Billionaire Elon Musk said he is sending engineers from two of his companies to Thailand in an effort to help the government rescue the members of a youth soccer team trapped in a flooded cave, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Musk tweeted earlier that his Boring Company was "pretty good at digging holes" and discussed inserting a nylon tube into the cave, inflating it like "a bouncy castle" to create an underwater tunnel, the BBC reported. He suggested that engineers from Boring and SpaceX needed to be at the site to survey the rescue possibilities, the AP reported.
Maybe worth trying: insert a 1m diameter nylon tube (or shorter set of tubes for most difficult sections) through cave network & inflate with air like a bouncy castle. Should create an air tunnel underwater against cave roof & auto-conform to odd shapes like the 70cm hole.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018
According to a Boring Company spokesman, Musk's organization is "speaking with the Thai government to see how we can help, and we are sending SpaceX/Boring Company people from the U.S. to Thailand today to offer support on the ground," the BBC reported.
I suspect that the Thai govt has this under control, but I’m happy to help if there is a way to do so
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 4, 2018
Musk's offer came in the wake of the announcement that a former Thai navy diver died while returning from bringing oxygen to the 12 boys and their coach, who have been trapped in the Tham Luang cave area in northern Thailand.
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