    I can imagine this basic idea might also get adapted in various ways for non-time critical transport. The hard part here seems like the embedded software/hardware--the other technology is based on stuff that has been around a while.


    I have a feeling this is one that really will take off in time.

  • Non military uses (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:55PM (#7549127)
    How about free, albeit slow, cargo delivery? Get a tug to tow containers/gliders to a 'safe' distance from the traffic surrounding a port, point the glider at its destination, set its GPS coordinates, and let it go. 3 months later, your boxes of widgets arrive at their destination, where another tug picks up the stuff at the other end.

    No fuel
    No staff
    24x7 operation
    weather independent

    • Re:Non military uses (Score:5, Funny)

      by lobsterGun ( 415085 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:04PM (#7549200)
      If by "widgets" you mean "cocaine", then I suspect it won't be long before your idea gets a real world try out.
      • That's pretty much what I was thinking. make some small submersibles, use radar "repelling" coatings, and start pointing them northwards from Columbia.. Or for sensimilla coming out of Vancouver, start sending down shipments to California.. Or more adventurous, Opium/Heroin from the far east to the west coast... But then again, it seems more cost efficient to ship a bunch of containers over.. You lose one or two to DEA/customs, the sheer cost of the goods more than makes up for it so I hear.

      • Re:Non military uses (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PPGMD ( 679725 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:43PM (#7549560) Journal
        Personally I highly doubt that it will work because during the Cold War the US deployed a series of Sonar nets through out the oceans to detect Soviet submarines.

        They are called the Sound Surveillance System (SOUS), word was that it could detect Soviet subs leaving their North Sea bases from the US.
        You can find more information here:
        http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/sosus .htm [globalsecurity.org]

        • i am sure that submarines make a lot more noise than these gliders. the only noise the glider makes is the noise from its ballast pumps. sosus is a passive array, so it sensitivity is limited.
    • Yes... Drug barons will *love* this thing... Easy to deploy, launch it and forget it till it arrives... Much safer than sailboats etc...
    • Very low cost maybe, but not free. The equipment might last 10-15 years. In mass production, you can probably get costs way down. This is really the time of thing that belongs in the category of "global infrastructure". If enough folks started using these, they'd become highly practical.
    • Better program them to surface often to get GPS updates. The GPS signals will not penetrate the water (at least not very far).

    • and a fishingboat.
      Hey, lett me know when you start flooding the ocean with them. I can always use a new laptop or cellphone.
      And the **AA thought kazaa-users were pirats.
      Imagine the outcry if their cd's are gone as well.

    • How about [...] cargo delivery? [...]

      I rather doubt that the concept is feasible for large freight.

      No fuel

      Well, at least no diesel. But it isn't a perpetuum mobile ;-).
      In order to move the glider in sawtooth mode (up and down) you'll need energy to pump the "swimming oil" around. Wouldn't the amount of oil to be pumped and thus the energy used be proportional to the freight carried?
      What about automated sailing ships with sturdy square sail constructions like the Shin Aitoku Maru instead?

    • Unlikely. The forward thrust of this thing is ridicolously low, and combined with the need to go *deep*, thus nessecitating protecting most cargo from the pressure, it'll never be a hit.

      Consider the following:

      If the thing is changing it's ballast enough to move its density from say 1.1 in "gliding-downwards" mode to 0.9 in "gliding-uphill" mode, then the entire energy available for one sink-float cycle is equal to 0.2 *mass_of_vehicle*9.8*max_depth

      So, let's say you've built a device weighing 10.000 kg

  • A land Rover can cost you $60,000, if loaded with extras that contribue to it's "poorest MPG of practically any vehicle" rating, which I believe makes it the polar opposite of this underwater thing. Why can't they make a land version that pumps air or something?

  • Message In A Bottle (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tds67 ( 670584 )
    Wouldn't this be a neat way to send a message cross-Atlantic style from New York to the coast of France?

    Not very cost effective, but an interesting variation of "message in a bottle."

    • Perfect! It shows just exactly how much we (on the other side of the Atlantic) value communication with the French!
      I'm all for it. Drop the phones, satellites, and let's just completely cut to these ... robots.
    • an interesting variation of "message in a bottle."

      Nah, it just *seemed* like that movie lasted as long as a .5mph trip across the Atlantic would.

  • Silly superstitious fishermen... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24, 2003 @01:59PM (#7549158)
    from the article:
    During the August experiments in Monterey, fishermen plucked four of the gliders from the water after the robots briefly surfaced to communicate with scientists by satellite. Three of the gilders were recovered intact; the fourth was found on shore in pieces.
    Bob: What the Hell is that, Earl?
    Earl: That's the biggest dang devil ray I ever did see!
    Bob: Well get the cudgel, they're bad luck! Damn robot devil rays...

