Today, the library--one of the largest television collections in history--is stored 54 stories underground in a climate-controlled salt mine near Kansas City, Kan.
The rig that drilled the successful shaft was supplied by a contractor at Collahuasi, a minecontrolled by two multinationals, Anglo American and Xstrata.
The team hopes the laser could be built into a remote-controlled robotic device which could be despatched into a mine field, looking for vapour clouds.