Will someone who can actually get through to them, please tell the Japanes authorities to simply use a "long line" on the Helicopter water bucket -- this will enable them to quickly and easily drop the water directly into the nuclear reactors.

SEI, (a leading manufacturer of the water buckets), responded to my email asking if they had contacted the proper authorities in Japan about using a long line by saying:

"I know our agents are in touch with the def. force daily. I’m sure they have discussed this. ... The long line is the way to go. Unfortunately with the revolving power outages from Japan , our communications with the agency is restricted. We have been in touch though!" - Brenda Phillips, SEI sales.

I , for one, find that unsatisfactory and hope that either there is a good reason why this isn't being used or that the folks in charge at the Fukushimo nuclear reactor are about to use it. I would hate to think that they have discounted it or are having trouble accessing a long line. Engineers can often overthink a problem! Remember KISS - keep it simple stupid?

Paul a.k.a. "Nebraskablue" has written a comprehensive two-part essay replete with engineering facts and extensive know-how by someone who has

"been involved in US military rotor wing aviation for 30 years, and have 4 years as Chinook flight engineer.",

titled "Helicopters to the rescue?" on the Daily KOS website. Here is a quote from "Nebraskablue"; hopefully someone will convey this to the Japanese:

"The Chinook is capable of carrying 25,000 lbs on the center cargo hook (it has three)
and can carry a water drop bucket of 2000 gallons of water, which weighs roughly
17,000 lbs ( water weight is 8 lbs per gallons - 16,000 lbs, the bucket and long line empty weigh 1000 lbs).

... Doing water drops: First off it is not easy to hit a fire with a bucket of water form the air. It takes coordination from a controller either on the ground nearby, or in the air overhead acting as spotters.

Fire drops are usually done as an area drop with a Chinook. Spots drops on hot spots are done with smaller helicopters such as the UH-60 Black hawk, a Huey or other models such as the Civilian KMAX.

To drop water precisely in one spot, the helicopter has to slow down and come to a hover, and the FE has to call the drop exactly on the spot where it is needed. Then accelerate away from the drop area, this all takes time and accumulated Radiation dose can become a serious issue with each sortie, and the total time spent above the toxic drop zone. ...

the helicopters should and will probably use a VERY long line to keep the aircraft and crew as far from the danger area as possible, while still being able to properly drop water where needed. We drop water all the time using a 150 foot long line. Making one even longer for this specific use would not be hard at all. 300 foot or even a 500 foot would be very doable.

Ready made polymer plasma lines are sold in many different lengths, but in a pinch a simple steel cable can be used with clamps at each end to form the loop for the attaching points.
(They did this at Katrina and Gustav, so the cables could be dropped with the sand bag loads and basically left in the water and written off)."

They need to build a highly configurable robotic/remote control system with video cameras which can be strapped in any vehicle seat, to operate any vehicle which is needed for emergency operations. - RC

The Japanese had to call someone else for robots?!?!? They must indeed be desperate.

Why did it take so long for the US to send these. Robots should have been on the ground days ago.

I also don't understand why drone aircraft haven't been deployed to recon the reactors and storage pools. The Military Channel has been showing small drone planes and heliocopters for years. Seems like the plant operators haven't had a clue as to what's been going on in these buildings, even the ones with their roofs blown off.

I always thought the Japanese were the leaders in robots.

Yes. It surprises me that the "Kingdom of the Robots" hasn't been able to muster them to get inside the reactors. After all, Honda has "Asimo," a robot that can play the violin!

Yes, Japan is a leader in robotics. However, the robots they create are for an aging population (humanoid type... Asimo, etc...) and for factory assembly applications. The US has made "world operational" robots. These are for recon, search, load transport, and of course, war.

Send in the Robots A WHOLE WEEK AFTER it happened, isn't it a little late? Did we not learn anything from Chernobyl???

