
Musk’s mini-submarine ‘not practical’ for Thailand cave rescue, say authorities - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/10/17552276/elon-musk-thailand-cave-rescue-mini-submarine-not-needed
======
sunstone
Well they're all out now, thank goodness. Musk at least tried to do something
and he did it quickly. Where was say, the US Navy?

In the end it seems they dropped full air tanks at regular points long the
route out. A super stressed kid can probably go through a tank in short order.
I would expect they used one or more of those underwater battery powered
pullers so they wouldn't have to kick for the full distance.

Simplest is often best in these things but don't throw shade on Musk just
because he made an effort.

~~~
wilsonnb2
I don't think people are mad that he mad an effort, but that he made a _highly
publicized_ effort.

There's no reason he couldn't have done everything he did but not talk about
it, at least not until after the situation was resolved.

~~~
jjeaff
Porque no los dos? Doing good is doing good. Regardless of the motivation.

~~~
wilsonnb2
Although it's still a net good, I consider it distasteful to do something good
solely or mostly for the publicity it brings, _especially_ in cases like this
where it took extra effort to publicize it.

Had Elon Musk not made a big deal about it but a media company found out and
publicized it, I wouldn't blame him for that.

------
Tomte
They let him in the cave? Really? I hope he at least gave lots of money to
Thailand for that publicity stunt.

~~~
compcoffee
But Hacker News said it wasn't PR,and that Elon was going to rescue the kids
and we'd all eat our words!

2 articles about the useless submarine made the front page. Zero about the
uselessness of it,and zero about his disgusting behaviour towards a journalist
the day before this stunt started. As planned.

~~~
gliptic
Yes, you certainly know better than Dick Stanton, of course
[https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/10166843660831907...](https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1016684366083190785)

~~~
Sangermaine
Oh okay. We should accept Musk's instruction to disregard Thai officials and
instead accept this snippet of an email he provides which still only shows
Stanton saying the effort might be useful days ago. I guess The Guardian and
ABC just don't know as much as the glorious Musk:

>[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-10/thai-cave-rescue-
elon-...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-10/thai-cave-rescue-elon-musk-
submarine-wont-be-needed/9965698)

>[https://www.theguardian.com/news/live/2018/jul/10/thai-
cave-...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/live/2018/jul/10/thai-cave-rescue-
third-mission-planned-to-bring-out-remaining-boys-and-coach-live-
updates?page=with:block-5b446023e4b04dbcfcbddeec#block-5b446023e4b04dbcfcbddeec)

I contributed as much as Musk did to this rescue operation. Where's my parade?

~~~
gliptic
What exactly are you arguing? You admit it could have been useful, but because
they decided to go ahead with another approach because of the circumstances,
the effort is useless? Do you also not do backups because, hey, I've never
lost data...

Can we have some nuance? Nobody is having a parade for Musk.

~~~
Sangermaine
Elon Musk Defends His Rejected Mini-Sub Plan for Thai Cave

[https://nyti.ms/2NCzvi6?smid=nytcore-ios-
share](https://nyti.ms/2NCzvi6?smid=nytcore-ios-share)

>He said the expert was Richard Stanton, one of the first two British cave
divers to reach the soccer team, and Mr. Musk shared an email in which Mr.
Stanton had asked him to “please keep working on the capsule details.”

>But a spokesman for Mr. Stanton said Tuesday that the cave proved to be too
narrow for the mini-submarine.

Crazy how the Thai official in charge doesn’t know what he’s talking about,
and now Stanton doesn’t know either! Why is the world conspiring against Musk
with these lies?

Where’s your messiah now?

~~~
gliptic
Yeah, such nuance. Implying that I hold Musk as a "messiah" because I'm
defending a backup plan that Musk was asked to continue working on, against
people that apparently knew in their heart it was 100% doomed to failure from
the start and instead like to shit on people because they tweet about what
they're doing or some shit.

Musk should have known how this would play out, but I don't think he's self-
aware enough for that.

I'm certainly happy they had no use for the sub, because it would have meant
the situation had worsened and they had to change the plan, some kid being
incapacitated or whatever. If it was too narrow after all, they would have had
to keep widening the cave, which they had done in places.

------
alliecat
And absolutely nobody was surprised.

I wonder what a donation of the equivalent value of that thing would have
achieved?

~~~
ericb
I wonder if you donated the time spent writing your comment to a worthy cause
what could have been achieved? /s

That line of reasoning is snarky, but not particularly useful.

~~~
wilsonnb2
I have no problem with the OP's line of reasoning.

It's obvious that Elon Musk has a larger than normal ego. I'm sure that this
hands-on attempt to help probably greatly satisfied that ego but it seems
reasonable that a monetary contribution could have done as much or more good
while also appearing less selfish.

There was absolutely no reason for Musk himself to actually go to the cave
either. Send some expert engineers along with your sub, sure, but I have no
idea what help he thought he would be providing in person.

~~~
ericb
That's not the reasoning I critiqued.

You can apply the ole "oh, but if only said human effort was directed toward
charity" line of thinking to every activity, which means it isn't a very
useful line of thinking.

~~~
wilsonnb2
The actual line of reasoning being applied is not that, though - it's a very
specific case where effort was already applied toward charity but a different
kind of effort could have been applied for greater effect had the applier been
solely interested in helping and not inflating their own ego.

~~~
ericb
I don't think it is at all clear that an engineering solution here is a priori
a bad idea. It is possible that an organization that can land rockets standing
up has better than average engineers.

------
detaro
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17496306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17496306)

