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Comment by rfergie | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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