PolarPod – Around Antarctica

Posted by based2 on Saturday February 02, 2019 @04:36PM
from the oceanpolaire.org dept.

https://www.oceanpolaire.org/en/polar-pod/

( 7 comments | 39 points | on HN )

Re:PolarPod – Around Antarctica by jpm_sd on Monday February 04, 2019 @12:13PM (#19078168)

Unfortunately, this never actually got built. (The video is dated 2014 and is entirely CG).

My company is currently performing a very similar mission using an unmanned platform:

http://www.saildrone.com/antarctica

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Re:PolarPod – Around Antarctica by telesilla on Monday February 04, 2019 @12:19PM (#19078251)

Thanks for sharing that! It's great to see a technology like this actually out in the wild being put to use. How do these fare in the massive waves that happen in the far south? I was hoping there might be a video showing one righting itself but may I assume the ballast is just much, much heavier than the top?

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Re:PolarPod – Around Antarctica by jpm_sd on Monday February 04, 2019 @12:25PM (#19078334)

Yes, we have a big lead weight in the keel. The southern ocean can occasionally have breaking waves over 50 feet tall!

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Re:PolarPod – Around Antarctica by goodmachine on Monday February 04, 2019 @11:04AM (#19077388)

The RP FLIP, on which the Polar Pod is based, is a wonderfully crazy vessel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shPATcV9Dzw

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Re:PolarPod – Around Antarctica by telesilla on Monday February 04, 2019 @11:44AM (#19077769)

Here's a video showing FLIP flipping in action, under a minute. Beautiful engineering!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ5hvltzGEM

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Re:PolarPod – Around Antarctica by poof_he_is_gone on Monday February 04, 2019 @10:26AM (#19077032)

I love the picture of polar bears at the bottom of the page.

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Re:PolarPod – Around Antarctica by diimdeep on Monday February 04, 2019 @10:41AM (#19077169)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP

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