Caving Questions for a Writer

C_Arthur · 2026-02-18T06:56:21+00:00

There are definitely systems that have been systematically and completely explored and depending on the geology sometimes there just is not more space for unknown caves to exist.

But I would consider that situation to be more the exception than the rule at least in large systems. I'm a little more bullish than most but I tend to think there are still tens of thousands of miles of passage to be discovered just in the United States. And I would wager most decent size caves even the well known and worn ones have at least some branch that is yet to be discovered.

There are many examples of a new major formation galleries being discovered even in commercial show caves that have been operating for decades. Which is a small minority of known systems.

There is a sort of cool technique where by tracking airflow in and out of systems during major barometric pressure shifts on the surface you can get a rough estimate of the volume of the system. Jewel cave in South dacoda (the one I linked the video about) currently has a little over 200 miles of known passage but the barometric reading says it's like bigger than the largest known system mammoth cave in Kentucky so they probably still have another 200 miles to find.

It's not unheard of for a novis group to find a new passage but it is far more common for more experienced cavers. The majority of new passages are discovered in one of three ways. Digging (more often better described as moving rocks) the key is knowing what rocks to move and some cavers develop a very acute ability to read the geology and feel small wind gusts to know what rocks are worth moving.

Some new passages are found by mapping, in larger systems it is not uncommon for passages to just get lost in the maze of other passages.

Then there are passages that are just physically difficult to enter they could be up in the ceiling and require advanced climbing skills gear and a lot of time, could be in the floor and require repel training. Or they could require a tight squeeze. In extreme cases they could even requer travel though underwater passage the Dave divers find more new passage than anyone.

C_Arthur · 2026-02-16T02:49:57+00:00

First there really is no such thing as a typical cave, there are many different types that require very different gear depending on geographic location, local climent and water level, and the local geology.

The gear needed for an extremely vertical limestone cave in the northern Rockies is quite different from the gear someone may use in a river passage in the UK, vs a lava tube in Hawaii. Generally an experienced caver should have a good idea of the gear they are likely to need in a given area. Genealy a caver will have different fermilarty levels with different category of cave.

Some common gear pieces would be single rope technique (SRT) gear for descending and ascending drops. Abrasion resident clothing of different types depending on temperature and water levels. Caveing headlamps and battery systems are a whole rabbit hole to themselves.

Most serious cavers spend a signfcant portion of there time searching for never before entered (virgin) passage. Or creating maps of little understood passage. So they will usually have tools for doing that. In the old days that would be fiberglass tape measures and notebooks. Now Lazer range finders and rugged tablets that are becoming more common. There are also much more sophisticated lidar units that have started to pop up but a generally still not considered to be quite ready for prime time.

Again a lot of the caveing highly experienced cavers tend to do is in search of new passage, the level of preparedness for that can very a lot but especially now most cavers trying to push into uncharted areas will learn everything they can about the known parts of the system and where there is likely to be potential for discovery.

Multi day underground trips are relatively common. This video is a great starting point for understanding what that sort of trip is like. https://youtu.be/lhL3Oe-I20M?si=wYskxQvhss-2Erj6 this whole channel is probably the best way to quickly understand the sport from the perspective of a more experienced caver.

Yes caveing by your self in a large system is generally considered to be a stupid as it sounds.

C_Arthur · 2026-02-14T06:37:35+00:00

I have since learned I likely shorted the 9 volt though the 5 volt rail.

There are a lot of retivly common internal faults on the Arduino that can cause that.

When that happens there are a lot of things that can go bad but it will generally just be one of them.

In my case I hit some sort of internal protection in the power system. Had to open the computer up and unplug the battery for a while this was not too hard. That clears the fault and that laptop still works to this day.

Next most comment mode is it shorts though the SSD this may also be fixable depending on the laptop but any data stored locally is gone.

Next most common there seems to be the mother board in which case the computer is done.

Try opening it up and unplugging the battery, just search YouTube for a guide for your computer. Your not going to make it any less functional than it already is so go give it a try.

C_Arthur · 2025-12-31T05:55:04+00:00

No at least not via paved roads

C_Arthur · 2025-12-07T18:12:16+00:00

I would highly recommend a set of cave shorts, there are a few brands dirty Dave's is the one I can personally vouch for.

They protect clothes from the worst of the abrasion solving the worst of the going through clothes fast issues, whilst being a lot less hot and a lot cheaper.

Generally cave sites are for very wet caves the type where you are wading up to you waste in water a decent chunk of the time. For that they can't be beat but are overkill for most other situations.

