I also wonder, with so much money going into these expeditions for many decades, how hard would it be to build some kind of safe house not too far from the summit, with oxygen / heating supplies delivered by drone?
I also wonder, with so much money going into these expeditions for many decades, how hard would it be to build some kind of safe house not too far from the summit, with oxygen / heating supplies delivered by drone?
The density of the air on Mount Everest is about 3/8 of that at sea level. So getting enough lift would be difficult. To the sibling commenter's point, I think a drone would be a lot easier than a piloted helicopter, since you can make the whole thing out of beryllium if you have to.
You also have a stream of hundreds of people climbing it daily. If each one carries a few hundred grams payload to help with construction, or a sherpa takes an extra O2 cylinder every once in a while...
I know nothing about climbing, but thought, given the volume of people and money, it doesn't look like a "greatest feats of engineering"-level project to save a few dozen lives.