Billionaire Elon Musk building ‘kid sized’ submarine to save trapped Thai soccer team

Tech billionaire Elon Musk says he has been building a “tiny, kid-size submarine” with “feedback from Thailand” in an effort to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped in a cave.

Mr Musk said it would use a SpaceX Falcon rocket’s “liquid oxygen transfer tube as [the] hull”.

“Light enough to be carried by two divers, small enough to get through narrow gaps,” the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur posted on Twitter.

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He said the design had four “handles/hitch points” on both the front and back of the submarine.

“Two air tank connections on front and two on rear, allowing one to four tanks simultaneously connected, all recessed for impact protection [with] secondary cap seal if leak develops,” Mr Musk said.

It also has “segmented compartments to place rocks or dive weights [and] adjust buoyancy”.

Mr Musk said he was constructing the mini-submarine in Los Angeles with his SpaceX team, and expected it to be completed by about 12:30pm AEST.

He said it would then take 17 hours to fly it to Thailand.

 

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