  • i know where to get one cheaper than 60k (Score:5, Funny)

    by theMerovingian ( 722983 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:00PM (#7549169) Journal
    During the August experiments in Monterey, fishermen plucked four of the gliders from the water after the robots briefly surfaced to communicate with scientists by satellite.

    Ebay!

  • Mine detector, or dolphin scab labor? (Score:5, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:02PM (#7549185) Homepage Journal

    I am outraged. We've got dolphins for all of this work.

    Where is the Dolphin Workers Union on this? Sitting fat in their own Jacuzzis, that's where, taking handouts from the Man.

    Their silence condemns them for the fish-bucket whores they are.

  • other uses? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:03PM (#7549189) Journal

    This seems measuremade for 'dumb' drones that swim (or rather fly) around in the big blue ocean and collects data, but I wonder; could this technology be used for larger, manned crafts too? One possibility is a even more stealty military submarine* - possible with a more conventional propulsionsystem in adition to the ability to fly - but more civilian applications seems possible too. Perhaps giant cargovessels** and supertankers, pulling energy out of the seawater (RTFA) and cruising under the busy sealanes?

    _*) Submarines are plenty stealty already...
    **)The cargocarreing submarine is not a new idea, the germans launced Deutchland [hmco.com], and later the idea has resurfaced several itmes.

    • The cargocarreing submarine is not a new idea, the germans launced Deutchland, and later the idea has
      resurfaced several itmes.

      Intentional or not, thats just horrible.

  • Long Distance Torpedoes for Terrorists? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by savaget ( 26702 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:04PM (#7549206)
    I wonder if terrorist will try to adapt this to target cruise ships with explosives?
    • I wonder if terrorist will try to adapt this to target cruise ships with explosives?

      I wonder if another slashtroll will try to adapt this article to political propoganda?

      Why waste the money? We've seen that they prefer to blow themselves up in the process, so they'll probably continue to just stick to human bombs.

  • Finally, a cruise missile for the masses (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:09PM (#7549250) Homepage
    At last, the intercontinental torpedo. This is going to go over big with terrorists. Or small countries that need some effective deterrent against US attack.

    The next step in weaponization is a torpedo powerplant and seeker. This would be used only in the last stage, when wave motion has brought the thing to a harbor mouth, allowing a final attack run with power. The thing can be launched hundreds of miles offshore. Maybe thousands.

    It's back to submarine nets, like WWII. SOSUS isn't going to pick this up; it's just drifting sea junk most of the time.

    • Why make one for your selves? Just pick up a US 'homing pigeon' and send it home packing.

    • If they had an AI onboard, I can imagine what these little fishies would be thinking...

      Ooooooo, look at all this water. What am I doing here?

      Hmm, I have this strange urge to travel...I wonder why....

      Ooo, I know, there must be more fishes like me where I'm going... (Checks WWW for information on migratory species...) That's it! I must be migrating. There must be other fishes like me there.

      swim swim swim...

      Three months later....

      swim swim..

      Hmmm, this is where I'm supposed to be... Now how do I find o

  • Uses big huge baking soda pellets.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bodland ( 522967 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:20PM (#7549331) Homepage
    Fills up with bubbles then sinks....fills up with bubbles then sinks... I ordered one of those subs from Haunted Tank comic book... "Negative Jeb..."
    • The baking soda technology is certainly not new. I ordered mine from a cereal box coupon some 50 years ago. Gray plastic, and worked like a charm. Unlike the ones in the article, it would have lasted more than 50 years except for that old dog that liked to chew on toys.

  • Power from the water? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jbayes ( 15334 )

    So I want to know how they manage to "sip" power from the warmth of the water. Last I checked, things didn't work like that.

    • Re:Power from the water? (Score:4, Informative)

      by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:37PM (#7549495) Journal

      So last time you checked, thermal energy didn't work? Odd, I'm pretty sure I didn't turn that off...

      Seriously, I can see two ways of doing this: Either you find some way of bringing the heat from the upper layers down to the colder ones and tap part of the energy as it radiates, or you bring up somethign cold from the deapth and tap part of the energy as it is warmed up. One system I saw described in a popular science magasine a few years back involded phasechanging wax from solid to liquid and back again.

      Basicly, to 'sip' power from seawater is not significanlty different than making electricity with geothermal energy - it's just a bit harder to pack all the bits into a tiny topedoshaped hull.

    • Re:Power from the water? (Score:4, Informative)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:42PM (#7549551)
      The thing works on gaining and losing elevation, so if there's a temperature gradient at different depths, well there you go. Or maybe they're talking about the hot springs where steam comes up through fissures? I don't know. But there's certainly some energy there, enough to support life in fact.

