Elon Musk is Mad His Min-Submarine Didn't Help in Thai Cave Rescue
While the rescue mission was underway to save 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand, Elon Musk decided to add his contribution to the rescue. Ten engineers from Space X, Tesla, and the Boring Company showed up to Thailand in an attempt to assist the rescue mission. They built a “kid-sized” submarine with rocket parts. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. The chief of the rescue mission called the device “not practical” for the operation, unable to fit inside the cave’s narrow passageways.
A British diver who actually helped in the rescue became outspoken about Musk’s plan. "It just had absolutely no chance of working. They had no conception of what the cave passage was like...It wouldn't have made the first 50 metres into the cave from the dive start point,” Vern Unsworth told The Telegraph. When Musk himself went inside the cave, according to Unsworth, he was asked to leave very quickly. The soccer team was rescued successfully after 18 days, with the help of dozens of divers and hundreds of volunteers. Meanwhile, Musk’s team had abandoned the submarine.
A Thai military official told the New York Times that the mini submarine could be useful in some future rescue mission in open water. Engineers from SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company, has been training members of the Thai Navy to use the mini-submarine. Musk responded to photos of the training session on Twitter, adding that his engineers were “also getting feedback from the British dive team on how to improve the design for future applications.”
Meanwhile, Musk decided to attack the diver who criticized his ill-fated submarine. "Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves," Musk tweeted. He challenged the diver to show the final rescue video, and then changed his tone. "You know what, don’t bother showing the video. We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it," Musk tweeted.
(Elon Musk / New York Times / The Telegraph)
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