Elon Musk
by
THE
authorities dismissed the “tiny, kid-sized sub” the Tesla chief built to help
save the trapped boys. But Musk has fired back.
TECH
billionaire Elon Musk may have helped keep the lights on in Adelaide with
super-sized batteries and his Hyperloop train could slash travel times, but the
Thai Government gave him short shrift on his 11th-hour plan to rescue the
stranded boys.
On Tuesday, mission commander and former Chiang Rai province
governor Narongsak Osottanakorn said the rescue squad would not need the
mini-submarine created by the Tesla co-founder and CEO as it was “not
practical”.
Musk had been tweeting up a storm about the benefits of the
“tiny, kid-sized submarine” he’d been furiously testing in a Los Angeles
swimming pool.
“Mini-sub is ready if needed. It is made of rocket
parts and named Wild Boar after kids’ soccer team,” he wrote.
But the head of the rescue mission dismissed the
option in favour of sticking with the plan for experienced cave divers to help
the boys swim out.
“Although his technology is good and sophisticated
it’s not practical for this mission,” Mr Narongsak said.
Musk fired back at this claim, saying the former
provincial governor was “not the subject matter expert” and sharing his
correspondence with leader of the dive rescue team Richard Stanton.
“Right
now, I have one of the world’s best engineering teams who normally design spaceships
and spacesuits working on this thing 24 hours a day,” Musk’s email to Stanton
dated July 8 read. “If it isn’t needed, that would be great to know.”
Stanton replied: “It is absolutely worth continuing
with the development of this system in as timely a manner as feasible. If the
rain holds out it may well be used.”
The tech entrepreneur said parts were being
assembled for underwater testing before being put on a plane. He said the operating
principle was the “same as spacecraft design — no loss of life even with two
failures.”
In an ominous indication of just how precarious the
rescue operation was, Stanton then sent another email: “We’re worried about the
smallest lad please keep working on the capsule details.”
Musk’s engineers
designed a metallic escape pod based on “feedback from Thailand,” using a large
silver tube meant to be affixed to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The person inside
would not need to swim or know how to use oxygen bottles.
Earlier in the week, the tech
boss described the device as “basically a tiny, kid-size submarine using the
liquid oxygen transfer tube of Falcon rocket as hull”.
He said it was “light enough
to be carried by two divers, small enough to get through narrow gaps” and
“extremely robust”.
The device is outfitted with
oxygen ports and a nose cone to protect it from impact with rocks.
On Monday, Musk had
tweeted a short video of the sub being tested in a suburban LA pool. Guided by
divers at the front and rear of the craft, it was inched through a metal
framework supposed to resemble the tight submerged spaces in the tunnel
complex.
But with some of these just
38cm wide, the sub would have to be immensely manoeuverable given divers have
had to take off their oxygen tanks to squeeze through the narrow passages.
Each boy and their coach
was fitted with a wetsuit, boots and full face mask with oxygen supplied from a
tank carried by another diver.
They followed a guide rope
through the tunnel system with a diver in front and one behind them to help
them in the difficult flooded passages.
Musk’s sub may have been a dud for this mission,
but his battery in South Australia is firing on all cylinders.
The battery delivered 100 megawatts into the
national electricity grid in 140 milliseconds.
“That’s a record and the national operators were
shocked at how quickly and efficiently the battery was able to deliver this
type of energy into the market,” then Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said.
The battery, in the state’s mid north, was switched
on after being built by Musk’s company Tesla in less than 100 days following a series
of blackouts in South Australia.
