Robotic Scout To Survey Arctic Ice

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Meridian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a single-engine research aircraft with fixed landing gear designed by engineers at the University of Kansas. According to Technology Review, it will be used to see what happens beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Two units are currently being built for a cost of about 3 million US dollars. The Meridian will fly for up to 13 hours over a distance of 1,750 kilometers. The first flight over Greenland is forecast for next summer, and a second flight will take place over the Antarctic later in 2008."

Melt the ice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't all that fuel burning in the aircraft going to heat up the arctic, and exacerbate precisely the problem it's trying to survey???

Probe Droid

[opec]

Scientist: You found something? Engineer: Yes, my lord. Scientist: (studying the image on the console screen) That's it. The Rebels are there. Engineer: My lord, there are so many uncharted settlements. It could be smugglers, it could be... Scientist: That is the system. And I'm sure Skywalker is with them. Set your course for the Hoth system. General Veers, prepare your men.

Re:I'm no expert, but...

[MillionthMonkey]

Submarine would work below water. But since Greenland and Antarctica are land masses... no.

Well, one of the things they want to find out is whether there is a layer of liquid water between the rock and the ice on top. If we can send a sub under the glacier and it comes out on the other side of Greenland, that discovery would open up valuable new submarine trade routes to compete with this new Northwest Passage we've got opening up. Maybe we can even snake pneumatic tubes underneath the glacier (like the ones the old bank drive-thrus used) so we can suck inexpensive Chinese goods right out from under the ice. Of course that wouldn't be the only consequence of such a discovery. For example we could put all our stuff on top of the ice, slide it off the land into the water, and carry our things around the world on giant cheap ice rafts.