> a testament to how challenging crust drilling can be, > right on par with exploring deepest parts of Earth's oceans. except if you read the footnotes it says

> a testament to how challenging crust drilling can be, > right on par with exploring deepest parts of Earth's oceans. except if you read the footnotes it says that Exxon beat the world's record for length of borehole in 60 days. Sounds like drilling in the crust is NBD, been doing it for years, the innovation is all in how to make it turn and twist and do so on time and under budget. My sense is that it's just not economically rational to drill a hole straight down for no other reason than you want to see how far it can go. Why bother? But it doesn't seem at all to be a technical problem.