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SpaceX, Boring Co engineers offer help in Thailand cave rescue

SpaceX, Boring Co engineers offer help in Thailand cave rescue

Elon Musk recommends using an inflated air tube to evacuate the kids.

Tesla chief Elon Musk has sent a team of SpaceX and Boring Co engineers to Thailand to offer help for the children trapped in a flooded cave system.

The boys' soccer team became stuck deep in the cave network last month when rising waters prevented them from simply walking back out the way they entered. Divers have located the team but safe extraction is proving challenging.

Musk has proposed a potential rescue strategy using an inflatable tube routed from the cave exit to the chamber that currently holds the soccer team. The approach would require much less power than pumping water out of the cave chambers.

So long as air feed rate exceeds leak rate, tube remains inflated. This is how bouncy castles or inflatable mazes work. Needs very little power as the work (physics def of work) done is low. Pumping out water faster than it enters the cave system is prob 10X to 1000X more power.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018

"There are probably many complexities that are hard to appreciate without being there in person," the executive says.

SpaceX, Boring Co and Tesla could help helpful with several technologies ranging from drilling to battery modules and water pump systems.