Scott of the Antarctic

How to use this blog

2008-03-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Blog posts are in reverse chronological order, so in order to follow the story from scratch you have to find the beginning of the story line. To do that, use the date links in the right-hand sidebar. There are two major stories in this blog to date: the first, starting in 2005, documents my first trip to Antarctica and New Zealand, while the second, starting in 2008, is about the most recent trip.

The 2005/2006 posts have a lot more information about McMurdo, with pictures of equipment and the environs. The recent posts follow my 2008 work assignment more. There are a couple posts about people I met there (a start at making a series of portraits of some of the many people that McMurdo tick that never really got of the ground).

You can comment on the various links by using the comment link at the bottom of each post. I am pretty sure that you can make an anonymous post (but not 100% sure), if you just work at it. Certainly a google account works if you must sign in. I like comments - your reactions help me tune the next posts and let me know someone actually reads this stuff!

Thanks for following my exploits! I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe learned something in the process.
Scott

Three weeks in New Zealand

2008-03-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

I have been back in the US of A for about two weeks now. The first week back I caught up on job paperwork, and this past week I was out of town again for a meeting and working on detector fabrication at Indiana University. So this is about the first chance I have had to catch up. Here goes....

I met my father as scheduled and off we went. New Zealand is easy to be a tourist in. Accomodations range from hotels (similar to what you expect in the US) to hostels. My favorite is the backpacker's, which typically has bunk rooms and shared bath and kitchen facilities. They are clean and comfortable, and run about $30/person/night in a twin; less if you get a bunk in a dorm room. We saved money by making use of the kitchen facilities often.

From Christchurch we made a beeline to Te Anau, where we started the Routeburn Track, meeting Hazel and Ted (NKU friends), and hiking the trail from the west side to east side. The Routeburn Track is ranked as one of the top 10 trails in the world, and now that I have been on it I can see why. Each day was completely different. The first day was through rain forest heavy with red beech. The second day was spent above the treeline, with expansive views and fabulous alpine walking. The third day was again through rain forest, but forest that was less rainy, and was dominated by a silver beech. The weather cooperated with us pretty well. It was temperamental, with some drizzling, especially the first day, and the mountaintops were often obscured by cloud, but our panicked preparations to slog through heavy rains were in vain - thank goodness! The facilities along the trail were topnotch. A series of huts (for which reservations were required) are along the trail which provide bunks and stoves and water. We only carried food, cooking gear, clothing, and sleeping gear, making for light packs. There was an option of a guided walk, in which one would only need to carry clothing, but the price was exhorbitant (~NZ$1500) for the three days/two nights on the Routeburn. We were fine just carrying our own gear.

After saying goodbye to Hazel and Ted, we worked our way back to pick up the car at Te Anau, and from there went to Milford Sound for a day. It is a spectacular place, with waterfalls cascading down the valley walls. It was, however, very touristy, and only bound to get worse, as New Zealand capitalizes on its reputation as a tourist-friendly place. After the day trip there, we moved on to Wanaka via Arrowtown, taking short hikes along the way. In the one day we traveled from Milford Sound to Wanaka we passed from rain forest to near desert. The area around Wanaka reminded me of northern Arizona - dry and mountainous, with clear skies and trees only in the creek and riverbeds. We hiked up to the Rob Roy glacier in the mountains near Wanaka, and were lucky enough to see an ice fall as part of the glacier performing its summer melting act.

From Wanaka we traveled back across the mountains to Haast, and stayed along the beach in sandfly country. I had not believed that the sandflies were any big deal really based on my experience to that point. We were not badly plagued by them. They were easy to kill, and were repelled by deet. However, I learned that it is not the original bite of the sandfly that is annoying, but how that bite develops over the next few days. It gets extremely itchy, and any scratching makes it inflame to be even worse. Letting clothes rub the bite irritates it. To make matters worse, the sandflies are sneaky, and crawl into moderately inaccessible spots (up your sleeves, under your socks) before they bite, which means that you end up with bites in tender places whcih are easily irritated by clothing. To make a long story short, I now completely believe the New Zealand claim that the West Coast would be more thickly settled were it not for sandflies.

Haast was just a stopping point on our way up to the two famous West Coast glaciers, Fox and Franz Joseph. These two glaciers are the only places on the world where a glacier dips down into a rain forest. On our first afternoon we hiked to the bottom of each of these glaciers, and a good thing that was, too, since at this point the rain started. New Zealand was catching the tail end of a tropical storm. The next morning we went down to the coast to try to find a seal colony. The rain was less at the coast (but still wet). Sadly, we were not successful at finding any seals. The sea was very rough due to the storm. Still, the hike was quite nice, leading us along beach, through marsh, and through beech stands.

Heading north from there, we chased the last clouds of the storm as it dissipated up to Pancake Rocks, a spectacular rock formation at the edge of the sea featuring blow holes and weka birds. We spent the night in Greymouth at the Noah's Ark Backpackers (highly recommended), taking time to tour the Monteith's brewery. The next day we set our sights on Dunedin, and started the trip by driving over Arthur's Pass towards Christchurch. We had very rainy weather, and did not get out of the rain until past the divide at the Pass itself. On the way out of the mountains we stopped at some very interesting limestone formations called Castle Hill, and kept driving until we reached Oamaru, just a couple hours north of Dunedin. We stayed the night there, and on the way down to Dunedin the next morning stopped at Moeraki Boulders and the town of Moeraki. These spherical concretions are fun to see and climb on, and are now a big tourist draw on the east coast road. While in Moeraki, we took a hike in an area that was supposedly good to find yellow-eyed penguins in. We were successful! We got a really great close-up view of two penguins right along the trail as they worked their way up to their nest from the sea. There are only about 4000 yellow-eyed penguins left, so it was a real treat to see some.

We spent two days in Dunedin and the Otago peninsula. Out on the peninsula we saw Royal Albatross and a variety of shag (cormorants). Back in town, we found a pretty good beer (Emerson's) and enjoyed it in the evenings. Upon our return to Christchurch, we found the bar that had the most Emerson's pulls, and made it our home away from home. Interestingly, Richard Emerson himself, owner and brewer, showed up at this bar for a visit, and we chatted about various good beers in NZ and the US.

In the end we drove over 2000 miles while staying inthe southern half of the South Island. I ate more cheese and sausage for lunch than I want to see in a long time. We discovered good New Zealand beer, and saw so much scenery that our computer hard drives are chock full of scenery shots.

Second Addendum

2008-02-11T20:06:00.000-08:00

I am comfortably ensconced in my home away from home, the Devon B&B, for the final night before the adventure begins. There was a day of rain, so I did not go out to Lyttleton Harbor, but instead stayed in town and explored the marvelous Hagley Botanical Gardens here. I'll share lots of photos of things that caught my eye. Bugs in particular were new again.

Hopefully there will be no problems and everything will fall into place. The weather for our Routeburn hike this weekend is predicted to be cold and wet, which sounds mighty unpleasant. I can only hope that this is one of the times when the weather man gets it wrong.

First Addendum

2008-02-10T00:52:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a B&B at about 10PM on Sunday night after my first full day back in civilization. I visited the botanical gardens here in Christchurch, which are quite spectacular, and stopped to smell ALL the roses, which took a little time. I got a Starbuck's coffee. Twice. I made friends with a (very friendly, wet-tongued) dog. It's amazing and puzzling to me that cats and dogs are among the things I found myself missing most down there.

Tomorrow is my "work day," during which I will try to make a car reservation, plan a route down to the trailhead, buy some small amount of food, and make lodging reservations. Hopefully there will still be time to expore the nearby port town of Littleton, but if not, there is always Tuesday.

Keep those comments coming. Don't be shy! I like to see that someone actually reads this.

That's all folks

2008-02-07T13:06:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow morning I leave McMurdo on an LC130 cargo plane. I am one of 40 or so passengers on the turboprop. The flight time is approximately 8 hours. This is longer and much less comfortable than the C17 jet (5 hours), but on the other hand I would not be getting out were it not for this flight. Also, the jet is often delayed (as it is today) and does not get back into Christchurch until after midnight sometimes. The LC130 will get in around late afternoon and I should be able to have a relaxing late dinner somewhere. The next few days I will spend reorganizing the amazing amount of stuff I find myself in possession of (I am allowed 75 lbs and I checked only to find I have hit that and still have a few clothing items to pack yet), and exporing rental cars, places to go, organizing food for the hike on the Routeburn, etc.

Sayings

2008-02-06T17:30:00.000-08:00

I came up with a few sayings this year, and in keeping with the previous blog of two years ago, I'll share my favorites.

"Recovery is for the young." Oh, my aching joints.

"My eyes may be bigger than my stomach, but my stomach seems up to the challenge." When an inexhaustible food supply presents itself to you, it is hard to know when to quit. Especially when the message here is that of an Italian grandmother: "Eat, you're so skinny! You need these calories to keep warm! Have some more!"

"No dessert should go untried." My compliments to the excellent dessert chef this year. He also does yoga. The bread chef was also quite good.
From someone else: "Memories of Antarctica are always bittersweet." Everyone wishes they could have done that one more thing, gotten to know that other person better, seen more wildlife, or whatever, but are grateful for the friends they made, the good times, etc.
On my inability to sleep in past 7AM, no matter what time I went to bed: "Apparently, I have reached the time of life at which the habits of the body are more powerful than its needs." Perpetual light, perpetual wakefulness.

Vessel unloading

2008-02-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

The cargo vessel has arrived at McMurdo, and the station has stopped everything but vessel operations. No bars are open, no alcohol sales allowed, very restricted store hours, no shuttles, no Sunday brunch... no fun in general allowed. Unloading and reloading takes about a week, but I am leaving Saturday, so will miss most of it.

Every available space is being used for storage. Sea containers are unloaded from the ship, trucked around the station to locations near where the materials they contain will be stored, unloaded, then reloaded with materials (mostly waste) that goes back to the States. The space between the dorms and the galley is fenced off. What used to be a short walk from my room to the galley now requires a long detour.

In just a few minutes an annular eclipse begins. I have heard the ceverage will be about 80%, which is pretty good. The Beaker types here are excited about it, but I have my doubts we will see much, since when I just checked it was partly cloudy and the sun was obscured. But that could change quickly, so I will pay attention. I will try to take some pictures, but they will probably just be overexposed where the sun is shining, even in eclipse.

All over but the shouting

2008-02-03T15:55:00.001-08:00

We finished up this morning loading the sea crates. We sent absolutely everything back, including the trash from the instrument. There are no landfills in Antarctica anymore.

We started with what you saw in the earlier post in the plane and on the ice, brought it into the hangar (to the left), packed it more carefully, and then filled the crate. You can see the result below.

Recovery is hard on an instrument. The parts are fragile, and the handling is rough. The instrument was essentially undamaged at the landing site, even after getting dismantled (except for all the cut cables), but now I noticed several parts are worse for the trip in the plane and in the truck back to the hangar. Two TCD light guides are broken in their middles, and I noticed one TCD PMT was smashed. That all happened post-dismantling. My rule of thumb for recovery is (1) don't make it heavy, because if it is, people have to "gorilla" it to get it to get it where they want it in the plane or truck or hangar, (2) make special holders for recovery, like for the calorimeter, which worked out well - only a few IFO lines pulled off, and those were while trying to disentangle cable during recovery, which we gave up on and cut when we saw that we were doing more harm than good.

Now the crates have been turned over to the shipping gurus here, and magic happens, and somehow the crates end up back in the States. All these goods get handled again, as the stuff gets unloaded and distributed to the various institutions from which it came. And next year it all happens again.

Meanwhile, I have a few days of waiting before I catch a plane out of here. The room and board are a good price. There is moderate entertainment. I have a bit of regular work to do. So I won't get bored. We'll have a mild celebration of sorts. Yoann leaves on tomorrow's plane (he had such confidence in our finishing on time that he never changed his reservation from the 5th) while Terri and I are scheduled for the 11th, a week away. After that, I will tour NZ a bit, and get back to Cincinnati on March 1 or so.

Everything is in

2008-02-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

We received the final few pieces of CREAM today via a Twin Otter on its way back from Siple Dome. The passengers were generous enough to help the pilots load the remaning bits. We just showed up at the airpoprt and offloaded it into our truck.

