Chili has reached out to NASA for help. Given the amount of time it will take for Rescue the trapped 33 miners (possibly 4 months) closest it relates too is Astronauts on long space journeys. Fascinating. If successful it will be longest any trapped miners will have lived underground.
My prayers are with the miners and their families.
NASA, We Have A Problem
As the 33 men enter their twentieth day of accidental captivity fully aware that they may be trapped underground longer than any other miners in history, Chilean officials are looking for space-age help from NASA to keep the miners physically and mentally healthy.
The men are trapped in a hot, humid 600-square-foot shelter nearly a half mile below ground. The space is too small and too poorly ventilated for the men to sleep there so they sleep in other parts of the mine. There is no toilet and so the men are using a tunnel further away.
"This situation is very similar to that of the astronauts who are in space stations for months," Chile's health minister Jaime Manalich told The Santiago Times. A NASA spokesman told The Houston Chronicle the agency was prepared to help and is reportedly considering the best way to do so. Rescuers have been communicating with the miners through two small holes drilled down to the shelter.
Now that the miners know they face a months-long journey inside the cramped mine, they have requested and received diversions like a domino set and several packs of playing cards. They have also requested that wine be sent down so they can celebrate the country's independence day, which isn't for another month.
Astronauts on the International Space Station generally spend around six months in very cramped quarters with only a handful of fellow crew members, according to NASA.gov. Psychological counseling was available at the site of the mine as early as Monday, along with doctors to monitor the miners' physical health.
"We all need and are used to a certain amount of physical and psychological space around us," Simon Rego, director of Clinical Training at the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, told ABC News Monday. "As a result of being trapped, both of these variables will be compromised, along with other 'freedoms' that we normally take for granted."
Another practical reason not to cut the NASA program and budgets. Thank god they will be able to rely upon their expertise with this very difficult situation.
