Elon Musk sends Boring aid to soccer team trapped in Thailand cave

Update: Musk is building inflatable Kevlar tubes to help rescue the kids.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor

Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.

Expertise Films, TV, Movies, Television, Technology

See full bio

Richard Trenholm

July 6, 2018 4:53 a.m. PT

Krit Phromsakla Na Sakolnakorn / AFP/Getty Images

Elon Musk has offered his boring expertise to help rescue a party of schoolboys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand -- and he thinks his inflatable tubes might do the trick.

Twelve boys and their football team coach were visiting the Tham Luang cave system in Northern Thailand when they were stranded by floodwaters 10 days ago. More heavy rain is expected to flood the caves further, and sections of the passages out are too narrow to pass through wearing scuba tanks. Former navy diver Saman Gunan died after delivering oxygen to the children on Thursday, demonstrating how dangerous the escape from the caves would be.

Boring Co has advanced ground penetrating radar & is pretty good at digging holes. Don’t know if pump rate is limited by electric power or pumps are too smal. If so, could dropship fully charged Powerpacks and pumps.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2018

Employees of the SpaceX and Boring companies founded by Musk are on their way to Thailand to offer assistance. The Boring Company was set up to drill traffic tunnels, and could employ ground-penetrating radar or air pumps.

founder Musk has also suggested running an inflatable tunnel through the irregular passageways of the cave that could form a walkway to safety.

Update, 12:54 p.m. PT: Musk says he can build inflatable Kevlar tubes to help rescue the kids, and is attempting to contact divers to figure out the proper dimensions:

Inflatable tubes & pods being made out of Kevlar for better abrasion resistance. A SpaceX engineer happens to be in Thailand & is headed there now. Could one of the divers DM me? Need approx contour of most difficult sections for tube fab.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018

CNET Magazine: Check out a sample of the stories in CNET's newsstand edition.

CNET en Español: Get all your tech news and reviews in Spanish.