We have started the packing process and will load the sea containers in the next day or two. They should both be in the shipping pipeline early this coming week.

Miracles Can Happen

2008-02-01T11:26:00.001-08:00

It seems that our day finally came, and that we only needed one! I was surprised that we went out, considering that the sky was very grey. During the flight there was a white out. I could not discern ice from sky. There was no horizon. Was that ice or ground fog below me? Fortunately our pilots (after a little searching) were able to find the instrument and land. (More on these spectacular couple of pilots later.) The weather continued to be poor. In fact, during recovery it started to snow a couple times, although it never amounted to much. It just covered the tools a bit and made small things hard to find. The temperature was -13C (9F), and a slight wind was blowing that carried enough wind chill to make cheeks really burn.

We worked in pairs. Terri and Yoann tackled the palette boxes on the priority list. Larry and I began the process of disassembly with the goal of reaching the SCD. This worked very well, and four people was the right number for an instrument like CREAM, which needed a lot of unscrewing and had numerous parts, many of them quite heavy. We looked for visual evidence of the S3/CVD failure but did not find anything.

There were some interesting moments during recovery. Once the TCD paddles were removed, Larry and I were faced with the wall of the TCD support structure. After removing the outrigger supports and numerous bolts, the thing would not budge. Tolerances were so tight that we could not slide it out. After nearly half an hour of beating on the thing, we got out the saws-all and cut a mounting bracket. From then on things went much better for a while. The CherCam was a challenge because of its weight and tight fit, but its removal went very smoothly once we realized the support brackets were easily dismountable from the frame. Once it was out, uprighting the palette was trivial. We then proceeded to remove the framing so that we could easily remove the SCD and everything below it. The cross members on top were cut, but nothing else (except the afore-mentioned bracket).

The new method of calorimeter removal with the trays was challenging but very effective. There were a few design issues that made for trouble. The very small flathead screws were apparently RTVed in and a couple heads were stripped during removal, so the cover had to pried off around them. The 3.5 inch long screws did not stand up enough to remove them after unscrewing them and could not be pulled out of the insets because the tolerance was very tight around the screwhead. But these were minor issues. It took just over an hour to prepare to remove the first layer (eg pulling off tape, which is very difficult with gloves and when the tape is cold, separating cookies, some of which had screws whose heads got stripped as well). However, once we got going, loading the trays took less than an hour. Overall I would give this new process a B+. A few minor design changes or perhaps even more details in the instructions would make it get an A+, if such is possible for moving 1000 lbs.

Meanwhile, the area around the detector looked like a tornado had blown through. Note the lack of a horizon in the photo above. We wrapped electronics boxes in ESD bags, and set the detectors out on blue foam or in the snow. Around 5PM Terri and Yoann worked with the pilots to load the plane. Terri identified the priority items so that they would go out that first day, and packed the electronics more carefully with bubble wrap. Did you know that tape does not stick at those low temperatures? It made for some challenging moments.

But in the end we were able to load about 80% of CREAM onto the plane. The pilots, Jim and Louis (who was French Canadian and spoke with Yoann in French, much to his delight) were absolutely fantastic. They were committed to getting as much back as they possibly could, and got out in the snow with us to help carry these behemoths over to the plane. They stayed an hour or two later than they probably were supposed to in order to get as much as possible. The pilot was a true professional when it came to tight loading. I put myself through college working in a moving company, where it was important to stack stuff from floor to ceiling tightly to get as much as possible in and to keep the load from shifting. Jim rivaled the best packers I worked with in those days.

All that is left for pickup today by planes on their way to or from other sites is two calorimeter trays, two bags of cables, the palette, the TCD support structure, the frame pieces, and a few odds and ends. The pile in the picture is all that is left.

Recovery is very hard on an instrument. While CREAM landed easily, and it appeared there was no damage to the science instruments, the subsequent handling takes a toll. I think you could count on one hand the number of cables that did not get cut. Consider that all the TCD paddles were removed with only one joint breaking. In the subsequent handling of about a dozen times every joint ended up broken. After removal from the instrument they sat in the snow. They were then handed into the plane, loaded, flown about, removed to the ground at Willie Field, loaded in our truck, hauled to LDB, and finally removed into the hanger. All the instruments were handled that many times. The heavier they are the harder it is to handle them. Only two people, maybe three, can really be in the Twin Otter loading. It is a very small cargo hold. Devices with brackets still on offer a hold for carriers. Imagine wrapping your feet in sopping wet towels, wrapping a quilt around your body, and wearing the biggest winter gloves you have owned, then walking through sand dunes carrying 300 pound delicate instruments. Not an easy task.

We will go through everything we brought back over the next couple of days. We'll examine the S3 and CVD parts more closely to see if we can find any reason for the failure. Everything will get packed up into the sea crate. After that, the instrument will arrive in Palestine around mid-March, and someone has to go down to pick up the pieces.

Meanwhile, life in McMurdo continues. The fuel ship has finished unloading and is preparing to leave. The Palmer is gone. Yesterday's off-continent flight practically emptied out my dorm, leaving it blissfully quiet. I was able to luxuriate in a hot shower this morning, instead of the usual tepid poor excuse for one I usually get. I had to turn in my skis, since for some reason the gear issue season is finished. I am not sure what I will do to entertain myself until my plane leaves once I am finished packing the sea crate. But I'll manage, because I can sleep in and can put my field gear away. I'll get to see the cargo ship arrival and unloading, which I understand is a really crazy time here, when looking both ways before you cross the street is essential in order not to get run over by forklifts shuttling goods and crates.

Mission update, take 2

2008-01-31T00:13:00.000-08:00

We are a primary mission for tomorrow, Friday, 1 Feb. We'll see what happens. I have made my peace with staying here until 11 Feb, when the CSBF guys call it quits and the ballooning season officially ends, so I am not particularly strssed about this opportunity.

Here is an update on the other two payloads, ATIC and BESS. ATIC came down about 170 miles from South Pole Stations, while BESS came down miles from anywhere, near the top middle of the continent (in its usually displayed orientation). To be more specific, it is about 250 miles from Patriot Hills and 170 miles from AGO-2, both of which are uninhabited camps at this time. You can see ATIC's location in the map above. ATIC was launched at McMurdo, followed the yellow path counterclockwise for the first revolution and the red path for the partial second revolution, until termination at the end after 19.5 days. BESS is shown similarly to the right, and was terminated after 30.5 days. CREAM is shown at the bottom. It was up for 29 days.

Currently the plan is to fully recover ATIC out of the South Pole Station with a Twin Otter. Two colleagues from that experiment are currently positioned at Pole, and are waiting for weather to cooperate there. BESS will not get a recovery mission this year. The plan is to send in two mountaineers on a plane to get the CSBF required equipment and the BESS data (16 terrabytes!!). No scientist will get near the instrument this season. Sometime next summer (eg December) a campaign will be mounted to retrieve the whole instrument.

Weather cancel again

2008-01-30T10:42:00.000-08:00

Despite what I thought was good weather this morning, we have been cancelled for today. There is supposed to be 4-6 inches of snow at some point this afternoon or evening. It has been coming for two days now, so I am puzzled why the great concern all of a sudden. You would think they would give us what time we could get on the instrument. We could return as soon as the snow started to fly. I almost feel as if they give us primary to shut us up knowing that they can call a weather cancel the next morning and run the backup missions, which they really want. But that is frustration talking, not reality.

The last two weeks have been really emotionally draining. I have been riding this roller coaster of hope and despair. It is impossible to plan to be part of the community when I never know what will come of each day. Each day I get up early, eat a big breakfast in preparation for working all day, then wait for my pager to buzz me. At that point I get the news: go or no go. I am not sleeping well at night because I am replaying every possible scenario in my head regarding instrument disassembly.

There is one funny story to all this. Way back towards the beginning of my long wait I was being sent text pages. I finally got one that said GO. I got my gear and headed off to the rendezvous point. Strangely, my McMurdo representative was not there. I found him in his office. He looked at me standing there in full gear unbelievingly. I told him the message said GO. He said the rest of the message was BACK TO BED. We now do not use the text feature. I get a phone number to call instead. No mistakes.

We are going to treat the next flight we get as the last. We will bring all tools and gear back. That is 400 lbs less of instrument we could carry instead, but that is how it goes. Some parts of the instrument may sit on the ice until next winter. While the arrival delay of the cargo vessel this year by two weeks has given us (for better or for worse) an extra two weeks to try to get the instrument back, we are running short of that windfall. If the instrument is not on the dock in a week, it will not go back to the US this year anyway.

Another try

2008-01-29T23:24:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow (Thursday) we are a primary mission on a Twin Otter. Tonight (~10:30PM) the weather does not look so good. Here we go again....

Just to give you a feel of what people do down here in their spare time, see the photo.

One down, two to go

2008-01-29T00:25:00.000-08:00

We finally got out today! The weather was gorgeous for a change. You can see the blue sky behind the picture to the left when we arrived. If it stays like this for four days or so I think we have a chance. We managed to remove all the external support hardware (flight train, termination packages, solar panels, the 600 pound power and communications module behemoth) and grab the science data box today. We are poised to begin breaking into the instrument proper. The parachute was not even visible after 10 days in the snow, so we left it behind. It would have been very difficult to excavate it. As it was, I spent most of the morning digging under the instrument to access the power disconnects to make the instrument safe to disassemble. I had to laugh that the engineers put quick disconnects on all the panels except the one that had to be accessed during recovery, and the fate that put that panel in the snow. We don't want to get shocked accidentally when cutting a wire. The access panel landed downwards in the snow, and the few snowstorms and wondstorms we have had since the instrument landed piled up a heap against the power module. I had plenty of practice digging at snow school so felt really prepared.

We left some of our tools and gear at the site since the plane was completely full. Everything is strapped down in case of a storm. You can see that the external stuff is gone.

So when will I be done? Let's do the math: today was Tuesday. Tomorrow we are back to backup status, so won't fly, most likely. Suppose Thursday we were primary, and then either Friday or Saturday. Then we would have the instrument all back, could pack it Sunday and Monday, and make the Feb 5 plane to Christchurch. But that scenario assumes we get our flights - and even more importantly this year in particular - the weather holds. Sunday is a no-fly day. If we flew on Monday we could stay up all night Monday night to finish packing but we would be dead on our feet. Worth it to me, I guess, since the Feb 8 plane is full, and the next one is Feb 11.

Weather cancel

2008-01-27T15:43:00.000-08:00

We awoke to snow today (Sunday), despite a forecast for clear skies. After delaying a decision until noon, I have just been told we will not fly out today. The last schedule I saw did not have us on it again until Thursday, but that is, of course, fluid. Things are very grim for getting out of here before Feb 12.

The bright spot is that now I will go learn to use the CSBF gas-powered chop saw, which may come in handy during recovery. Vrrrrooom!

R/V Nathanial B. Palmer

2008-01-27T12:29:00.001-08:00

The research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer is a real contrast to icebreaker Oden. The Palmer is a working vessel, and its interior is full of labs and workspace for scientists to bring up all sorts of seawater, bottom ooze, and little creatures from the Antarctic Ocean. All of the work done by the Oden is exterior to the craft. There are no special wood highlights in the Palmer, although I was told it does have a sauna. The Palmer is capable of breaking through a meter of ice at a few knots (contrast that to the Oden, which is capable of several meters of ice at the same rate.) The Palmer's mission is scientific, and icebreaking is a secondary "necessary evil." Crew and scientist quarters are cramped, but there is lots of public space - as long as you don't mind sharing that space with a beaker of ooze or frigid water. The galley is in the bow, where, I am told,it is impossible to hold a conversation when ice is being crunched. The advantage to this large ship over the Oden is its stability in foul weather, which it encounters often. On the way down it endured 50 foot waves with 80 knot winds. All the captain could do was face the waves and ride the storm out. Water was apparently breaking over the bow in huge sheets.

Its draft is 7.5 meters, a meter less than the Oden. We were shown the spare propeller sections (4 to a propeller) - most impressive. Can you imagine having to install these in the middle of the ocean? I just don't think they would do that. They would more likely get towed to a port or limp in on one engine, and then have the prop changed.

Tomorrow is another day - take 2

2008-01-26T20:25:00.000-08:00

We are the primary mission for tomorrow (Monday). Cross your fingers for us!

