Chile miners coping advice from NASA

With 33 miners trapped deep underground, Chile is seeking advice from NASA on how to keep them mentally and physically fit for the months it may take to rescue them.

"We received a request from the Chilean government about advice related to our life science research," John Yembrick, a NASA spokesman, told SPACE.com Wednesday.

The U.S. space agency, which routinely trains astronauts to cope with the isolation of months-long International Space Station missions, is providing survival tips to Chilean officials, who are able to communicate with the miners trapped 2,300 feet (700 meters) below the Earth's surface. The rescue mission could take up to four months, according to press reports.

NASA officials are currently in a meeting to discuss further details.

"Right now, we're still waiting to find out what specific questions they have for us, and how best we can assist," Yembrick said.

The small gold and copper mine in the northern Chile collapsed Aug. 5. On Sunday rescuers were able to dig a 6-inch-wide tunnel to reach the miners, the Houston Chronicle reported. But it could take four months to complete the rescue, which involves drilling a 2-foot-wide (0.6- meter) tunnel through 2,200 feet (670 meters) of solid rock.

The trapped miners have been able to live so far off of limited food and water supplies in an area the size of a large living room. A physician on the rescue team said that the miners started out eating two spoonfuls of tuna, a sip of milk and a biscuit every 48 hours, the Houston Chronicle reported.

"Psychologically speaking, we have to try to keep them on the right track and not give them false hope that it will be a short rescue," the Reuters news agency quoted Chile's Mining Minister Laurence Golborne as saying.

As time passes, NASA may be able to suggest ways for the miners to cope with the tough physical and psychological conditions.

Physicians have recommended that the miners do regular exercises to prevent muscle atrophy as they await extraction, Reuters reported.

Chile mine rescue : an engineering showcase

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As the engineers hugged family members and said goodbye to one another, several carried flags for Geotec Boyles Bros. SA, the company that operated the drill. Someone threw company baseball caps and T-shirts to the crowd.

Companies are aiming to capitalize on the global media coverage of the historic rescue effort. The miners have now survived longer below ground than the victims of any other known mine collapse. They will come up through the deepest rescue chute ever drilled. And more than 1,000 reporters, representing every continent, are on hand to document the event.

IN PICTURES: Chile mine collapse

UPS, the US shipping company, brought a 13-ton drilling tool from Pennsylvania in less than 48 hours. The company boasted of its achievement in a blog post on its Web site. Around the drills themselves, corporate banners join the ubiquitous Chilean flag. Lettering on a pickup truck from a local wiring company reads: "Communicating with the San Jose miners." Steel company Techint has had a camera crew on the scene all week to document the use of the company's tubes in the rescue shaft.

Excitement around the mine rescue has been growing as preparations speed to a close. Welders put a 24-inch steel pipe into the hole early
this morning. The main rescue capsule was then lowered almost to the bottom and raised back up.

"Not even dust fell off the walls" of the passage, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne told reporters. The capsule wasn't sent all the way down so no one would be tempted to jump in, Golborne said.

Big winners

So far, the big publicity winners have been Geotec and its equipment manufacturers -- Center Rock Inc. made the drill bit and Schramm Inc. made the truck-mounted drill. The T-130, as the Schramm rig is known, has become a bit of a celebrity. Families chanted and cheered as it left the drilling site today.

"We have had no greater mission" than helping the miners, Schramm said on its Web site.

Precision Drilling Corp., the Canadian company whose rig continues to drill a backup rescue shaft, has been giving updates on its Web site. The company had little presence in South America before Chilean authorities contacted it about drilling a large-diameter hole.

The corporate involvement reaches into every aspect of the rescue effort. With plenty of time to fill and, for months, very little to show, Chilean television carried live interviews with the maker of a portable oxygen tank.

Zephyr Technologies, the Annapolis, Maryland-based maker of the remote monitors of vital signs that miners will wear during their
ascent, has workers on the scene.

As a publicity opportunity, "it's certainly good to get it out there for similar situations or scenarios that are not so extreme," said Ben
Morris, who works at Zephyr.

One company keeping a lower profile is Compañia Minera San Esteban Primera, the owner of the San Jose mine, where the miners are trapped. The owners aren't taking calls.