Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/13/2007 - 08:36
Forums
Antarctic Undersea ROV

Can lasers be used to cut holes in the ice? If not, why?Cool

Tue, 11/13/2007 - 11:42

Mindy Bell

This is actually Bryan today, not Mindy (I don't have my own account)An alternative drilling technology like lasers is something a lot of us would like to see... mechanical drilling is difficult and labor intensive, hotsy melting wastes a lot of fuel and takes a long time, explosives are dangerous and could have serious impacts on the communities we are studying, etc. The existing alternatives right now are hot water or steam drills (these are used for the IceCube project at the south pole), utrasonics, and laser ablation.
Lasers are currently used in a variety of ice coring to cut up the core itself: cutting with blades wastes precious core matter, while lasers can cut slices off with little ice lost.
There is interest in using laser drilling to break through into the subglacial lake Vostok because it is potentially much cleaner and wouldn't introduce contaminants into that unexplored environment.
NASA is interested in laser drilling techniques for use on Mars to drill through rock and take robotic samples.
So in short, it seems that laser drills have a lot of potential, but it will take concentrated engineering effort to pull off an easy to use rig.