The Polar Plunge

2008-01-26T17:33:00.000-08:00

The Kiwis at Scott Base offered a Polar Plunge this evening. Any and all interested could go jump into the coldest waters on earth. The temperature is about -2C. High salinity keeps the water from freezing at the usual temperature. A hole in the ice serves as your pool. The air temp is just below freezing. After your jump, there is a hot tub to get feeling back in your extremeties. I talked to one person who jumped four times. Most go at least once in their birthday suits, then plunge in more modestly. This has to be a Kiwi outing because the powers that be in McMurdo would never sanction it. Too fun, I think.

Did I go? No. Sorry to disappoint. Most of my showers in McMurdo qualify as Polar Plunges. There is never hot enough water when I need it.

However, one of my (crazy) colleagues went and sends this photo of the setup. The next photo is of her swimming back to the ladder.

Skiing and hiking and penguins

2008-01-25T22:40:00.000-08:00

I have never been on a pair of skis before last weekend. You can rent cross country and skate ski gear here, and my colleague Terri, who has been here three months and really got involved in the community, learned from scratch in a few weeks. While I do not want to spend a few more weeks here, I have least got a flavor of what is like to both kinds of skiing offered.

The two ways of skiing are very different. Cross country skis are long and wide relative to skate skis, with fish scales on the bottom that keep the skis from sliding backwards. You trudge along as if you were walking. You have probably seen this in the Olympics. Skate skis are more like "the worse part of downhill skis," so I am told. You don't have a hill but are expected to go forward. I found this method much more interesting than cross country. You move in a left-right rocking motion from ski to ski, sort of like ice skating. I am no expert, as you can see here, so if you disagree with my description, add a better one to the comments.

So last weekend I rented cross country skis, tried them out for an hour, then on Sunday skied out to Castle Rock. The Castle Rock trail is along a glacier, and is rough snow and very steep. It was a bad introduction to skiing. I did very badly. It was only slightly fun because I got so exhausted, fighting the skis the whole way. I only fell now and then (maybe a dozen times), but I kept the rest of the group from speeding along. I at least doubled the total time they would have taken without me. They were very nice, and waited for me.

But being a glutton for punishment, I rented skate skis this afternoon and tried them out. I skated along the road from Willie Field (one of the the airfields), which is fairly level and moderately groomed. I had much better luck, but I was still very slow and got exhausted quickly. It was nice, though, to get outside and try something new. You can see I am more confident on skate skis. Today's weather cleared up this afternoon, and the wind died down, making skiing very pleasant. Sadly, we are not on the schedule for tomorrow. I still have the skate skis, so I will try skate skiing again.

Otherwise, today I took a hike around Ob Hill (very windy and cold), and on the way back spotted (distantly) penguins out by Hut Point, so dashed over there to view them. I watched them hang out for a while, then jump in the water. Weddell seals litter the ice, like giant floppy slugs. The sea ice is melting near, and large pools are visible. Some whales have been spotted in these pools- just not by me yet!

Not today... again

2008-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

Still waiting. Must... keep... calm...

There is talk of flying tomorrow, Sunday, a usual no-fly day. I won't believe it until I am standing next to the payload with a screwdriver in my hand. Even getting the plane off the ground here at McMurdo is no guarantee we'll end up on the ground at our destination. On the ice shelf there is often a three to six feet high fog that comes in from the ocean that completely obscures the ground. The pilot needs to see the ground to land on it, especially since it is not a runway but just ice and snow. The winds form 6-12 inch high snow humps called sastrugi, which can snap off the landing gear if gone across crossways. The pilot aligns the aircraft with the sestrugi, and the aircraft bumps and rolls when landing, but doesn't lose a ski.

Tomorrow is another day

2008-01-24T23:40:00.000-08:00

We are 1st backup for one of the Twin Otter flights tomorrow. If weather cancels the primary flight, then it is our turn. This is getting old....

Janitor Dawn

2008-01-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

Janitor Dawn is responsible for keeping the dorm I live in, building 203A, spic and span. She does a great job. She is here six days a week, cleaning the hallways and bathrooms and lounge areas. She is also reponsible for cleaning the Chapel (where my yoga classes are held), and spends afternoons helping out in the main laundry facility for the Station.

Dawn is from Kansas via Denver. This is her first year here, and she has decided to pursue any opportunity to come back next year, hopefully in an administrative position. She left "a really good job" in Denver to follow her boyfriend down here and has not regretted it. She likes the international mix of people, travel opportunities, and the spectacular outdoor setting here. "Where else can you see penguins and whales in their natural environment?" She even likes the climate - most people are under the impression that the weather is really cold here, but it has been warmer here than Denver and Cincinnati recently. Temperatures are between the high teens and high thirties. While it has often been windy and cloudy this year, typically it is sunny and beautiful all summer. The really cold weather is at the Pole, which is between -20F and -30F these days. Yuch.

Thanks for sharing your story, Dawn!

...and again

2008-01-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

We were not a primary mission this morning. The schedule was not posted until about 10:30 last night, and we were not on it then, so I did not even bother to set my alarm this morning. Today's flights are out to some area glaciers. Maybe tomorrow we will go?

I lose one roomate and gain another today.

Waiting again

2008-01-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

Bad weather has canceled our recovery flight for today. There are high winds and light snow with low visibility. Conditions are expected to get worse before they get better. Maybe we will go out tomorrow. More later.

The Waiting Game may be over!

2008-01-22T20:26:00.000-08:00

I just found out that CREAM recovery is a primary Twin Otter mission for tomorrow and possibly the two days afterwards. Weather and mechanical permitting (a really important phrase here), we'll fly out to the instrument, dismantle it, stuff the pieces into the little plane, and bring it all back to McMurdo, unload the plane into a truck, drive the parts to the hanger, unload them into the hanger, drive back into town, and collapse exhausted into our beds to be ready to do it all again the next day. That means that I will not be keeping up this blog for the next few days. I'll be leaving at dawn and returning at dusk. Er, wait a sec - no dawn and dusk here, so, ah, leaving early and returning late by these clocks in the land of perpetual light.

After all the bits and pieces get back we put everything in a big sea container, put a ribbon on it, and wish it bon voyage. THEN I am free to leave. I may make my Feb 1 departure date after all!

Shuttle Jamie

2008-01-21T20:30:00.000-08:00

I have decided to start making short profiles of some of the people I meet here. Folks that make up support crew in the town of McMurdo come from all walks of life but generally share a love of the outdoors. I will never do their stories real justice, but will try to give you an idea of who they are, what they do, and where they come from.

Shuttle Jamie (that's her call sign) drives shuttles around town. The need for shuttles here is great. No one has their own vehicle. Gear is hauled all around town. For example, for a group to get ready for the field, they need transport in from the runway after arrival (usually the Pegasus Ice Runway, where the C17 comes in), have their personal and ECW (Emergency Cold Weather) gear hauled to their dorms, then collect their camping gear from the Berg Field Center (BFC), food from the galley (kitchen), and finally get all this hauled to either the helopad or out to Willy Field, the C130 ice runway. There are various vehicles around available to help with all these tasks. Some are made for snow and ice, others for dirt and mud around town. A post from my previous visit had links to pictures of some of these vehicles.

I met Shuttle Jamie on my way to Scott Base in a Delta. I rode up front because the ride is short, and it is a pain to get people out of the boxes in the back of those things (see the pictures in that earlier post linked above). Remarkably, Jamie is from Cincinnati, and in fact lives less than a mile from my house there! It is truly a small world. This is her first year here. She likes it here enough that she considered wintering over but thought that her sister, who is expecting a baby, would not appreciate it. Will she come back? Probably, if she can swing it. She drives a full 8 hour day, sometimes more, and switches between the Delta regularly scheduled routes, shuttling on call, and Ivan the Terrabus (my favorite).

Scott's Hut

2008-01-21T16:03:00.000-08:00

You are probably aware that it is from this area that Robert Falcon Scott started his epic failure of a journey into the heart of Antarctica in his quest to be first to the South Pole. The place is practically littered with huts of gear and food that his expedition left behind. There is one hut about 500 yards from downtown McMurdo, on appropriately named Hut Point. The site is protected, and is only occasionally open for tours. I took one of these this week, and have some photos of the inside to share.

The hut is a prefab unit Scott purchased in Australia. It was designed to keep people cool in the outback. The first thing that you notice as you walk in is how incredibly funky the smell is. The next thing you notice is how it looks like hardly anything has happened since Scott left. There are seal bodies that have been preserved in the cold dry weather here, like the Chilean Andes mummies. There are boxes and boxes of dog biscuits, some clothing hanging out to dry, and shelves full of tinned chocolate, tea, meats, and other foodstuffs.

The area around McMurdo is also littered with crosses commemorating those who gave their lives here for one reason or another. The cross on Hut Point is for George Vince, the doctor in Scott's expedition, who was last seen walking across the sea ice, but never arrived. He probably fell through a hole and drowned. Another cross, on top of Ob Hill, is for Scott himself, and has the famous quote from Tennyson, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" engraved on it. Yet another cross memorializes a young man named Williams, who was driving a tractor hauling supplies in from a Navy vessel during the establishment of McMurdo Station and fell through the sea in 350 fathoms of water. His body was never recovered. nor was the tractor. Rough place, Antarctica.

Local entertainment

2008-01-21T14:22:00.000-08:00

There are several things I have been doing to wile away the time while I await a plane (or three).
1. Read. I brought several books. There is also a library here. And it is possible to borrow DVDs/videos, although I have not taken advantage of that opportunity yet.

2. Weather watch. Since flights and outdoor activities depend so much on good weather, and the weather here can change in a heartbeat, one can spend hours in morbid fascination staring at the weather pages and flight schedules, which are broadcast on the TV network here and shown on TVs mounted near the cafeteria. Here is an example page of current observations. Don't you love how the next sunset is February 20? I will hopefully miss it. It is also fun to see the Pole current observations: Temps of -27F!!

3. Exercise in the gym (aka gerbil gym). The only prefab building using tabs from the 50's left on site, the gerbil gym offers several treadmills, stationary bikes, ellipticals, and other tasty tidbits for those wishing to break a sweat.

4. Hike. There are several hiking trails around. The ones on the sea ice are closed now, since the sea ice is unstable in this late summer. All the rest are available to the lone hiker, except the Castle Rock loop, which requires two people and check in/out with the local Firehouse for safety reasons.

5. Ski. You can rent various gear here, including cross country and skate skis. I rented some cross country skis and after one hour of practice the first day went on a six mile ski to Castle Rock with a group of people. These folks turned out to be very nice because I really am bad on skis, and they were very patient with me. I fell a lot. I am awfully sore today, and I went two days ago. Still, I will get back up on this horse and try again, perhaps with lessons. In my defense the snow was very beat up since it doubles as a hiking trail. This is what I look like after falling.

6. Nightlife. Bars! Bars! Bars! There are three here. Southern Exposure, the hard core smoking bar; Gallaghers, the not-quite-as-hard core non-smoking bar; and the Coffee House/Wine Bar. The last is low key, with background music that the "Beakers" (aka scientists) frequent. Some atmosphere is given by the very old skis and sleds hanging from the ceiling. (See photo.) I have spent several relaxing evenings there either playing cards, chatting, or joining in on a movie in the adjoining mini-theater room. Sadly, it is now closed for the next couple weeks for renovations. The recent snows emphasized just how bad the condition of its roof is.

7. Eat. Regular meals which I neither cook nor clean for encourages me to try everything. My motto: No desert should go untried. The pastry and bread chef here should be commended! Meals are usually OK. They are generally much better than I remember on my last trip two years ago. There is certainly more fruit and salad available.

Otherwise, I do some work on my computer, write these posts, and check out the view from the Crary Lab science library of the TransAntarctic Mountains, and use the spotting scope there to keep tabs on all that's happening.

