VOSTOK, ANTARCTICA (AMP) — Reports are surfacing from Antarctica that the U.S. military may be deploying ice-penetrating Cryobots beneath Lake Vostok as part of a high-tech excavation of ancient ruins.
A cryobot (cryo means "ice" in Greek) uses a high-pressure jet of hot water to clear its path, take samples, and transmit collected data back to the surface. The copper-nosed probe, which can reach temperatures up to 195 degrees Fahrenheit to melt through ice layers, was designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) to explore the frozen poles of Mars and all of Jupiter’s moon Europa.
NASA insists it has not developed any military versions of the probes. But JPL cryobot scientist Frank Carsey concedes: "There are many interesting environments on Earth where a cryobot could be the best technology for conducting safe and effective scientific studies."
One of those environments is Lake Vostok, which is three hours by plane from the South Pole and sits beneath nearly three miles of solid ice in the center of East Antarctica. Scientists believe Lake Vostok’s primordial ooze – 30 million years old – may be the key to life on Earth.
"There could be prehistoric life in its waters," said Dr. Serena Serghetti of the Australian-Antarctica Preservation Society and a member of the international body that oversees environmental impact assessments under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty. "We are talking about an indigenous ecosystem that’s survived for eons without sunlight or fresh-food sources and that’s evolved in a completely unique way."
The prospect of cryobots probing for life deep under the ice of Lake Vostok has alarmed environmentalists, who say drilling a bore hole into the lake would release toxic fluids in what could well be one of the most delicate, pristine ecosystems on Earth.
"Penetration by an alien American probe would connect the perfectly preserved waters with the contaminated surface atmosphere," Dr. Serghetti said. "The Exxon Valdez oil disaster would look like spilled milk by comparison."
Serghetti would not reveal why she believed cryobots have been deployed. But she called on USAF Gen. Griffen Yeats, the commanding officer of what the Pentagon calls a "salvage operation" in Antarctica, to come clean about his expedition’s purpose, methodology and funding.
Tomorrow in his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush will ask Congress for an extra $48 billion for U.S. military forces, the largest increase in defense spending in 20 years.
"To dig through almost three miles of ice would require unfathomable sums of money and engineering skills," said an American researcher with the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), another international body spawned by the Antarctic Treaty. "Frankly, the only organization on the planet capable of such an operation on its own is the U.S. military."
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