The drone was there right after the earthquake. South korean tv had shown some of the pictures from what I had read. These iRobot devices are billed to do exactly what the people requesting them have in mind. On the other hand, small robots to take a peak at a reactors internal damage are a bit more specific. Need I mention RAD HARDENED CPU'S?? etc...often expensive one offs...in this case I think the mission for the robot would be one way. If the work crews at the reactors have something in mind with either of the iRobot models, I hope they know what they are doing and at least got a "maybe, sure, it's possible" from someone who knows. I am sure they did. While we are at it, the world needs a commercial nuc plant disaster response team...robots, fiber optics, drones, support, access to knowledge bases, yea of course, boots masks gloves, boron, the whole bit...ready to go at the slightest hint of a probability.....based out of the U.N.? I don't know, one thing is for sure, these accidents affect the globe. I can foresee a team that could go anywhere and mitigate almost anything N related...but focused on commercial plants...but if they had to go up to the USS George H.W. Bush and say "everybody off"...thats it...everbody off....over simplification here but at least the underlying concept is ineveitable. We take too long, often it is good to review the facts before acting, but the accidents over the decades has shown us that we cannot react quick enough. PERIOD. A N-plant only seems to have a matter of minutes till something can swing catastrophically wrong. And it always seems like it spirals out of control just shortly after the inital incident...looking back, that would be right about the time some official "briefs" the public that things are not as bad as they could be....meaning as they were talking, they knew damn well they were lying. OR, (gotta give em an out eh?) they were just reading from a teleprompter that had not been properly updated with the current situation. ERRRRRR. Time for a world wide N team. I know one country that could pull it off correctly, they operate the USS George H.W. Bush. Sadly; the fact that we named a nuclear aircraft carrier that, or the likelyhood that someone of their likeness could gain power again, is enough for me to personally lean towards a UN run team. We may be ok right now, and I know the military people over there have been a magnificient help...but we gotta think of the worst possible case....like what if cheny clones himself, achieves a new world order, and appoints a K. Rove VP??....scary, huh. There is no reason every developed country should not have a wide area Rad level monitoring network, up dated in realtime on the web, as a google .kmz file if that what it takes, no filtering, no "ordering" the detectors shut down, in fact, all the detectors in populated areas should have billboard like numbers, showing the average count per minute, just like those time and temp ones...after all, it's our money, it's our detector, it's our data, it's our butts on the line in the worst case...our leaders allways seem to obfuscate the data and head south to wait it out. AND ON OUR DIME!!

It's about time some of the battle proven hardware get employed into a war the US should be fighting, instead of wasting tax dollars and quality human life fighting pointless battles in Iraq and Afganastan and soon to be Libya. People are dying in this battle like any other war, and it has the potential to breach our shores (not tsunami immune) and lessons learned (battlefield intelligence) is of vital importance, yet our illustrious elected officials want to get the US involved in some BS civil war in North Africa. People of Libya have put up with Gahadfi for over 30 years, and now suddenly he's been determined a dictator. Japan is a stregic ally (like Kuait) and yet we are just standing idleyy by watching devastation the magnitude of hurricane Katrian in New Orleans, and we are only just starting to react, yet we justify spending billions in the Middle-East. If Obama gets us involved in another pointless battle, all I can say is I voted for the other guy.

Robots are wonderful! I will never forget Mars Rover. Great innovation. Good luck with use in Japan

Its too late, the radiation is already here, especially on the west coast of the USA...

I CAN'T believe it, no wait; YES I can.

 I've been pushing from the beginning to retro-fit helicopters with remote control.  I'm glad to see they finally are setting about doing it.  I don't know if anyone with some authority to get something done read my posts.  No need to cost a man's life for a lousy load of concrete or water to be dumped on that reactor.  Without remote control, that is the price.

BTW, kids can buy toy helicopers that are remote control. They've had them around for years. This reminds me of the movie Flight of the Phoenix where that toy airplane designer takes a crashed airplane and reverse engineers it to fly the survivors of a plane crash out of the desert. This time it is not just to save a dozen men, but the whole planet. I loved that movie. Now it is happening in real life.

I thought Japanese robots were more advanced than Amercian ones, so why do they need ours? Japan invented the robot and are on the cutting edge.

Can they lay the cable and connect the hub?

Once again it American know how to the rescue. Remember who invented the robot?

Japan has just now started asking for our help. A little too proud I would say.