Mission update

2008-01-21T12:14:00.000-08:00

Now that the instrument has been cut down from the balloon, I am waiting for a chance to go recover it. We reuse many of the pieces in later flights. Unfortunately, the weather was bad enough early this month that there is a backlog of flights of the fixed wing craft (Twin Otters). They are mostly retrieving distant camps on some remote glacier or another, so I can't really argue with the priorities. We are far down on the totem pole. Every day since Saturday we have been the backup mission, or backup to the backup mission. Never the primary mission. When will that happen? I don't know. Hopefully soon! I need three days out in the field to completely recover the instrument. Camping is not really an option since I need three round trip flights just to carry the instrument parts, due to weight capacity limitations of the Twin Otters (the instrument weighs a total of about 6000 lbs, and the Twin Otter capacity is about 2500 lbs - four passengers take up a sizable fraction of that!). Hauling camping gear in and then out adds two more flights. It takes a lot of gear to camp safely in Antarctica. Look back at the snow school post to remember how big the Scott tents are and the number of sleeping bags and pads I used were. We will do what is called "close support," in which a Twin Otter lands next to the instrument, we work on disassembly, load the plane, and come back that same day. It makes for 14 hour days, but it beats getting stuck in a tent for a few days if bad weather moves in.

So I wait. And wait. To occupy myself I work on computer projects, IM chat with family, or utilize the local entertainment. Perhaps a post on local entertainment would be appropriate.... reading, skiing, bars, talks, and more.

Please submit comments! I never know if anyone reads this. I need assurance that this is not just an exercise in typing for me. So keep those cards and letters (in electronic form) coming!

Swedish Icebreaker Oden

2008-01-19T12:33:00.001-08:00

Every year McMurdo receives several maritime visitors. First there is a fuel ship, which replenishes fuel to run the power generators for the station, the aircraft operations (which are quite massive, running people out to field camps and South Pole Station), and fuel for the South Pole generators. Then a research vessel stops by for a couple days. And finally, the resupply cargo vessel, which brings everything needed for the next year, like food, new snowmobiles, t-shirts for the store, etc. The groundwork for these visits is laid by an icebreaker, which opens up the last few miles of sea to McMurdo. For many years that duty was performed by a US Coast Guard vessel, then the contract was given to the Russians for a few years. But the last two years have seen the Swedes step in with their state of the art vessels. This year the Oden broke a channel through about 5 miles of ice up to the dock. (By the way, the dock is no more than some dirt smoothed over on top of some sea ice by the shore.) So far Oden has been in the neighborhood for two weeks. It will remain here for another two weeks to keep the channel ice free as the various other vessels arrive and depart.

The Swedes really know how to build a beautiful icebreaker. While docked here taking a break, the Oden offered tours. I was fortunate enough to be able to take one. The captain and first mate led us around. We visited the galley, bar, sauna, bridge, some crew quarters, the engine room, and walked across the deck. We learned that the shape of the bow is flat, not pointed like the classic ship, so that Oden can ride up over the ice when it crashes into it. The steel in the bow is of the finest quality and several inches thick. There are pumps that spray seawater on the ice as the bow moves over it to make it more slippery (ice has more and more friction as it gets colder). Once the icebreaker has ridden up on the ice, it breaks it by rocking from side to side. Rocking? What, do all hands leap from side to side? No! There are water tanks in each side of the ship and a massive pumping system that can change the heel of the boat by 20 degrees in 20 seconds. The ship has four eight cylinder diesel engines directly coupled to the two propeller shafts (usually the engines run an electric motor which then runs the propellers), and can go from full reverse to full forward in 12 seconds. I am told she stands on her stern when that happens. Must be quite exciting. The interior is beautifully decorated with wood highlights, and each of the crew of 18 gets his or her own room. Visiting scientists, however, have to share four to a room.

There is probably more information online, but I have not taken the effort to search for it. If anyone finds a link to more about the Oden, send it along and I'll put it in this post.

Youtube video of Snow School available!

2008-01-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

The time lapse video of my Snowcraft School class building a snow wall out on the ice shelf has been posted to Youtube. I'm the one in black with a red hat that ends up hauling sleds with snow blocks on it. I am not sure if either the link above or embedded video below work because our bandwidth here is extremely limited. If it is not working, search Youtube for "Happy Campers from McMurdo build snow wall." I send my thanks to my son Joe for getting this online.

Burning questions:
"Is McMurdo a science town with a drinking problem or a drinking town with a science problem?"

"From an evolutionary perspective, why have women lost the ability to grow a beard? It sure would be useful down here" I think this one goes next to "Why do men have nipples?" Your opinion is welcome. Perhaps an intelligent dialogue is possible through the comments. Or not.

TERMINATE!

2008-01-16T20:05:00.000-08:00

To paraphrase the Daleks of Dr Who fame, TERMINATE! Termination of the CREAM flight has occurred successfully during a textbook perfect mission. I went along as resident scientist/tourist on an LC130 ride. The termination is a CSBF operation, and I congratulate them on an excellent job.

We took an LC130 (notice the skis for wheels) at about noon today and flew about 200 miles along the Ross Ice Shelf east of McMurdo. I have never see the 200 foot tall ice shelf edge before and was amazed at its beauty. We then flew in about 65 miles to the balloon location. CSBF terminated the flight, which means they separated the CREAM instrument with parachute from the balloon, pulled the rip cord on the balloon to release the helium and let it free fall, and circled as the payload parachuted to the ice. The parachute separated from the payload nicely after touching down, and ended up on its side. The balloon landed after its free fall less than a few miles from the payload. I was back in McMurdo by 5 PM.

I never was worried about the ride getting wild. My sailing experience helped me keep my feet (and stomach). We do not know when the recovery effort will begin yet.

Latest news

2008-01-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

The CREAM payload is very close to being cut down. It will happen within the next couple of days. The call to do it is out of my hands, and in the hands of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) representative here. My role in the cut down is that of tourist. If we take the larger C130 I can ride along, but if a smaller Twin Otter plane is taken there will not be room for me. Going along would be a mixed blessing, I think. I am told that it is a roller coaster ride - lots of high g-force turns and vomit-inducing twists as the pilots circle to keep the payload in sight and scope out the landing area, with low altitude flyovers. I would be in the back of the plane in a moderately windowless environment so could potentially get airsick. I am told I should keep a few barf bags handy. But hey, you rarely get this kind of opportunity, so what the heck.

After our two days of blue sky, the weather has again turned poor - nothing new in that respect in this season full of bad weather. There is snow again, and a low ceiling, which makes a series of low altitude flying during cut down more likely. I have included a photo of Derilict Junction, the "main square" in McMurdo, with Ivan the TerraBus making its way to the bus stop so you can see the grey and snow.

By the way, you can make a comment by pressing the "comments" button below. Don't be shy! I would love to hear from you.

People in McMurdo

2008-01-15T15:01:00.000-08:00

The talent collected at McMurdo amazes me. There is a cross section of people from all walks of life. All are attracted by the prospect of either living in Antarctica or doing science here. The Station has a mixture of scientists and support personnel. The support folk perform the heroic task of keeping things running here, and have jobs ranging from janitor, cook, galley slave, and hair stylist, to helicopter pilot, shuttle driver, hazardous waste supervisor, mechanic, and sewage plant operator, etc – everything a small town needs to be completely self sufficient. The support people here all have a story. Some can fix anything, including the 50 year old trucks and other equipment originally brought here by the Navy during the establishment of McMurdo. Others just want to be here. The standard story line is “PhD? No big deal. We have PhD’s working in the galley!” There are mountaineers that support the field camps that were guides on Denali. While some people consider the pinnacle of their climbing careers to peak a mountain like Denali, these people guided folks to the peaks regularly. You also get some of the best scientists in geology, biology, glaciology, astrophysics, and more down here all mixing together. There is an Air National Guard unit that operates the flights to and from here and the flights to many of the more distant field camps, including South Pole Station. They have fuel handlers, mechanics, doctors, pilots, navigators, psychologists…. quite a list. Everyone meets in the galley for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Real synergy!

Snow School, aka Happy Camper

2008-01-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

If you are going out to the field in Antarctica from McMurdo Station, no matter for how long, you have to be trained in how to camp on the ice. Since lots and lots of people come through McMurdo on their way to a field camp, a whole culture has sprung up around the Snowcraft Class, aka Happy Camper.

Happy Camper involves learning how to set up a Scott tent (a floorless four-pole tent ideal for arctic conditions), cook on the camp stoves, using the snow to build shelters, helicopter and radio etiquette (including shortwave), and emergency procedures. We also discuss proper clothing. The basic guideline: no cotton touching the skin. If you are active, you sweat, and you need to wick away that moisture or you will get cold the next time you are inactive. The gear issue provides everything you need, including long underwear, to survive in these temperatures.

Twelve people were in this particular offering of the class, including a few people working support staff at McMurdo. This is a special opportunity for them because they don’t get out much compared to the scientists. They actually treat this as recreation. Frankly, I think Happy Camper should be renamed “Digging School.” I have not done this much digging and hauling for a looong time.

An arctic camp is only partly tents. Since the winds down here can be pretty brutal, and shelter is non-existent out on the ice, we have to make our own. We built a few snow walls from snow blocks quarried from the snow pack on top of the permanent ice shelf, and dug a kitchen area inside the protected area, so that we could cook our water. All we ate was freeze dried food and granola bars. Freeze dried food is very unsatisfying, and not recommended for an extended period of time if you want to keep your digestion intact. We are always told that people in the filed lose weight because of the body combating the cold, but I think it is because no one can stomach the freeze dried beef stroganoff. At least we had an awesome kitchen to eat it in (see photo).

We also built a quinzee hut. To build this, first choose a spot on the edge of the sheltered area you have created with the snow walls and Scott tents. Pile up all your gear (sleeping bags and pads, extra clothing bags, etc) in a mound, then shovel tons of snow onto it. Pat down the snow several times as you pile. Let set for a few hours. Dig a small hole at ground level and start pulling out the gear, leaving a hollow inside. From the side facing the compound of tents, start an entry hole by digging down, then up into the open space left by the gear. This will keep the warm air, which rises, from escaping out a ground level hole. After completing the entry hole, block off the gear removal hole with a few quarried snow blocks, lay out your pads and sleeping bags and enjoy! While I did not sleep in there, I hear that it was comfortably warm, room enough for two, but you had to be careful when sitting up not to bump the walls and knock down snow. Here is a picture of us building the quinzee hut. The Scott tents are the yellow-orange things.

I am trying to get a time lapse video of building one of the snow walls on Youtube but am having trouble getting the upload to work on the Cincinnati side. There is not enough bandwidth down here to upload via Youtube’s html loader, so I had to get the video Stateside in a roundabout way. Without going into details, just stay tuned….

We took particular care to do a good job on all this because we then spent the night in our creations. The Scott tent, where I stayed, was quite comfortable. I was, in fact, overly warm on my two pads and in my two sleeping bags. One of the best investments you can make for the night is a pee bottle. We’ll just leave that at that….

I had a pretty good time out there. The weather was grey and snowy, with blustery winds. For a short time the following day visibility was down to a couple hundred yards due to blowing snow. These were perfect conditions for some of the scenarios we ran, such as how to find a missing person during white out conditions – not easy! There is another picture of trying to pull out the person who went into the hut to try to yank the buried gear out and got kind of stuck!

Our finished camp looked like this picture. Look for the three snow walls around the Scott tents - left, right, and center; the quinzee hut to the left, and the mountain tents behind all our sleeping gear.

I also took a class about how to recognize, avoid, and deal with altitude sickness. The ice is so thick that the altitude of much of the continent is over 8000 feet. I may end up in an area that high for recovery. Too soon to tell at this point, though.

The story thus far

2008-01-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

I arrived on January 5, 2008. A lot has happened since then. Let’s see if I can catch you up:
1. Weather – Pretty miserable until the last couple of days. Nothing but grey sky, and very cold relative to my visit in December 2005. We had one big snow storm (named Julia) that dumped almost a foot of snow on us. (It's hard for me to tell how much since the wind left many drifts around the Station.) Flights to field camps were cancelled, and the Station nearly came to a halt. After the storm abated it took an extra day just to clear the runways and roads enough to resume traffic.
2. Snow school – Anyone who may be going into the field has to take an overnight training course to learn how to camp in Antarctic conditions. We quarried snow blocks and built snow walls, and fabricated a quinzee hut as well, which is sort of lazy man's igloo. (Other - incorrect- spellings of quinzee include "quinsy" and "quincy" and "quinsey.") I’ll make a post to tell you more about that. I also had training required of everyone: Environmental Protection (a biggy down here), and Outdoor Safety, required of anyone who wants to take a hike.
3. Icebreaker Oden – Every year the last few miles of ice are broken out so that the cargo vessel can come into port. While this job was originally performed by American vessels, it was contracted out to the Russians for a few years and for the last two years it has been done by the Swedish icebreaker Oden. A beautiful boat. I will make a short post about my tour of it.
4. The experiment – For the first time, a total of three balloons were launched this year. They are all making two revolutions around the Pole. The last one launched (ATIC) is being cut down today. It has spiraled into the Pole, and recovery of the instrument will be coordinated from there. My experiment, CREAM, the first one launched, has nearly completed two revolutions and will be cut down on Wednesday or Thursday, probably over the Ross Ice Shelf near McMurdo, but the surface weather is not supposed to be very good so it might get delayed. The last one to be terminated, BESS, was the second balloon launched but is still 5 or 6 days out from completing its second revolution. You can follow the paths of these balloons at the NASA CSBF site for Antarctic operations.

