Miners' Rescued from San Jose Mine, Chile

In early August 2010, Chile’s San José copper and gold mine collapsed, trapping 33 miners underground.

Seventeen days later, the miners’ friends and families were overjoyed to learn that the men had survived. However, the good news came with a caveat: rescuing the miners might take months.

They would be an isolated group, living in close quarters, in a potentially deadly environment.

Although they work far above—not below—the surface of the Earth, NASA astronauts endure similar isolation and cramped spaces.

In a small contribution to the rescue effort, NASA dispatched a four-person team—two physicians, a psychologist, and an engineer—to Chile to provide support. Invited by the Chilean government, NASA administrators hoped that the agency’s expertise in preparing for emergencies in human spaceflight and sustaining life in a hostile environment could provide benefits to the miners.

The San José mine lies north of Copiapó, Chile, in the world’s driest desert, the Atacama. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) captured this natural-color image of the mine and its surroundings on September 16, 2010.

The mine complex appears as an uneven patch of gray in the midst of camel-colored hills devoid of vegetation. Parts of the Atacama have received no precipitation since recordkeeping began.