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Comment by tlarkworthy | Hacker News Reader

that's how they do them for real. Only with a helicopter and pilot, but still, with a big magnet and sensors hanging underneath.

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Interesting! I think this (and large-scale searches in general) is one area where a drone is probably much more likely to work than a helicopter/pilot, simply because of the sheer area to cover.

Interestingly the data has largely already been acquired globally since the 1950's using fixed wing aircraft, helicopters in places like PNG, and human pilots.

Drones took a bit long to arrive.

Eg. Australia has already been covered with multi instrument surveys (nine channel magnetics, 256 channel radiometrics, microwave radar DTM, etc.) with 27 million line-kilometres of survey data gridding the country.

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/me...

https://www.ga.gov.au/about/projects/resources/awags

Australian, South African, Russian, Canadian companies and pilots have been jobbing on this work about the globe for decades, in the USofA the USGS and DoE have been surveying internally during the same 70 year period.

What is the primary purpose of these endeavours? Mineral detection, space safety, radio stability, or just general scientific “because we can (and probably should)”?

Mineral and energy exploration, either broad area (an entire country or significant part) or more detailed closely spaced examination of specific areas.

Such surveys are funded by large companies wanting to extend their exploration data, mid size companies wanting to firm up infomation on a prospect, and national governments | world bank projects that are looking to promote exploration and development in greenfield locations.

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