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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Remote is more than a measure of distance on a map. Among climbers there is a logic about remote places: it took a week to get to the moon and back. There are places on rock faces and up mountians that take longer, that are more remote than the moon. In places like the alaska/canadian/russian north is very possible to be trapped by weather for days, weeks, even months. That is more remote than any island.

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Neal Stephenson invented a humorous and not entirely serious comparison of difficulty of ground travel, measured in "Lewis and Clark Expedition Day" (LAC).

In which the relative difficulty and trouble in covering an amount of terrain is measured in units of LACs, equivalent to the theorized amount of suffering a member of the LAC expedition experienced in one day.

The military does similar, measuring distance in days required for a footsoldier with a pack. A mountain forest in winter? Snow many meters deep with trees only a meter apart? Low visibility? Wind? Uphill? A platoon might move less than a single kilometer per day.

Since ancient history, China used the distance unit li (里). While it was theoretically moved to some sort of standard in the Qin dynasty (The Qin was the dynasty ruled by the tyrant that built the great wall and the terracotta warriors, famous for the attempted and actual standardizations of weights and measures), it has effectively also, otherwise and perhaps generally been an effort-based unit in colloquial use. As recently as early this century I encountered people who still used the li in the effort-based way in Yunnan province (highly mountainous).

Here is a place (San Agustín sump) that takes 3 weeks to get to from the cave entrance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_Huautla

> In 1994, during a 135-day expedition of 44 people ...

wow

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but using the moon as an example is a bit far-fetched, as well as the metric being time. I thinkl it would be fair to say: Using the same amount of resources, how hard is it to reach a given point?

There is always someone who will fly a helicopter into the remote outback...

> is very possible to be trapped by weather for days, weeks, even months. That is more remote than any island.

Except those islands that you can't reach due to weather for days, weeks or, even months...

Ridiculous!

It would take longer to get to the moon and back if you walked there. There is no place on Earth that you couldn't get to quicker if your budget was the same

Try flying a helicopter in the mountains during an alaskan blizzard. All the money in the world wont get you there any faster. And there are sides of cliffs where air rescue is impossible in even the best weather.

With 60s era NASA budgets, adjusted for inflation you might be able to invent a cannon and projectile which could reach such places much sooner.

Mm, "all the money in the world" would totally get you there faster. You'd be able to fly in a helicopter with a FIPS (which allows flight in full icing conditions without limitation.) You might not want to get too close to the ground for various reasons, but then parachute put some guys with Jetskis and drop down supplies and oxygen in strategic places and you can damn well get to where you want to be - significantly faster than some dudes on foot. Heck, even without a FIPS, you can fly larger helicopters in some icing conditions.

Icing? That isn't the issue. It is wind and visibility. Helos don't fly in blizzards.

Anyone who can get them to fly well at altitude will probably also have plenty of orders from india or pakistan or both.

Well, I have an experienced helicopter pilot literally in front of me who said the icing is indeed the biggest issue.

Helicopters can indeed fly ILS, and larger helicopters can indeed fly into severe wind. Even HH-60s have flown into hurricanes before. While ILS flight into blizzard conditions would require a very skilled pilot and a capable helicopter, for "all the money in the world" those could easily be provided.

I like how my above comment is -3, classic HN.

I feel like if you were to devote huge a chunk of the top engineering talent in the world for 10 years, as was done with the moon missions, then it would certainly happen.

You could use thin rigid supports: something like telescoping linear actuators generated in-situ with a coiling system from flat material. See http://mymechatronics.pbworks.com/w/page/76547795/Telescopin... for an overview of commercially available systems. The same principle sped up would likely do the trick.

Try launching a rocket during a Florida hurricane. You will not go to space today.

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