Alright, show me where the “experts on the ground could have told him if they had been asked.” You have this as a fact in your mind. Why?
Because I watched the documentary The Rescue in which all the details are discussed by the people involved. It was obvious right from the beginning that they had to get through extremely narrow, twisty spaces. A rigid capsule could never work.
So, you admit the documentary was a hit-piece by Musk-haters? Sorry, just predicting the next response.
I can’t believe the willful ignorance of some of the posters in this thread that continue to hang on to the “it wouldn’t have worked” as a reason to hate on Musk instead of the more defendable criticism of his response to Unsworth’s uncouth CNN interview. The posters who can’t be bothered to look at the contemporaneous accounts of the crisis. The guy was genuinely trying to help save lives but you guys can’t get over your hate for the man to look at the facts.
By the way, you can read about “The Rescue” directors decision to leave Musk out of the documentary here.
Good decision!
The rescue operation wasn’t all about him, to say the least. He contributed nothing to it, and he doesn’t need any more free publicity.
Hundreds of people came to them with offers of help and impractical ideas. Musk was just one of them, but he made sure that he got all the attention.
They didn’t even mention his name in the documentary, and that was the right thing to do.
I quite distinctly recall many people, including myself, commenting at the time that it was a stupid idea.
Another thought.
Musk went ahead and actually built his capsule (under the eyes of the world’s media)… without even asking them if they wanted it, or if it might possibly be useful.
If that’s not a pure publicity stunt then I don’t know what is.
Parts of the underwater passage were so narrow that a diver couldn’t even fit through wearing an oxygen tank. They had to remove their tank and pull it along after them.
The narrowest part was only 38 by 72 cm. Visibility was extremely limited even with lights, because of the murky water. When two divers brought a boy through they had to be very careful not to dislodge his face mask against the irregular rock surfaces.
Unsworth said:
It just had absolutely no chance of working. They had no conception of what the cave passage was like.
The submarine, I believe was about 5ft 6 long, rigid, so it wouldn’t have gone round corners or any obstacles. It wouldn’t have made the first 50 metres into the cave from the dive start point.
[The boys were stranded 4km from the cave mouth.]
But Musk never even bothered to ask whether it could work or not, before going ahead and making a big deal about constructing it. He didn’t care whether it could work or not. He only cared about the publicity.
I dislike the overuse of the word “hate” to describe any and/or all opposition to a person or idea. The opposite of total agreement is not “hate”.
Dude’s trying to buy up Twitter because he’s pissy about having to follow rules. Rockets and cars are cool but he’s still a Grade A Donglord.
He’s hilarious sometimes. He was all patriotic freedom fighter about having to follow Covid restrictions in California, but has nothing to say about China putting much stricter policies in place for the recent outbreak. Of course, he was desperate to meet qualifications for entry into the S&P 500 back then, and he made it so now pandemic policy isn’t an issue.
That’s simply not true and if you’ve bothered to read any articles about how the capsule was built you wouldn’t be posting this. But whatever, I’m tired of repeating the same post. The man was trying to save lives and he gets spit on because his solution wasn’t needed or wouldn’t have worked, either way it’s a very petty reason to hate on someone.
Oh yeah? I’d love to see it or a cite that any general glob of people were saying this at this time.
Nah, he was mocked because of his giant hissy fit afterward
Bullshit. There are several posters in this thread that are lambasting him because his solution wasn’t used, not that he threw a hissy fit afterwards.
Had Musk had the grace to say “Hey, bad idea but I tried. Thanks for getting those kids out. You’re the man” then the whole incident would have been forgotten. Instead, his shitty little fit just put a spotlight on the flaws in the idea and the flaws in Musk’s character. So now the whole incident top-to-bottom gets dissected. Rightfully so, since the whole point of Musk’s insane vendetta was how DARE anyone call his ideas unworkable and dumb. If that’s the case, it makes complete sense to determine if they were dumb or not (they were).
“Greg Moore, a regional director for the National Cave Rescue Commission, said most rescues prompt a series of newfangled ideas that are not necessarily practical. Mr. Musk’s submarine would likely have trouble fitting through the narrowest passageways, he said.”
" However, the proposal to rescue the children by sending them out of the cave in the vessel was reportedly not welcomed by the head of the rescue team.
According to the BBC, Narongsak Osottanakorn said that the equipment brought by Musk’s team was “technologically sophisticated” but “not practical with our mission.”
https://digg.com/2018/elon-musk-thai-sub
“I am a certified cave diver (both NACD and NSSCDS) and when I was living in a part of the country where a lot of cave diving takes place I was on a recovery team (fortunately I was never involved in any actual recoveries). I would be very leery about trying to use that thing in a cave with restrictions (that’s the technical term for “pinch points” ). I certainly wouldn’t be on the cave side of it (as opposed to the entrance side – when I was acting as a guide I wouldn’t even be on the non-entrence side of fat divers if the system had restrictions). It also looks like it would be very easy for the divers to get seriously injured trying to maneuver it. Especially if, as the media has reported, there are currents in the water – and in low-to-no visibility conditions as has also been reported. It would also be exhausting and dramatically increase the divers’ breathing gas use. Without knowing more about the actual circumstances in a given rescue, I can see almost no advantages in trying to use that in a real cave over what the divers are doing now. Both are very, very dangerous but the tube adds the possibility of trapping or injuring divers as well as the rescued person (and everyone else further in the cave).”
I don’t think you even read the links you provided. The second one clearly shows the e-mail exchange between Musk & Stanton, to co-leader of the rescue diving team where Stanton is encouraging Musk to continue his efforts. As one commenter noted, at the time you wanted all available options.
I don’t know why you guys pick this crisis as something to hate on him for, there is plenty of lower hanging fruit on the tree. I just hate to see someone wrongly get ridiculed for genuinely trying to help solve a crisis regardless of how much wealth they have.
I don’t know why you keep ignoring the second half of the story and insist on framing it as people being mean to Musk for only wanting to help.
You really don’t know why?
If you’re referring to Musk’s reaction to the CNN Unsworth interview, I haven’t ignored it, I’ve addressed it in previous posts. Elon had a childish reaction to Unsworth’s unprovoked shit-talking interview. What I don’t understand is how posters on here can’t separate the two “halves” of the story so have to hate on Musk for genuinely trying to save lives during a crisis.