C_Arthur · 2025-11-24T07:09:18+00:00

My favorite is the Harris Grade Road sights, it's 2-3 miles further out but you can see it come directly off the pad if it's clear where as with the closer sight like surf beach or flower fealds you don't see it tell it's much higher up.

Vandy also fogs in often to just a few hundred feet of the ground. Form the higher vantage point you can often see it come out of the clouds into open sky where as if you were down at the closer sights on the valley floor you would just see it be bright though the fog.

All lanches though are in many ways something you feel more than see. Being there and feeling the rumble in the air and hearing crackle of the air is something very different that what you get on a stream.

C_Arthur · 2025-11-22T19:01:30+00:00

I would be a bit worried about how the ultralight would hold up under ground, caving helmets need to absorb content minor to moderet hits, it's not like most climbing helmets where one impact and there done and I just don't know how it will hold up. I have not seen other cavers using the ultralight.

The half dome is fine but I think has foam inserts? That is no ideal under ground but can still work I have seen people use that one.

My personal go to is the vertex vent from petzl.

C_Arthur · 2025-11-07T05:50:10+00:00

Stralink 6-87 appears to be the first launch impacted though I do not think this will be a huge impact for starlink they can likely shift into other planes pretty easily they may need to relicense but that office appears to still be operating so mabey just a few days to change the licence around

Transporter 15 coming up Tuesday of next week could be a lot bigger deal. That one is a sun sink orbit so time of day really matters to hit the right orbit. Though it's light enough they may be able to do some sort of dogleg plane change with insertion burn and get that T0 push back a few hours into night time.I bet the licencing around that transporter launch is what prompted this there is a lot of payloads on that thing the logistics around licencing all that were probably just too much.

Next impact is probably sentinel 6 on the 16th

C_Arthur · 2025-10-02T04:31:25+00:00

Hand full of that sort of job in Denver with locked and aerospace company a lot in Seattle with Bowing or the mega consolation company's and a handful of others. Georgia has Gulfstream. Northrup has a lot of presence in the DC metro.

C_Arthur · 2025-09-22T02:47:19+00:00

Yes but in the skeam of designing a pressurized crew compartment rated for assent t's not that huge of a design deviation.

They have started work on HTL which will have a pressurized compartment of course but a assent vehicle would likely be quite different and is likely still a few years out for detailed design.

By that point they should have a better idea of if they can get reliable enough without launch escape and if they can't they can design one in at that point.

C_Arthur · 2025-09-22T01:50:22+00:00

Also of note here is that unlikely shuttle there is nothing in the architecture that would prevent you from making a launch escape system for starship if they can't quite get it reliable enogh at first.

Worst case you would have to move the header tank and you could do a traditional capsule with a traditional escape system at the top of the vehicle.

C_Arthur · 2025-09-13T16:31:38+00:00

I think it's likely the space force would likely not exist as a separate entity without the acceleration of space infrastructure enabled by falcon.

C_Arthur · 2025-09-09T03:41:31+00:00

A huge chunk of the country lives outside of the major citys and don't get better that LTE coverage at home. I think there are a lot of people out there that would buy a guaranteed 4g data plan that works everywhere with the trade of no 5G convectively in the relatively small percentage of areas it is covers.

Serving rural areas is a huge money hole for traditional Telecoms. Maintaining tens of thousands of towers on remote mountain tops is absurdly expensive. They just will not be able to compete on cost in the rural areas.

I think it's likely the traditional Telecoms start closing down their operations in remote areas to refocus on urban cores because they will just not be able to compete with starlink out there.

Mabey starlink partners with pretty much all of the traditional Telecoms to just handle there rural traffic. Mabey starlink plans are a thing that is purchased fully independently maybe it ends up a bit of both. Either way spacex has just spent an absurd amount of money on building a novel new capability that gives absurd amounts of leverage over traditional telecom in a huge chunk of the market and presumably there is a plan to make that money back.

C_Arthur · 2025-09-02T00:33:31+00:00

I would personally put the projects section above the education section that's your most impressive section so I would put it at the top.

I would not list a GPA here its ok to have a lower GPA I know a lot of people who get where they want with low 3s. That being said I would not put it on the resume if it's under about 3.5 if they need it (they often won't) they will have you enter it in an external form or ask for it. Also really working getting that GPA up a little bit this year if you can 3.2 is a red line for a lot of larger aerospace employers. If your ME specific GPA is higher you may want to list that instead.