      • so if there's a temperature gradient at different depths

        Check it out: http://lter.limnology.wisc.edu/slrecent.htm

        That's for a Wisconsin Lake. As you can see, during the warm to semi-warm months, there is a definite drop in temperature between 10 and 15 meters in depth. And this is for a temperate lake... imagine the gradients in a tropical/sub-tropical ocean.

        So the question is not if there's a temperature gradient, it's how big is the temperature gradient. And going by this data, 10 degC is plenty

    • Re:Power from the water? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      1)surface water is warm
      2)deep water is cold
      3)these things go up and down
      4)apply thermodynamics.
  • That (AP) article starts with the sentence:

    A century after the Wright Brothers first took to the skies, the world of flight is pushing to new depths.

    I noticed another popular (Reuters) article on Yahoo - Technology Removes Need for Human Pilots [yahoo.com] - released on the same day, which began similarly:

    The Wright Brothers demonstrated that man could fly. A century later, we're looking at a future in which planes fly without humans.

    Where is written that one must mention the Wright Brothers as a historical l

  • So this glider functions exactly as a normal
    glider - make use of up and down moving air
    currents to gain altitude-and maybe also speed.
    The question I had is that, are water currents
    more predictable than air currents? (Maybe due
    to their viscosity?) This could really help in
    transporting goods from one region to other if
    predictable under-water currents could be used.

    Come to think of it - these would be of no use
    Land-locked countries !
    • Pump the water to the front and it glides downhill in that direction, just like an air glider, while you use the rudder to set the direction. When you are deep enough, pump out the water and the front rises, letting you glide uphill in the direction you wish to go. It's just simple physics and simple aerodynamics. You are trying to make it too hard. You use the force of gravity to sink. (Does that mean you use the force of anti-gravity to rise?)
    • The question I had is that, are water currents more predictable than air currents?

      High-altitude balloonists/weather scientists know how to use the jetstream. Major water currents are similar though slower, but there are many unpredictable eddies on scales of 200+ km. So adaptive steering/bouyancy control is needed.

      Come to think of it - these would be of no use Land-locked countries !

      Tell it to the Swiss Navy.

  • Midwater research could really use this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ianscot ( 591483 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @02:43PM (#7549562)
    The biggest habitat on earth is the ocean's "mid water," below where light can penetrate and above the abyssal depths. When biologists go down for a look there, they're trying to observe from a blind that's totally conspicuous, noisy, and thrashing around a ton. Even the latest scientific robot submersibles are pretty noisy hydraulic monstrosities -- the Monterey Bay Acquatic Research Institute's being decent examples.

    Still, even in Monterey Bay, MBARI has seen all kinds of new siphonophores [nwf.org] (look halfway down) and so on -- really amazing animals that may be the biggest group of predators on earth, but that we know next to nothing about.

    A low-speed, quiet, long-term observation platform would be made to order for, to use that example, siphonophores: they're slow-moving, they hunt by drifting along extending toxic tentacles, but they're often disturbed by the existing robot subs. Or set this thing to watching a whale carcass as it floats around: scientists have a lot of ideas about the roles dead whales may play, but no way of really observing them long-term.

    The lack of speed isn't going to let you follow something like squid around; teuthids have a much better water jet system that'll let them outrun and outmaneuver almost anything we've got. But this'd give us a nice, quiet observation platform for most of the stuff that lives midwater and drifts -- which seems to be a huge share of the life on earth, and almost unexplored by science.

  • Yet another innovation to benefit the Drug Running industry. Bravo!

  • i love simplicity (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mantera ( 685223 ) on Monday November 24, 2003 @04:12PM (#7550260)

    I like this machine. It's amazing how the most beautiful solutions are often the simplest.

    It also reminds me of this...

    " It sometimes seems as if our planet has no secrets left - but deep beneath the great Antarctic ice sheet scientists have made an astonishing discovery. They've found one of the largest lakes in the world. It's very existence defies belief. Scientists are desperate to get into the lake because its extreme environment may be home to unique flora and fauna, never seen before, and NASA are excited by what it could teach us about extraterrestrial life. But 4 kilometres of ice stand between the lake and the surface, and breaking this seal without contaminating the most pristine body of water on the planet is possibly one of the greatest challenges science faces in the 21st century. transcript here [bbc.co.uk]

    The difference in mindset between the Soviet solution and the NASA solution was really interesting.
  • What are the theoretical limits to how well this could work? If you had a bunch of these kinds of devices, appropriately networked, you'd have a lot more information about currents than we now have. It seems to me like that information could be used to speed things up a bit. I'd like to hear from someone that knows more about oceanography than I do.

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