I'm Baaaack!

2008-01-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am back in McMurdo. This time I am here in January instead of December. There should be many differences: the weather is colder, and the ice breaker is coming, along with the cargo vessel. There could be penguins and Weddell seals.

My job is different this time. It is now to go out into the field and recover the CREAM instrument instead of help prepare it for flight. This is a great opportunity for me - it means I will get to see something of the Antarctic continent! Typically the instrument comes down on the Ross Ice Shelf or on the Antarctic plateau behind the TransAntarctic Mountains near Ross Island where McMurdo is. I will fly out to the site and over the course of a few days disassemble the instrument, have it flown back in pieces to McMurdo, pack everything carefully into large shipping containers, and then have it shipped back to the States on the cargo vessel due here in the next couple of weeks.

This year three cosmic ray balloon experiments were launched: CREAM, BESS, and ATTIC. You can follow the progress of each experiment at the NASA Challenger Scientific Balloon Facility Antarctic Operations site. At this time CREAM (my experiment) is nearly finished with its second revolution, and we are in the process of trying to decide about a third revolution.

I arrived about a week ago (Jan 5, 2008), and had not decided to continue this blog. However, enough interesting things have happened that I think it is worthwhile to document some of them. Keep tuning in!

You can learn a lot about McMurdo Station from the posts in this blog from my previous visit, in December 2005. they are linked in the archive listings in the sidebar.

REALLY the Last Post

2006-01-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

So, just to tie up some loose ends…. The balloon came down on January 13, 2006, only 250 miles from where it was launched.  It made two complete revolutions around Antarctica, and stayed up for about 32 days.  CREAM is the luckiest experiment I have ever been on.  Recovery was easy and total.  Absolutely everything was recovered, and very quickly, in a couple days and a few flights.

As for the beard: I shaved it off on Monday, January 16.  I was tired of wringing out my face every time it got wet.  The beard never really got soft, so always itched, and my wife never really stopped laughing.  I shaved it off in stages, intending to stop for a while at various places, but as soon as I shaved off the first part, I could not stop, because it looked ridiculous.  A goatee and/or sideburns are not my style.

So, thanks for tuning in.  My journey and this blog were featured in a local newspaper article in the Cincinnati Enquirer (Northern Kentucky edition).  My 15 minutes of fame have come and gone.

I did decide that I want to make this once in a lifetime opportunity into a twice in a lifetime opportunity, and I think I have that chance.  In fact, I think I have two chances.  Once again with the CREAM experiment in 2007/08, and again the following year with CREST.  All this, of course, depends on various schedules happening as planned.  My fingers are crossed!!

Last Post... Vote Now!

2006-01-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

I made several predictions when I made my first post on this blog. Let’s see how those turned out:

I’ll grow a beard. Yup. Check out the four weeks growth. I think I’ll keep it for another month or so just to see what happens. The downside is that my wife isn’t really a fan. She says she wonders who this stranger is that she picked up at the airport. Fortunately for me, she still agrees to kiss the stranger, but usually breaks out in laughter in the middle. She calls herself “long-suffering….”

I will spend all my time schmoozing while down on the Ice instead of all the work I am hoping to accomplish. So true. I got very little of the work done that I took with me, but I did revisit my pool game skills (there are two pool tables in McMurdo).

I will have far more cold weather gear than I need. Oh yeah. I hauled around a bunch of junk. Staying at Mcmurdo did not strain my wardrobe like going out in the field would have.

I will have far more entertainment items (books, DVDs, music) than I need. Yes, but not by much. I finished off three of the four books and watched two of the three movies I took.

I will wish I had more time in NZ. Yes, yes, yes!!!

I will not meet Peter Jackson. Nope. Not a sight. But I probably wouldn’t recognize him anyway because he lost a lot of weight. He could have been on the same sea kayaking trip I was on and I wouldn’t have known.

I will gain 10 pounds. Yes, there was a full hot breakfast every morning, and staying at B&Bs did not help. Actual weight gain: 7 pounds.

Alright, I need your help.  What’s the word on the beard?  Compare this picture to the one in the sidebar to the right.  Does it fit me, or should I go back to being clean shaven?  Vote in the comments.

To answer a few of the more interesting questions posted as responses to previous blogs:
The official time zone of McMurdo is New Zealand time, which makes sense since McMurdo is nearly due south of NZ.
The toilet seats for the outdoor pit toilets are Styrofoam.  The toilet doors don’t always lock, so there is a red flag that says “STOP” in the room which you place outside the door when you are inside.
The CREAM detector is currently floating between 125,000 and 130,000 feet, a perfect altitude.

Exploring New Zealand

2006-01-02T09:10:00.000-08:00

What an incredible place New Zealand is!  There is a little bit of paradise there.  The country consists of two large islands, called the North and South Islands by natives, though they must have real names.  Auckland, the capital, is on the North Island, and contains fully half the country’s population of about 4 million.  As a result the rest of the country is pretty empty, especially the South Island.  I only toured the north end of the South Island.

Before I get into the details of my NZ trip, I though I should give a few travel tips for the next time you go down there.  First of all, if you get a car, be prepared to drive on the left side of the road.  (My mantra for right turns was “Go right, stay left.”)  Car travel times are much longer for a particular distance than you would expect in the States.  There are no four lane roads (at least where I was), and although there is no traffic to speak of even during this busy holiday period, the roads are quite twisty and turny so travel is slow.  Similarly, on the trails, signs posted to help the hiker time his day give times for walks that are ridiculously short.  I am no slacker, but I would have had to practically jog to match the suggested times!

All over the island, except in Christchurch, two lane bridges are the exception, not the rule.  Most of the time there is a little sign and paint to tell you which direction has the right of way, but I found determining who went first was mostly a game of chicken.  One of my favorite bridges is this trestle bridge that also carries train tracks.  (Note this bridge has a signal – the only bridge I ran across with one.)  As you go across the bridge you can see the tracks above.  Looking up the ties are visible.  Crazy.  My favorite bridge, near Greymouth, had the tracks on the same level as the cars. The signs indicating that the train tracks were ahead really are evocative.  Note the background sign.  That’s a guy falling off his bike as he hits the railroad tracks imbedded in the bridge ahead.  However, my favorite sign was a reminder that the road could get slippery when “frosty.”  Note that the skid marks cross on this sign.  Rough place.

New Zealanders are an incredibly friendly and gregarious lot.  I never had difficulty with asking questions about something or otherwise getting help or advice.  But let me caution you that directions given by a New Zealander are often next to useless.   For example, to find a certain store, I was told to “follow the main street until you get to the bank.  It should be right there.”  Which main street?  “The one up there.”  (We were on one main street, and there are several in a city.)  Which bank?  There is more than one!

I have changed my mind about the effectiveness of tipping in the States.  There is no tipping in New Zealand, and service at restaurants is nearly nonexistent.

In towns, finding accommodations and food were not a problem.  There are different levels, and a list from most primitive to most luxurious is youth hostel, backpackers, motel, B&B, and hotel.  Plenty of choices.  In Greymouth I stayed in a Noah’s Ark  themed backpacker’s in the tiger room.

A final note of caution: The New Zealand possum is considered a pest, and its fur is used to make a variety of items, such as socks, gloves and hats.  (Sorry the picture of this stuffed possum is a little out of focus.)  This misuse makes them really mad, and at night you must be careful not to get attacked by killer possums coming out of the trees.  I barely escaped this encounter with my life.

There are so many things to tell before launching into the travelogue, but I’ll just mention one more thing.  I saw the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, as well as the infamous Southern Cross constellation. All of these are only visible from the southern hemisphere.  Seeing these has been a lifelong desire of mine.  BTW – Did you know that the moon looks upside down from the southern hemisphere?

You can follow along on the trip by going to some web sites with New Zealand maps, such as  http://www.aatravel.co.nz/map/search-bymap.shtml?locationId=1.  Click on the region of interest.  I’ll give names.

I had found a friend to share a rental car with, and on the first day in Christchurch we made all our plans and reservations.  Since New Zealanders use the Christmas holidays as their primary summer vacation, I was concerned that no housing would be available.  But in the end there were no problems, since NZ’s don’t start their fun until after Christmas, and our trip would start Christmas Eve.

Here’s where you can start following the map:  Starting in Christchurch, we took highway 1 up the coast towards Kaikoura, cutting in on a loop that took us to see more of the inner part of the island.  The land is very mountainous, and sticking the camera out the window and snapping pictures gave us shots like this one.  Kaikoura is a small town that advertises itself to be a starting place for a lot of water entertainment, such as swimming with dolphins or watching whales, but what I found was the seal colony.  They look like so many giant slugs, except when they get in the water.  The mountains touch the sea around the bay in Kaikoura, so the setting was quite beautiful.  From there, we traveled to Picton, a small town in the Marlborough region at the north end of the South Island.  In Picton, there were hiking trails through the forest, and we did some sea kayaking.  The water was clear enough to see sting rays scoot across the bottom.  Several species of cormorants, which they call shags, were very common.

From Picton we drove west on 63 to the west coast region, and stopped at Punakaiki.  There are very nice stone formations which form blowholes as the waves come in.  Unfortunately I had forgotten to charge my camera, so that part of the trip will forever be lost to photography.  We stopped in Greymouth for the night, where I stayed in the backpackers mentioned above, and moved on across the north end of the Southern Alps in the morning through Arthur’s Pass, taking 73 back into the Christchurch/Canterbury region.

In Arthur’s Pass we took this incredible hike.  It started off with nice boardwalk through beech forests, and after a while put us in a river bed.  If you look carefully at this picture you can find the small orange trail marker up on the left side of the river bed.  From here on out it was a mad scramble, past signs which did not deter me, up to a waterfall and false glacier, which was unmelted snow that the river had undercut.  Lovely day.  I got a pretty good sunburn during my after-lunch nap.

Pictures don’t do this justice.  What made the trip so nice were the constant surprises.  I ran into one nice place after another.  I really MUST go back someday.

Leaving McMurdo

2006-01-01T15:47:00.000-08:00

Well, I’m back in the US.  I arrived just before midnight on Thursday, Dec 29, a day that started the previous midnight 42 hours before.  I was up for a good many of those hours.  Overall the trip was a great success.  Our instrument, CREAM, is still up in the air as of this writing (New Year’s Day).  You can follow its position at http://www.wff.nasa.gov/BPO/creamweb/edrs/viewimage.php?image=GPS_fig11.jpg
(It was the other science group, ATIC, that had the bad balloon.)

I wanted to share with you my last few adventures, including flying out of McMurdo in a C17 cargo jet and exploring New Zealand.  First, in this installment, the trip out of McMurdo:

I was supposed to leave on Dec 21, but, as I mentioned previously, the flight was cancelled that day and moved to the 22nd.  The plane for the return trip is very different than the one I took down.  Recall that the flight down was on a C130 propeller-driven cargo plane (shown earlier) and took seven hours in cramped conditions.  However, the C130 planes landed conveniently just outside McMurdo on the Ice Runway.  Sadly, the ice that it landed on melts in the summer, and it is too late in the season now to use it, so a runway on the permanent ice shelf, about 10 miles out from McMurdo, called Pegasus, was used for the return trip.  That runway can have C17 Globemaster jets land on it.  These jets can fly down from Christchurch and return in one day.  The trip is only about 4 hours, and the planes are newer, so more mechanically reliable.  (Several times C130 flights were cancelled due to mechanical difficulties.)

