Lake Vostok

5 Pages 1266 Words

The Exploration of Lake Vostok
The world has all sorts of places to explore. For example, Lake Vostok, an isolated lake less than 5 kilometers of ice, underneath the eastern ice sheet of Antarctica, is one such place. Russian Scientists discovered this lake, when they were flying over some of the terrain of Antarctica. In the beginning; however, the Russians thought it would be a good idea to just start drilling down into the ice sheet, until they reach the lake itself for further exploration of this ancient lake frozen in time.
Drilling of the project would be quite expensive. The scientists believed there was a strong possibility that they would find new, exotic life forms. If the Russian scientists drilled down into a lake buried four kilometers under the eastern Antarctic ice sheet, which would mean that they would have used chemicals, which contain materials that would cause contamination. Unclean objects penetrating into this isolated environment would be disastrous. When the Russians began to drill, they halted their progress shortly thereafter because some researchers found out that, it would be unwise to just drill down into the lake, through the ice sheet because of such a high risk of contamination.
The American scientist came to the Vostok station and examined the many meters and meters the Russians already drilled up. It appears the Russian scientists already penetrated the upper layers of ice of the lake itself. Fortunately, the Russians did not go any deeper. After examining the ice the Russians pulled up, the American scientists went to another part of the lake to begin their own exploration of Vostok.
American scientists then proceeded to think of ways to go into the Lake, without contamination. Then, they finally found out how.
By building a torpedo-like machine with heat energy generating from the inside toward the metal surface, the unmanned exploration vessel would melt its way through the thick ice. Slowly ...