Elon Musk Sends Engineers To Rescue Boys Trapped In Thailand Cave

LOS ANGELES, CA — The same technology being used to tunnel underneath Los Angeles and to try to propel man to Mars will be put to more immediate use, as Elon Musk sends a SpaceX and Boring Co. engineering team to Thailand to help free a boys soccer team trapped in cave quickly filling with water.

The team will try to help by pinpointing the trapped boys’ location using Space Exploration Technologies Corp. or by using Boring Co.’s water pumping ability and providing heavy-duty battery packs, a Musk spokesman told Bloomberg.

Twelve boys and their coach are trapped in the cave, and most of the boys can not swim. They had been missing since last month and were found by divers on Monday. However, an effort to rescue the terrified children ended in tragedy when a Thai navy SEAL driver drowned trying to reach them.

Musk signaled he’s already been working with Thai authorities to assist in the rescue effort.

“SpaceX & Boring Co engineers headed to Thailand tomorrow to see if we can be helpful to govt. There are probably many complexities that are hard to appreciate without being there in person,” Musk tweeted. “Boring Co has advanced ground penetrating radar and is pretty good at digging holes. Don’t know if pump rate is limited by electric power or pumps are too small. If so, could dropship fully charged Powerpacks and pumps….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 and auto-conform to odd shapes like the 70cm hole.”

Musk’s engineering team is slated to arrive in Thailand Saturday.

Photos: A group of rescuers check the situation inside Tham Luang Nang Non cave on June 28, 2018 in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Rescuers battle heavy rain in northern Thailand as they continued the rescue effort. Teams of Navy SEAL divers worked their way through submerged passageways in the sprawling underground caverns.(Photo by Linh Pham/Getty Images)

Engineer and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk of The Boring Company (Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images