On the day we were to depart the weather was poor.  It was snowing hard, but at least the wind was not very strong.  The journey out to the runway was in Ivan the Terrabus.  Finally, I got to ride it!  However, poor old Ivan got stuck in blowing snow, despite its huge tires.  We had to be rescued by two caterpillar tractors, which then accompanied us the rest of the way out to the runway.  After a long wait we boarded the plane.  What relative luxury!  The interior was much roomier.  There were even some REAL SEATS!  Even one real bathroom this time, as opposed to the wall mounted receptacles in the C130.  While many people slept, I took pictures of sea ice and continental ice below.   In this last photo you can see the wing of the plane above, and some crevasses in the lower right.  There is also fog or windblown snow over a large region of the lower right as well.  Mountains stick up above the ice.  My last sight of Antarctica.

Four hours after takeoff, at about 10 PM, I was in Christchurch.  Civilization!  And darkness!!  When the airplane door was opened it was dark out.  All of us were quite surprised, since we were used to the constant light of Antarctic summer.  It was rather surreal for a while.  After all, McMurdo is at about 78 degrees south latitude – only 12 degrees from the Pole, and well within the Antarctic Circle.

I was ready for the next part of my adventure, which was to explore as much of New Zealand as I could in 5 days.

Food and more (or less)

2005-12-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

I never went back to talk about food.  I can say that at least it is plentiful, if not particularly delicious.  Fresh veggies and fruit are a real delicacy, and are rarely available. People were really excited when we got fresh lettuce for a salad the other night.  McMurdites call fresh veggies and fruits “freshies.”
Personally, of the three meals a day (not including “mid-rats,” for the night shift), I like the breakfasts most.  Sausage, eggs, made to order omelets…. Wednesday morning is waffle day (my favorite), and Sunday (everyone’s day off) has a big brunch from 10-noon.  The dining hall is the main place to eat, but some of the more remote sites (various airfields) in the area have their own galleys.  Most of the time this just means a truck is loaded up with trays from the main dining hall and carted out.  That food is cold and even more stale than usual by the time workers get to eat it. The balloon area, however, has its own cook and galley.  This is needed because of the wild hours ballooners keep.  (The weather never cooperates fully.)
The galley may not look like much, but it holds a secret.  John the cook is a great find.  He is very accommodating, and his food tastes really good.  He brings his own spices, and only cooks for 20-70 people at a time, so can concentrate on quality over quantity.  Sadly, he only provides lunch, unless a launch makes us keep other hours. After our launch, at 9AM, he made me eggs and bacon.  A really good fellow.  I am always looking for an excuse to spend lunch out at the hangar.

Time’s up!  But tune in next week….
I was scheduled to leave this morning, Wednesday, Dec 21, for Christchurch, but the plane is delayed until tomorrow due to weather.  Very typical.  And tomorrow it may be delayed again.  My colleague was delayed for six days during a bad spate of weather and mechanical trouble with the Kiwi C130s.  Don’t ever make carefully timed plans when you are in Antarctica. From Christchurch I will take a week or so exploring the south island of New Zealand.  I doubt I will be able to file blogs during that time, but I promise to post pictures and news when I return.  So around the New Year, spend some time perusing this blog yet again.
I have fixed the problems with the photo links.  Drop me a comment (as anonymous if you do not have an account, or just sign up for one – free!) if you continue to have problems.

Castle Rock

2005-12-19T19:30:00.000-08:00

While I was waiting for my flight to depart, I hiked a 7 mile loop from McMurdo to Castle Rock, a prominent volcanic feature on a promontory.  There are several trails (trail map) around McMurdo, and a few of them require you to check out at the Firehouse before leaving.  If you are not back at the time you say, there is a full alert out and a search party is sent out after you.  Weather turns in an instant, and dangers lurk around the ice.  I carried a radio in case of trouble, and along the trail there are huts with food and sleeping bags for hikers caught in bad weather.  These are called apple huts.  If you see the picture the reason is obvious.  The landscape is fantastic, but even the small scale is interesting.  Here is a close up picture of wind carved snow in an area no bigger than my hand.
You have to wear serious gear in case of trouble, and I wore the infamous “bunny boots.”  These keep your feet very warm, but had given me a blister by the time I reached Castle Rock.  Here I am tending my injury in front of CR.  Right next to me was this exposed rock indicative of the rock and soil in the area.  The origin is obviously volcanic. And of course the volcano is nearby: Mt. Erebus towers over everything as we began our climb to the top of Castle Rock.  The hike to the top of CR was kind of treacherous.  There was a lot of climbing.  Ropes were laid out to help you as you ascended.  Finally, we reached the top of CR (note the bunny boots that gave me blisters).
At the bottom, my hiking partner, Young Soo Yoon (a colleague on CREAM-II), and I posed for a self-taken photo in front of the rock.  The trip back was all downhill, and we came prepared.  We each had trays borrowed from the dining hall, and we were ready to use them.  The hill felt like it was straight down, so we could get going pretty fast.
But we had to stick to the trail.  Crevices in the ice, formed as the ice slides down the hill, can be very dangerous.  Black flags mark danger areas.  Note that you can’t tell that there is a crack there.  Blown snow covers the top, making a thin crust that crumples when you walk on it. There are many terrible stories of people who have died stuck in a crevice, including a few who went off the trails around McMurdo in the last few decades.
There is a funny story connecting these and the trays.  Young Soo slipped off his tray as he was sliding and the tray kept going until it stopped right on top of the crevice with these flags.  He wanted to go get it but I convinced him it would be unwise.  He felt bad because we try so hard to Keep Antarctica Beautiful.  When we got back to the Firehouse to check we confessed that while all the people had made it back, not all our objects made it back.  Immediately the dispatcher said “Let me guess – what you are missing is rectangular, flat, and blue.”  Yup.  Apparently this was not even close to the first time.  The dispatcher confessed that she lost her own tray once.
The rest of the journey was along where the Ross Ice Shelf meets Ross Island.  There were ice formations and pressure ridges.  The total time we were gone was about 5 hours.

Ballooning gone bad

2005-12-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes things just don’t go your way.  The second payload was launched yesterday, but the balloon failed.  Everyone is disappointed when this happens, whether to them or a colleague.  The more times these launches are successful, the more likely they will continue to be funded.
A high altitude balloon is a very complicated device.  You saw in a previous post how a launch is supposed to look.  Here is a post of how it is not supposed to look.
The ATTIC instrument was taken to the launch pad ahead of schedule.  The launch window, defined by low, steady winds reaching more than 1000 feet high, was moving forward in time.  NSBF worked hard and had the balloon laid out and ready to go.  Launch occurred, but at a few hundred feet altitude some cross winds came in and twisted the balloon.  A collar that keeps the balloon from opening before float was released, and the balloon started opening up more than it should have.  Compare this to the CREAM photos from earlier.  Remember that most of the unopened section you see above the parachute and below the bulb (the portion of the balloon that looks like a balloon) is balloon waiting to open. When all the fabric was exposed it acted like a sail.

The CREAM Instrument and Ballooning in Antarctica

2005-12-19T17:18:00.000-08:00

Why do I bother spending a couple weeks in Antarctica?  And why in Antarctica?  The answers to these questions lie in the nature of the CREAM experiment.  The CREAM (Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass) instrument is designed to measure the relative abundance of elements in the cosmic rays at high energies.
What is a cosmic ray?  The name makes them sound like something out of a science fiction movie.  Really, though, the name makes sense in the historical context in which the name was born.  “Cosmic” just means from outside the Earth, and “ray” is what early scientists called anything that was an energetic fundamental particle.  Hence “cathode rays,” “delta rays,” “x-rays,” and “gamma rays.”  We now understand that most cosmic rays are just the nuclei of atoms (atomic elements stripped of electrons) which were accelerated to near light speed in supernova shocks throughout our galaxy.  The relative abundance of the elements in the cosmic rays reflects nearly the same abundances in the Solar System, with a few differences that are understood.  By the way, the Universe is 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.  Everything else is present in minute quantities.  What we experience here on Earth, with high abundances of iron, nickel, silicon, oxygen, carbon, and other useful elements, is very different from the average spot in space.
What is remarkable about cosmic rays is that as interstellar travelers they give us an opportunity to look at the elemental composition of the rest of the galaxy.  Of course, nothing is that easy, and working backwards from what we detect here at Earth to what was present in the interstellar medium when the supernova shock hit is quite challenging.  A lot can happen to a cosmic ray between acceleration and detection.  Most importantly, the cosmic ray can interact with atomic hydrogen gas and spallate, which means it can fragment into smaller pieces.  Thus the cosmic ray elemental abundances have some elements which are relatively more abundant than Solar System values because the increased abundance was created between acceleration and detection at Earth.
The CREAM instrument is measuring the charge (hence identifying the element) and the energy (think of it as the velocity) of each through-going particle.  An overview of the detector and how it works, as well as additional science information, can be found at http://cosmicray.umd.edu/cream.  The region of energy that CREAM is exploring is interesting because it represents a change from galactic supernova as the source of acceleration to something else – we are not sure what.  The shape of a plot of number of particles detected at a certain energy vs. energy is in agreement with predictions by the supernova remnant theory up until a certain energy.  Then the plot changes shape.  CREAM is trying to understand whether there is also a change in the relative abundance of what gets tossed into space by this new mechanism.  If it is, say, heavier in iron (or conversely hydrogen) than the Solar System abundances (and low energy cosmic rays) that could tell us that the source material is different from just plain old interstellar medium, and could be something exotic like material around a black hole or neutron star.
Why Antarctica?  Cosmic rays at the high energies where CREAM is looking are very rare.  Only a few of the highest energy particles strike our detector every day, so we need to look for many days in order to collect enough of them to be sure of their relative abundances.  The NASA balloon program is a cheaper alternative to satellites.  The National Scientific Balloon Facility, operated out of Palestine, TX (small town near Dallas), offers large high altitude balloons to scientific collaborations as alternatives to satellite launches.  The balloons float at 120,000 feet, above 99.5% of the mass of the atmosphere – essentially outer space.  Remember that a jet flies at about 35,000 feet.
Remember “Better, faster, cheaper”?  Well, ballooning is at least faster and cheaper, and in some ways better.  A typical balloon payload can go from proposal to launch in less than five years, while a satellite instrument is often decades in the making.  And the balloon can be launched for well under $1M, while a satellite is many hundreds of millions of dollars.  The disadvantage is the amount of time a balloon is up in the air is much less than a satellite.  This is where Antarctica comes in.
While a balloon can be launched from anywhere, it is important that it be done so over uninhabited areas, since its direction can not be controlled.  The winds at 120,000 feet blow east-west or west-east, and switch directions twice a year.  A balloon sent up during “turnaround,” which lasts about a week, will come down near where it was sent up.  But a balloon launched at another time can cruise from 20 to 120 knots, and quickly moves the middle of nowhere to some inhabited area. It is very unpleasant to have a 5000 pound instrument crash into your living room.  So launch sites include northern Canada, Ft. Sumner, NM, Sweden (for an Atlantic Ocean flyover), and Antarctica.  Antarctica has the added advantage that the winds are circular, around the Pole (hence the ozone hole, since the air does not mix with the rest of the atmosphere during the Antarctic summer), so something sent up from McMurdo will return about 10 days later, and then 10 days after that, etc…. Float times are limited by the balloon technology more than safety concerns.  Last year the CREAM instrument flew for 42 days, a record.
Want to follow CREAM as it goes around and around the Pole?  Go to the tracking web site run by Wallops: http://www.wff.nasa.gov/BPO/creamweb/edrs/pos_alt.htm
Here are some pictures of the CREAM instrument this year:
It all started earlier this spring in my lab, fabricating the detector for which I am responsible.
After my part was integrated into the instrument, CREAM journeyed to Wallops Flight Facility near Chicoteague VA for communications systems testing.
The instrument in the hangar here at McMurdo, ready for launch.  Note the NKU sticker.
You have already seen this picture of the instrument hanging from the crane, ready to roll out to the launch pad.

Light humour

2005-12-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

Unbelievable, ridiculous, somewhat goofy things I have recently heard or said:
“That’s ah-may-zin!”  New Zealander commenting on something.
“Scott, I am so impressed.  You are really politically adept in these difficult situations”
“The sto-ah is ovah ba the steel-way”  New Zealander giving me directions to the Scott Base store.  Translation: “The store is over by the stairway.”
“I think I got sunburned last night.”  What I said after the balloon launch.
“The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe” – Frank Zappa
Local weather channel for McMurdo Base list the next sunset as February 20, 1:38AM
“I think you found the Colgate plaque lowering operator” on the discovery that typing :D in Yahoo messenger gives a very toothy smiley face
“If you know less you sleep better.”  A colleague reassuring me that not knowing the detector threshold settings is not necessarily a bad thing
“McMurdo is a perfect example of a socialist society.  The workers happily do their part, and in turn are provided with free room and board.  Cash is only good for luxury items, such as souvenirs, alcohol, and tobacco.”  An observation by a colleague.

Vehicles around town

2005-12-15T22:56:00.000-08:00

I have been going now for 36 hours without sleep but don’t want to disappoint my adoring public, so I have created this divergence for you. Really, though, I don’t feel the lack of sleep that much because it has been bright as day the whole time. Or maybe it was the coffee….

There are some real interesting ways to get around town here. Some of the vehicles are from the original establishment of the base in the 50’s. They built them to last then. I’ll have pictures and descriptions.

All of these are picked up at Derelict Junction, a rather nondescript mudhole/bus stop by the dorms.

The Delta’s are odd all wheel drive vehicles that are kind of like articulated buses. Passengers ride in the box and bounce around. The wheels are big to avoid getting stuck in mud and snow. Still, they get stuck in warm weather like we have had recently (temps in the 40s). The snow is several feet deep, and turns to mush. And of course “McMuddo” lives up to its name in those times. The box is very cramped. The windows are small and usually fog up so badly or are so dirty that you can not see out. I almost got seasick in there my first ride out (serves me right for trying to write and ride), and others have gotten sick. There are sick bags in the box for such occasions. On the way out here for the flight I got to ride in the front seat, and the view is much better. You can see ice pressure ridges, where the Ross Ice Shelf is pushing up against Ross Island. The shelf is fed by a glacier which dumps a tremendous amount of ice in it, and it has to go to sea, but our little island is in the way.

Ivan the Terrabus – I have yet to ride on this guy but really want to. It looks much more comfortable. I love the name.

Vans– these get used when the temperatures are colder and the ground is frozen. I arrived too late to use those. Notice how large the tires are.

Other modes of transport:
Snowmobiles– as you saw earlier.

Tractors galore– earthmovers, forklifts etc all use treads, not tires, since tires would get mired in the muck. Note the trailer in the picture also has treads. There are some funky trucks that I can’t really describe except to say that they work well on ice and raise a lot of dust in town.

4 wheelers – the NSBF crew could not live without theirs. They have little sleds they haul stuff behind.

Planes and helicopters – The C130’s and LC130’s (in air) haul passengers and cargo (the L means it has skis AND wheels). They are generally operated by the “Kiwi,” aka New Zealand Air Force. I came in on a C130. The C17 Globemasters are operated by the US and haul both. I leave here on Dec 21 (weather permitting) on the first C17 flight out. There are also planes called Twin Otters (on ice in photo above), which go to field camps deep in Antarctica because they can take off and stop on a dime, and helicopters, for nearby drops.

Icebreakers – Sorry, no pictures. Haven’t seen one yet.

Launch!

2005-12-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

The instrument finally was launched on its balloon this morning at about 5AM local time.  All the pictures I will show you are taken in the middle of the night.  Hard to believe, considering how light it is.  I have been very busy, and have had no sleep for over 24 hours now.  I am stealing time while the package heads towards float altitude, which takes 3-4 hours.

The process for a launch takes about 9 hours.  First we are hooked up to the crane and many tests run.  Here we are hanging from the crane right outside the hanger in the afternoon, around 2PM.  You can see the solar panels.  The instrument is encased in insulating foam and painted white to try to mitigate the wide difference in temperature in space between facing the Sun and facing empty space.  (This was done long ago.)

We then begin hours of communications tests and instrument liveness tests.  It is important for us to monitor the health of the instrument as it flies around and around, especially during the first few hours to make sure that we have all the adjustable settings correct for the science we want to do.  The instrument is very complicated – I’ll talk about that later in another blog – and all of its components must be checked to make sure they are still working.  The instrument has a variety of communications channels, all of which also must get tested.  First there is a direct radio signal.  This is good while the instrument is visible from the launch site, but it travels a large distance around Antarctica, so there has to be a backup.  There are two, both satellite based.  First, there is TDRSS.  Secondly, the infamous Iridium system.  Both are systems that would also sell you time on a satellite phone, if you wished.  Communications through these systems are very slow and not always reliable. The instrument records all of its data onboard on a flash disk, and sends a fraction through whichever of these systems is available.  We can talk to the instrument during the flight through these systems to further adjust any settings we realize we didn’t get right in the first few hours.  Because communications is so important here there is a building bristling with antennae here.

The launch process is very impressive.  It is run by a subsidiary of NASA called the National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF).  These guys are based in Palestine, Texas, but travel all over the world to launch these large scientific balloons.  Once the decision is made to try a launch, everything must move very quickly.  First the payload (our instrument) is driven to the launch site on the crane.  Then the train from the balloon to payload is laid out.  This includes the parachute, already deployed, for when it is time to end the flight and recover the instrument. (Remember, the majority of our data is recorded on board.  No recovery means no science.)  There is a great bustle of activity as guys move around on snowmobiles.  I got my chance to drive one around too.

This process is no different from how a balloon is launched in Palestine, TX or Fort Sumner, NM, except that the equipment here is much heavier.  Note the long white tubes.  These contain helium, which is used to fill the balloon.  The balloon itself is in a wooden crate, and is hauled out on a sledge.

Up until this point the whole thing can be called off at any time if the weather goes bad.  Everything is set up except the balloon.  Once the balloon is out of the box there is no turning back.  NSBF must launch or throw the balloon away.  It is not possible to repack the balloon while in the field.  It is done in the factory under controlled conditions, and is packed very tightly and neatly, so that it rolls out without twists when needed.

The balloon is massive.  When fully inflated at float altitude it can hold a football stadium.  At launch is partially inflated, but as the pressure drops it gets bigger and bigger.  (Note that we had fog this morning.) It is filled through two tubes.  It is very noisy, but takes less than 30 minutes.  The balloon is held down by a spindle which is mounted on a heavy platform.  After filling for awhile, the balloon stands up, reaching about 150 feet into the air.  The spindle rotates upward, out of the way, when the launch occurs.  While it is standing above the instrument it is 1000 feet tall.  This explains why the winds have to be so cooperative, and why it takes so long to find a good launch window.

That’s when the excitement really starts for a few select members of the launch team.  The balloon and instrument are laid out so that the low winds that are present carry the balloon as it rises over the payload.  The winds REALLY must cooperate.  No shear (crosswinds) are allowed, and the speed must be very low (less than 8 mph).  As the balloon rises the crane driver maneuvers the payload to be directly beneath where he thinks the balloon will be when it has finally extended the train all the way.  A person standing on the crane has a wire in his hand connected to a pin that holds the instrument to the crane.  When he judges that the balloon has taken the weight of the instrument he releases the pin (BE CAREFUL! THIS LINK IS A LARGE MOVIE! 144 MB! SEE NOTES BELOW), and the instrument gently floats into the air, up, up, and away.  At least that’s the theory.  The balloon has enough lift to topple the crane over if it pulls sideways.  Look carefully at the picture of the crane and you will see the side pontoons to help prevent this disaster.  (The movie is in avi format, which I use Windows Media to view.  If you have WM associated with avi it will start automatically.  If not, you can save the file to disk using the right click button, then start WM and then open the file.)  Here is another movie to give you an idea of how noisy the filling process can be.  During this whole process I stood around watching, taking pictures, keeping from getting too cold.

Once loose the balloon ascends at 1000 feet per minute.  This is very fast.  It takes about two hours to get to float altitude of 120,000 feet.  Remember that commercial airplanes fly about 36,000 feet at most, so the balloon is not a hazard to navigation except while it is going up and coming down.  After coming back from the runway I stopped in our primitive facilities (other side is MENs). Then I tried to sleep during this time since the instrument was off and it was 6AM for me.

Once at float altitude we will spend time fooling around with various settings until we are happy with the performance.  And then we will go back to McMurdo to sleep.  More later….

Launch cancelled

2005-12-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

Sadly, the weather is not cooperating (again). While it is perfect now, the prediction is that the winds will pick up by the time we are ready to launch. The next opportunity is tomorrow night (remember, the Sun is always shining here, just circling about, higher or lower in the sky).

At least I discovered that the lunch out at the airfield is fabulous! More on this later….

Launch soon?

2005-12-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

This could be it!  The instrument is hanging from the crane and moving out to the runway.  You can track the payload on
http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice0506.htm

Wish us luck!  You can learn more about this instrument at
http://cosmicray.umd.edu/cream/cream.html

A comment from the last post returned a good website about Antarctic Research: www.scar.org. This is for the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, not pirates or medical disasters. The site has a section on the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, which states that “it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue for ever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord.”  So, no nuclear waste dumping, no military actions (except in support of science).  The site also has good sections on the activities in Life Sciences, Geosciences, and Physical Sciences.  The latter has a subpage on Astronomy and Astrophysics.  All science pages have links to some featured science projects.

BTW – Please put your name when you leave an anonymous comment (if willing) so I know who to thank! (And know who’s reading this!)  I have no idea who left this web site for me, but I thank you.

There is some sort of moss growing tenaciously around here.  It is soft when you poke it.  I got a picture, though I don’t think it will be helpful in identification.  If anyone figures it out, let me know.

Science at McMurdo

2005-12-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

There is a large building (named Crary) that houses the various science efforts.  I share an office there with others on my project.  The building is one of the largest in town, and has about four wings.  Lining the halls are displays about the various scientific efforts. There is one display with various fish skeletons, another with sample meteorites found on the Ice, and the halls are lined with posters about projects.  The projects range from biological to geological to astrophysical to oceanography.  There is even a large aquarium full of Antarctic sea life, and kept at a cool 30F (sea water won’t freeze until about 28F).  It includes a touch tank. (The octopus is a fake.) The animals are softer than I expected, and some I have never seen before.

About 30 or 40 years ago a major treaty was signed between the countries with an interest in Antarctica.  The Antarctic treaty stated that the continent would only be used for research, and that every caution would be taken to preserve its unique environment.  As a result old no longer used bases are being torn down, boxed up, and shipped out.  All of our garbage here at McMurdo is transported off-continent.  Maybe someone can look up the details of the treaty and let me know.

Some of the cooler projects (in my opinion) are the penguin studies.  Anyone who has seen March of the Penguins knows how remarkably adapted these creatures are to this environment.  In the water they fly, but in the air they flop.  On land they waddle. There are studies to learn about various aspects of their lives: how far do they range when feeding?  How dangerous are the waters to them (predators and other natural issues)?  Is the presence of humans harming them?  Can they recover if we quit harassing them?  There is a story of a base that was built on top of a penguin rookery and recently decommissioned.  As the parts of the old base were removed (as per the Antarctic Treaty), the penguins began to return and nest again.  They may be resilient.

By far the most amazing feature of Antarctica is Lake Vostok.  This lake is about 2 miles under ice.  It was discovered only recently.  What keeps it in liquid form?  Pressure? Heat from geothermal sources?  Both? Very little is known about it, and most countries want to let it be, thinking that perhaps in millions of years it could become the new cradle of life if something terrible were to happen up here.  However, the Russians want to drill down to it to sample it.  Some scientists predict that the lake is overpressured, and a drillpipe would result in a gusher reminiscent of the gusher days in oil.  The gusher would shoot 1000 ft into the air and last for several weeks before the pressure would be equilibrated.  At that point, it is not the same lake.  Many countries and environmental groups are opposed to the plan to drill.

I tried to go around and collect some web sites for projects down here, but only was able to get one (http://www.esr.org/antarctic/tides.html).  The internet connection from here to the rest of the world is extremely limited, so does not lend itself to web-searching.  I encourage you to do google searches for me and put them in a blog comments box.  Try that feature out.  You might be able to make a comment if you do so anonymously without having to create an account on blogger.com, but if not, you should know that I have not received a single piece of junk mail from blogger.com, so if you sign up I believe it when they say they will keep your information private.   I would like to hear from you!

