2005-02-21

Lost. One submarine. (Doesn't) answer to the name "autosub".

We seem to have lost autosub, as the Guardian reports today. Is this a Beagle II moment? Its hard to know. I always found the fact that it was powered by a gigantic number of "D" cells rather funny, and its impossible to resist jokes like "oh they probably used some cheapo ones they got from a bloke on the market". I'm being unfair, of course.

OTOH, using autonomous vehicles under the ice shelves is fun (I wanted them to go under the sea ice to profile the ice thickness in winter; sadly thats not on the cards yet; if Autosub had stuck to sub-sea-ice and kept away from sub-ice-shelf, they could have got it back). "Gliders" are probably the future, though navigation under ice is tricky.

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