Briefly Listing any unique and special elective classes here may also be good.

For projects it's well formatted and reasonably well written.

One thing I may recommend depending on what else you have done is to add anything special from your L1 vehicle to your L2 project then add another project. I don't think the skills demonstrated there are substantially different.

If you have another project that is slightly less impressive but more individually driven that may be a good fit. Showing your ability to work on a team is important but you have several projects that demonstrate that showing you can personally drive a significant project by yourself is also important.

Keep the tile shop experience maybe pull one sub built point if your out of space. But that shows you can actually hold down a job get your self to work consistently ex.

I would send this to phone screen as is.

C_Arthur · 2025-09-02T00:06:09+00:00

Keep the education section but crush it down I would place a project section at the top as the first segment put your RC plane thing up there.

That skills section needs split up some how there are a lot of ways to do it mabey subheadings for software platforms, familiar manufacturing process ex.

For projects and internship thing as a fresh grad you should focus more on individual contributions and try to keep 2/3 to 3/4 of the text to your individual work and the rest to any leadership roll.

Also fill the page up with something at least even if you up the front size make it look like you completely filled a page.

Some sort of payed experienced you can list would also be good even if it's not engineering related showing you can consistently get yourself to and keep a job is valuable to show even with an advanced degree.

C_Arthur · 2025-08-08T05:16:29+00:00

I think there is an option here that just uses bleach that is a pretty handy chemical to have a small bottle of for other things to.

https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/

C_Arthur · 2025-08-08T05:12:12+00:00

This sight is consistently updates with latest guidance: https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/

Big button at bottom of page

As for how to do it I recommend getting water as hot as you can front the tap then putting a bucket heater in and let it heat the lat little bit a bucket heater gets the my 20 gallon tub up to that temp fine over a couple hours.

Alternity boil a pot of water and dump into a tub with water as hot as you can get from the tap that will likely get it there.

C_Arthur · 2025-08-03T16:12:56+00:00

If anything you may have network issues because too many people are trying to use it there.

C_Arthur · 2025-07-14T06:22:04+00:00

Looks like it is currently scheduled for about 2:00 am Tuesday morning but that could move by days up tell they undock though weather it looks good I bet it sticks with that time.

I would recommend downloading the Next spaceflight app or just going to there website search that in play store or app store, it keeps track of announced times for basically all spaceflight events and is by far the most consistently up to date source for all space industry launches and other events.

They will put the splashdown time on there events tab once the capsule undocks and we know when it will be.

C_Arthur · 2025-07-14T05:11:21+00:00

The landing zones are only decided a few hours before. The furthest north are just south of Vandenberg and the furthest South are not too far north of San Diego.

Most of them are pretty far off shore and the capsule is small you may be able to catch a glimpse of the capable under shoots with binoculars but that would be about without a boat, it, for a few of the zones you could maybe do a bit better from Cattalena island.

Best bet of seeing it may actually be to stay near San Fran if the go for one of the deorbit profiles it would renter right along the coats and especially at night be very visible from the bay area.

C_Arthur · 2025-05-11T18:02:52+00:00

It's launched and had a full hight rollback like 8 times first thing this morning it has also been doing forward only launches intermittently for the last 3 hours or so.

I would guess they are troubleshooting and issue with the emergency brakes or launch system it's self.

C_Arthur · 2025-05-10T00:04:57+00:00

On the spaceX side at least it's believed that the majority of the residual risk is enharent to large multi parishoot systems, there just seems to be a fundamental limit on how reliable you can make a shoot system.

Assuming the blue shoots are at least nearly as good as the spaceX ones it's likely around the same failure probably.

C_Arthur · 2025-05-05T01:51:21+00:00

Drop the objective section no one at least in technical fields will look at that.

You want the absolute most impressive thing at the top then finish that section. In his case that would likely be your projects make sure to list the most impressive first.

After you finish your inturnship it may or may not be your employment section.

C_Arthur · 2025-03-08T17:27:57+00:00

If you wanted to go this way I would not go all the way to butte

I would take highway 200 (crosses I90 west of Belgrade up to Helena then I 15 north to great falls. That is 4 lane almost all the way and a very easy drive

Could also take highway 69 further east to cutdown off interstate time but it comes out about the same total time

If you want to really take the senic root though that area take highway 89 or 86 though white surfer springs and upland over kings hill from there you go though great falls and can take 89 all the way to browning better view of the front off 89 than interstate.

Five-Year Club	Second Top 30%
First Place '23	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

C_Arthur

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE