MIT on Everest Measuring the world's biggest mountain

The Media Lab Goes to Everest
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's famous Media Lab is working with the Yale Medical School to perform physiological monitoring of the members of the 1998 American Everest Expedition. MIT's Media Lab hopes not just to monitor the climbers when they are in base camp, but as they climb the mountain-and send that data down the mountain and back to the United States in near real time.

Mountain Zone editor Peter Potterfield spoke with Mike Hawley of MIT's Media Lab about the ambitious project.

Potterfield: How did the Media Lab at MIT become involved with the Everest scientific efforts? Through Brad Washburn and The Museum of Science?

Hawley: Brad Washburn had been nudging me, on and off, for a couple years to help with this and that — radios, GPS, diplomatic "grease gun." But this year, I was the one who called him, because we were interested in field testing some of our medical probes. And at the same time, Rick Satava at Yale asked if we could provide technology to transmit live vital signs from climbers on the mountain, in part to feed bits via satellite to a conference called TEDMED, being run by an acquaintance of mine, Ricky Wurman.

Since then, we've really gotten "roped in." We got to know David Breashears (who came to MIT to teach our first spring project class, and brought us to the IMAX premiere), and the NOVA folks.

We have planned our work closely with expedition members Charles Corfield and Wally Berg, and have been coordinating with Prof. Kip Hodges at MIT (who will be leaving for Annapurna soon). We've met with Ken Kamler (one of the doctors on our expedition and a long-time Everest star), Howard Donner, and of course dozens of folks from Yale, the Explorer's Club, and all of the sponsoring companies. For example, I had dinner last week with Brad Washburn and Charlie Trimble, president of Trimble Navigation, to discuss some of the things we're doing with GPS. In short, we have moved heaven and earth to get in contact with the world's best experts for every aspect of this expedition. We've even been chatting a bit with Arthur C. Clarke on the subject of satellites. I think the only famous contemporary Everest person we haven't met yet is Araceli Segarra.

Potterfield: How long have you been working on this project?

Hawley: We've been going full-tilt since January. Planning started last fall.

Potterfield: Can you give us, in layman's terms, an overview of the protocol you hope to execute with your team on the mountain in 1998?

Hawley: We're doing a number of specific things to stretch a digital net over the mountain. But think of it this way... In 1953 when Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed, it took four days for word to reach Elizabeth as she was being crowned Queen. In 1982, ABC jerry-rigged the first live TV signal (and what an adventure that was). In 1996, Rob Hall was freezing on Everest while speaking with his wife via telephone in Australia.

In 1998, we're attempting to collect live physiological data from the climbers every step of the up and down --- heart rate, skin temperature, core temperature (with a little pill you swallow), blood oxygen level, GPS, temperature, altitude, etc. This information should give us a much more revealing picture of the nature of a human body vis-à-vis the climate. The sensor package is a chest harness that weighs less than 2 lbs and transmits data for 20 miles for 16 days without battery changes.

Another device of interest is a weather transmitter. Nobody has recorded the wind speed on Everest (David likens it to the engine noise on a 747). One or two have recorded the barometric pressure, few record the temperature, and most who summit try to do so in "bikini weather," relatively speaking. Wally Berg and his climbing team were instructed to dip a cheap hardware store thermometer into the snow and jot down the temperature, radioing to base camp. That's nutty. We built a device that can record and transmit climate information for a solid year. It uses the ARGOS satellite system to upload a 32-byte packet(!) more than a dozen times a day. If it works, this should really give us insight into the climate on Everest, and if we can do it on Everest, we can probably do it anywhere in the world.

A third technology is data gathering cameras. We always take pains to photograph our fieldwork. This time, we have built a number of "Data Cams" — cameras that record GPS, weather info, altitude, and compass bearing with every picture taken. A picture is more than just the grains or the pixels. Every one of our images will be anchored to a real coordinate. We intend to transmit thousands of images from the field.

Finally, we're making heroic efforts to install an Internet outpost at base camp. This will include four "ruggedized" IBM PC's, several satellite links (including two Inmarsat-B phones), connectors for the digital cameras, etc.

Potterfield: How did you develop the hardware you'll need to do all of that?

Hawley: At the Media Lab, I direct research that looks at the diffusion of technology into all kinds of things -- clothes, toys, furniture, and more. Last year, several of us ran marathons carrying vital signs monitors. Those things were like "black box" crash recorders for your body, and they let us watch runner performance on the Internet. Projects like these let us build up the system skills to tackle things like Everest.

A number of people are hammering away to make this stuff work. Rob Poor and Maria Redin are whaling away on the biosensing system architecture. Matt Lau is building the data cameras, and working with Rich Fletcher, Matt Reynolds, and Rehmi Post on the weather modules. Natalia Marmasse seems to be doing everything (and she's also a climber -- has trekked from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, climbed Cotapaxi, and formerly taught hand-to-hand combat in the Israeli army). Jesse Darley is managing all of the mechanical packaging. But he also is President of the MIT Outing Club, and an All-American runner. In fact, the day after running in the Boston marathon, he flew to Kathmandu.
 

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