16 thoughts on “The Next Frontier”

    1. Indeed.

      They could have at least spelled “underground lairs” correctly…

      Besides, it’s Mike Meyers that was the one obsessed with “liquid hot magma”, not Seth Green…

  1. They’ve got Tom Hanks down as “Star of ‘Joe versus the Volcano”. Um…. Not his best work.

  2. One can tell it’s a joke since there is no place to send Virgin tens of thousands of dollars as a deposit.

    Real Virgin stunts go for the gold up front.

  3. “Excuse me Dr. Brazzelton, when do you think the ship will be operational?”
    “When I get my fabrication methods perfected, twelve… no, ten years. Ten years.”
    “What would it take to get it done in three months?”
    “Fifty billion dollars, I…” [laughing]
    “Will you take a check?”

    Sorry, had to. 🙂

  4. Any bets that Richard Branson read a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs as a kid?

    Trip to the volcano would make a great Dr. Who episode. The Silurians’ ancestors are probably down there. (I started watching the Third Doctor’s encounter with those guys this weekend.)

  5. For those with skills in engineering, could (unmanned) probes be built capable of traveling kilometers into volcanoes? What would be the major challenges (eg. propulsion, navigation, coping with the pressure and temperature) and how would they be tackled?

    Is there anything useful that such probes could teach us?

    1. Temperature and pressure are your big issues. You need an structural alloy that can retain loading at those temperature and pressures. You also need some sort of cooling mechanism, whether manned or unmanned. After all, computers have operating limits too. I suspect the cooling system would end up needing umbilicals, which would restrict movement and distance.

      I’ll let others determine if a probe would be useful. I suspect if you could find some way to vent a volcano before a catastrophic explosion that it would be really useful.

  6. Old hat. It’s been done….and as far back as 1954:

    Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster

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