Hello Steemians! We have another episode of our space science podcast up for you!
In this episode, Alex shares his thoughts (as an engineer) on the daring rescue in Thailand of the Wild Boar soccer team and their coach. He also shares some info on how Elon Musk developed two backup solutions for the Thai Navy Seals in the event that it was not possible to save the kids and their coach.
The big question for this week was: "Why are people hating on Elon Musk, a wealthy and influential person, who is doing what he can with what he has?"
Please let us know what you think by leaving your thoughts in the comments below! Would love to start a conversation around this and see where it goes.
If you’d like to read the transcript for this episode, please read further down this post.
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Links to all of my sources for this episode are available in the details for the YouTube video, or in our show notes on the episode on Apple podcasts
TRANSCRIPT:
Thailand Rescue Mission of the Wild Boar Football team
11 hour grooling round trip to get each boy out of the cave followed by two divers
If you see footage of the trek, it’s hellish. There was barely enough room to squeeze yourself through parts of the cave above water, and while diving underwater, the divers had to hold their oxygen tanks in front of them because they wouldn’t fit through the narrow passageways. The Seal Team did an amazing and heroic job in such a dangerous situation. One of the Seal Team did die in the process of laying oxygen tanks along their path in the cave. He was apparently retired but had volunteered to save the Wild Boar team and is undoubtedly a hero.
When the rescue plans in Thailand we’re still being developed Elon Musk did get involved, originally from a tweet from a follower.
“Hi sir, if possible can you assist in anyway to get the 12 Thailand boys and their coach out of the cave. 
According to Elon, both the Thailand government and the dive teams were in communication with Elon Musk and were asked to come up with a backup solution. He got a team of SpaceX engineers together, including a team from Wing Inflatables, which is a contractor for SpaceX that makes inflatables to help them recover parts from launch. They developed two ideas as a backup plan, a red Kevlar pouch that used air locks to control air pressure and bouyancy by simply turning the stretcher a different direction to go up or down. The second idea was a portable kid sized submarine made from rocket grade aluminum and pressurized to standard atmosphere. A pouch for a music player was also added to help ease the already grueling trip back (that Elon Musk said the kid sized submarine could also be easily adapted to be an escape pod for space) here are some details from Elon in a tweet
“Design based on dive team feedback (primarily Stanton): 4 air / oxygen ports front & rear, front ports protected by nosecone. Dual O-ring seal on acrylic rear plate with clear view of occupant head. Leak/buckling proof to 10X cave water pressure.”
The hull of the submarine is made from the liquid oxygen transfer tube from a Falcon 9.
Over the next few days, as we saw the heroic plans of the Seal Team develop, we also saw a team of engineers test their submarine successfully by transporting one of the team members in the sub from one side of the pool to the next with a dive team. At this point, among many updates during the process, Elon mentioned “ “Will continue testing in LA in case needed later or for somewhere else in future." as the operations had already begun in Thailand since monsoon rains were coming which would fill the cave more, all while oxygen levels were dropping to unsafe levels inside the cave
Elon Musk brought the submarine to Thailand on the Monday while 8 of the 12 children had been successfully recovered. From his tweets Elon had gone inside the cave to see the conditions and left his submarine with the Thailand team. According to his tweet from inside the cave “Just returned from Cave 3. Mini-sub is ready if needed. It is made of rocket parts & named Wild Boar after kids’ soccer team. Leaving here in case it may be useful in the future. Thailand is so beautiful.”
But one of the things that I found inspirational about the whole thing is that here is this Elon Musk character again, who has a rocket company, and an electric car and solar company, a company looking to deliver global internet with a constellation net of satellites around the earth, and a company called neurallink that will try to help us better communicate with super AI if and when it comes. I’m sure I’m missing a company or two as well. This guy takes time out of his insanely busy schedule to focus his efforts in developing a kid sized submarine that can be tested, developed, and delivered in time to possibly help the seal team rescue the wild boar soccer team in the case that the rains get so bad it’s difficult to rescue them safely otherwise. One of the major concerns was that they had to train all the kids how to scuba dive and there was a real danger that if anyone freaked out they could take down the divers with them, or if they puked, they could end up suffocating fromit. And remember, this was an 11 hour round trip PER PERSON SAVED. So this guy with all this wealth and all these amazing things he’s doing, he decides to focus his efforts on helping in a crisis somewhere in the world using the tools he has. Engineers, rocket parts, and the fact that he’s Elon Musk. He left the submarine with the Thai people in case they need it in the future. No cost. All effort.
And this is where I close out this week’s thought from an engineer. I would love to know what you think so make sure to leave us a comment below so we can start the conversation:
Why is everyone hating on Elon Musk? In the age when people say that ‘praying’ is not enough, there are people who hate on Elon Musk who’s an influencial and wealthy person who decided to try and help in a crisis and didn’t charge anyone a dime for any of it. He footed the whole cost. Why are we hating on him? Isn’t this what ‘we’ are socially expecting of wealthy people in this world? Where does this bend to hate Elon come from?
When the people of Puerto Rico dealt with multiple hurricanes and their power infrastructure went down, Elon musk started 11,000 solar projects looking to bring sustainable power to Puerto Rico again. The US had stopped delivering aid, and Elon stepped in.
Amongst all the backlash from his attempt to help in Thailand, another person on twitter reached out and asked “Hey
He responded with “Please consider this a commitment that I will fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels. No kidding”
When people starting asking for details, Elon tweeted
“For now, reply to my tweet with ppm & ppb test results & will send someone to install a water filter. Creating email flint@x.com, but I’m in China so that won’t be working until tomorrow.”
So my question is, even if this is what most cynical people have mentioned as a “just a PR move” and others have decided to go after his character and say he’s an asshole, I plainly ask - “who cares?” “Why does that matter?”
No body is perfect, and if someone is trying to do the best with what they have available to them to do the most good, then they are OK in my book.
For me, this was a great example of what we as human beings can do if we decide to look at the problem in front of us and solve it, instead of waiting for someone else to solve it for us.
That’s the same kind of mentality that drove the Thailand Governent, and navy seal team to achieve such an amazing and terrifying feat. It’s what drove the Apollo 13 mission team to find a way to bring them back home safely, even when everything seemed to go wrong and there were no guidelines on what to do next. It’s also, as I see it from my perspective, what drove Elon Musk, a team of SpaceX engineers, and the team from Wing Inflatables to develop and create a backup plan to help other human beings in the middle of a crisis.
Failure was not an option.
And I see a lot of good coming from this, I know that it made me think. It made a lot of other people think and some to say “what can I do?”
But like I said, please let me know what you think in the comments below. That’s all of my thoughts for today, this has been thoughts from an Engineer, I am that engineer Alex G Orphanos and until next time, make sure you spread love and spread science.