CREAM progress:  No flight yet due to low fog over the ice.  The winds were light, and the temperature was in the low 40s.  Warmer than Cincinnati!  Of course, where the wind blew directly off the ice, it was more like 32F.  We will try a flight again tomorrow afternoon.  Wish us luck.

To pass the time I hiked up Observation Hill, right outside McMurdo.  I got a great view of Mt Erebus, and some good exercise. The hike is straight up.  A cross on top commemorates the Scott Expedition.  Views across the Ross ice shelf were over a lower layer of fog.

How to get to Antarctica

2005-12-11T14:27:00.000-08:00

How to get to Antarctica
You may be interested in what to do in order to go to someplace like McMurdo. Other US Antarctic bases include the South Pole Station (200 people) and Palmer Station (40 people), located on the Antarctica arm pointing towards South America. The process of getting to one of the Antarctic bases starts about 6 months before you go. Raytheon organizes the process and treats it in a very military fashion. The basic steps are:

Get an invitation. This may be due to a scientific mission that you are part of, as in my case, or a job you get to work in Antarctica. Getting your project approved for Antarctica may take years. Any equipment shipped down has a six month lead time, typically.

Medical approval – this is by far the most arduous of the tasks. Your doctor must fill out a form as long as both your arms put together, poke and prod you everywhere, and bleed you and ship the blood off to Denver. Then a Raytheon doctor reviews the information and may ask for more, that means back to the doctor, etc. Basically, they want to make sure that you do not have an ailment that could potentially need immediate treatment, since facilities down there are primitive at best, and Christchurch is at least eight hours away, and more realistically days away.

Travel arrangements – here, Raytheon truly shines. Three weeks before you are scheduled to leave, a representative calls you up and goes over a possible itinerary. After your approval, full price coach tickets are purchased so that they are flexible. My ticket from Cincinnati was about $2200.

Travel to Christchurch, NZ. Finally, the moment is here! This is done on a common carrier. I flew 12,000 miles on American and Qantas.

Upon arrival at Christchurch, you are met by a representative of the US polar Programs office. After collecting luggage (not an issue for me since mine was lost) you walk over to the PP office, which is about ¼ mile from the airport terminal. Now it is time to obtain cold weather clothing at the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) – this is all done in a couple hours right after you get off the plane. You get at least one of each of these items.

Wait, wait, wait for good enough weather to fly down to McMurdo. I waited for two days. When you finally get to depart, you fly in a military transport plane. (This one is a C130 Hercules owned by the NZ Air Force and had a 7 hour air time to make the Christchurch-McMurdo flight.) The inside is very crowded.

if going on to the South Pole, wait for the rare flight out of McMurdo that’s going there. It could take a week.

if going to one of the camps, you must have “Snow School” training so that you don’t die at the first bad weather.

Start the return process, which means waiting for good weather and a free spot on the plane. Reschedule your return commercial flight (taken care of by Raytheon). I am now scheduled for a Dec 22 return on a C17 Globemaster jet, which only takes five hours. What luxury! Will I really make it that day? Good question. My colleague was scheduled to depart on Saturday. It is now Monday, and he may or may not leave tomorrow. Plane arrivals are subject to weather, and departures are subject to arrivals.

Life in McMurdo

2005-12-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

Mt Erebus

Well, I have been here for two days, so I am an expert now on life at McMurdo. The base is built on an island connected to the main continent by the Ross Ice Shelf. The island is volcanic in origin, and Mt Erebus still smokes from time to time. Nothing green grows here naturally (only in the greenhouses), although we did find some sort of lichen-like stuff on some rocks. The place is affectionately known as “McMuddo,” as you can tell why from this picture. Apparently the summer melting season is pretty messy since there are no paved roads.

"McMuddo"

McMurdo is home to about 1000 people at any time in the summer months (October – February), while about 250 people winter over. The summer people change frequently. Facilities include a library, 2 bars, coffee/wine bar, gym, exercise room, and a small store that also does video rental. Entertainment options include bike and ski rental, instrument rental, local hikes (short), bi-weekly lectures by various science teams working out of McMurdo, 12 TV stations (from satellite), and drinking heavily. Sunday is the locals’ day off, and there was a bike race to help the time pass. Also, I saw several folks out skiing. Even with all this, though, people get cabin fever. Living quarters are dorms with roommates. My room is for two people, but I hear that some rooms are for six. I do not think I would do well with five roommates. All rooms have shared bathrooms down the hall.

Summer weather mostly is partly sunny and around 32F, but can be windy. Last week there was a major windstorm that blew snow everywhere and shut down the base in what they call a “Condition 1” situation, kind of an Antarctic “Red Alert.” I missed it, thank goodness. During one of those you are not allowed to leave any building. Hungry? Tough. This week has been snowy and cloudy.

Skua

Weddell seal

I have seen very little wildlife other than crazy humans. There are several skua (Antarctic gulls), and today I saw a large Weddell seal. I am told that I won’t see any penguins unless I stay until February. Bummer.

Meals are provided in the only dining hall, narrowly scheduled, several choices, including vegetarian, and all you can eat. Quality is medium (school lunches are much worse, Luby’s Cafeteria is better). No fresh fruit or vegetables except after a plane arrives. The food comes frozen sometime before the previous winter sets in and is not replenished until the icebreaker comes next time (usually in late December).

Dining hall/cafeteria

A great deal of life surrounds the coming and going of the planes from Christchurch, which bring mail, fresh fruit or vegetables (sometimes), and most importantly, more alcohol. I was told that McMurdo has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol anywhere, any demographic. The store only sells alcohol on certain days, and has started limiting the amount an individual can buy on any day. The planes are scheduled three times per week. Due to cloudy weather, there has not been a plane for close to five days, and the natives are getting restless.

Experiment status: I showed up this morning for a 2:30AM transport out to the airfield in the hopes of a morning launch, but it was cloudy and the winds did not cooperate. I go out tomorrow morning at 7AM for an afternoon possibility.

Arrival in Christchurch, first impressions

2005-12-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

The Journey
Monday, December 5: There was light snow in Cincinnati Monday morning as I waited for my departure time.  I only had a 45 minute layover in Chicago between the incoming outgoing flights, so I decided to take an earlier flight just in case.  As I write I am in LA at 3:30PM (local time) waiting for my 8:30PM departure.

Most remarkably, on the Cincinnati-Chicago flight I sat next to a woman who has a friend who writes science articles out of McMurdo.  I’ll see if I can find her friend when I arrive.  Small world.

All of my electronics is keeping me company.  It all gets recharged in LA, so I spend time searching for outlets.  Ever look for an electrical outlet in an airport?  If you can find one at all they are in the most awkward locations.  Everyone else is looking for an outlet too (for their ipods), so when you find an empty one you have to grab it and guard it.

Wednesday, December 7: I have finally arrived in Auckland only to find that my luggage did not.  It got a special treat – it will go to Melbourne before catching up to me tomorrow. The flight was tedious.  I can hardly believe that a human being can be cramped in so small a place as an airplane seat for more than 12 hours at a stretch without it satisfying some definition of torture.  But we pay for the privilege!

Again I met interesting people – some also going to the Ice, including Scott-Amundsen Base at the South Pole, and many nationalities, such as Chinese, Irish, and Dutch.  They work on various projects – the Penguin Ranch (I am looking for an invitation to visit), meteorite hunt, ice core drilling, and ICE CUBE (at the Pole), among others.  I even met the self-proclaimed “garbage man.”  He has the contract to take care of the recycling and garbage at the bases, and hires others to do the dirty work, so to speak.  He gets to visit for a couple of weeks every year, though.

Polar Programs and clothing issue
Upon arrival in Christchurch, I met up with a Polar Programs representative.  She already knew my luggage was lost!  Amazingly organized. There were about 10 of us on the flight, and after everyone else collected their belongings we walked over to the Polar Programs office and began the process of getting our clothing issued.  As I suspected, I really did not need to bring anything with me.  Essentially everything I could need was issued to me.  I have four hats, seven pair of mittens or gloves, light and heavy long underwear (the heavy is fleece), and much else.  But no luggage.  I went shopping for the basics – underwear and socks – and will spend a few days with minimal gear at McMurdo before my bag catches up.

We tried on our gear to make sure it fit. Here I am looking awfully hot, so to speak, in full Antarctic gear.

In Christchurch
Thursday, December 8: I spent my first evening wandering the town.  It has more of a European feel than American.  The streets are wider than European, but are pedestrian and bike friendly.  Old buildings are stone, old houses are wood, and new buildings are concrete (they haven’t developed the American love of glass yet, I guess).  Here is a shot of Cathedral Square.  Behind me as I took the shot is a Starbucks, where I am now as I write this, using the wireless internet access.  Access is not free here, unlike in cafes across the US, but you can get the equivalent of a phone card to use up minutes on.

The plan was to go out to the Polar Programs site at 6AM and begin the process for departure to the Ice.  This involves suiting up again and then waiting around for the plane to load.  I got a call at 5:15AM (I was already up and wandering around) informing me that the flight is delayed due to weather until at least 11AM.  I took that time to wander around the incredible Christchurch botanical gardens.  They rank as the best I have ever visited, and that includes comparison to the English Gardens in Munich, and London’s parks and gardens.  The trees there are tremendous! They even have giant sequoia – no joke!

The rose gardens (both of them) were spectacular.  I have always been a sucker for a rose, especially one that smells good.  A rose bud is powerful package of pure potential.

New Zealanders: First Impressions – In wandering around yesterday I met many people.  New Zealanders are friendly, outgoing sorts who speak with an accent.  I get the impression that many are transplants.  There is a thriving Asian community, and I heard a great variety of languages while wandering around.

Several of the folks I met were more American than some Americans.  A store clerk found I was from Cincinnati and immediately engaged me in a conversation about the Bengals and their prospects.  A diehard Raiders fan, she has had a disappointing year but is optimistic.  She tries to get to the States for a few football games a year, but is missing this year for a variety of reasons, so she has to get her football fix vicariously.  She was far better informed than I am about football teams this year.

Departure update
I went in at 11:30 and began to dress up in my Arctic gear again.  After 30 minutes we were told that the flight was cancelled for the day, and to back tomorrow at 6AM.  So, this afternoon I snooze in the park and have a beer this evening with other Pole sitters.  Er, sorry, that should read “This afternoon I work hard on all the work I brought with me, and this evening I go to bed early.”  Sorry for the mistake.

Friday, December 09, 2005:  Arrival in Mcmurdo!  More later….

The REAL "Scott of the Antarctic"

2005-12-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

At the turn of the 20th century the South Pole had not yet been visited by man. In 1911, Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen found themselves in a hot race for the honor of being first to claim the Pole. Various explorers, including Scott and Ernest Shackleton, had made earlier attempts. In this final race, Scott and Amundsen started at very nearly the same time from very nearly the same place, but with widely different gear.

Most of us think of sled dogs as the preffered method of dashing around in snowy places. Amundsen took dogs and skis, which had been successful on his Arctic explorations; Scott took motor sledges and ponies, which did not do well in the cold. (Scott's first base on this expedition is a short hike from McMurdo Base. )

Both parties spent the winter of 1911 (January - October) preparing for the journey by laying out food depots along the route. At last, the real race began, with Amundsen departing his base camp in October and Scott departing his in November.

Amundsen's journey proceeded smoothly. As he got closer to the Pole, dogs were shot and eaten. The journey continued on skis. At last, on December 15, he reached the geographic pole. Not seeing a flag there from Scott, he knew he had won.

Scott's journey was fraught with problems from the start. The ponies suffered terribly, and were shot and eaten or left as food for the return journey earlier than anticipated. The men hauled the sleds, which meant they were going at a walking pace. Scott would never go faster than that killing pace the rest of his journey. In addition, Scott added an extra man to the final team to go the Pole, which created difficulties with supplies.

Scott finally reached the Pole on January 17, only to find Amundsen's flag and a tent with some unneeded equipment. All of his men were sick from undernourishment, frostbite, and likely scurvy. His team began the long journey back as the weather grew harsher. In a month the first man of the team died. Soon afterward, a second particularly sick man, suffering badly from frostbite, announced he was "going outside and may be some time..." He never returned. Scott admired his English stiff upper lip. Days later, the remaining three men, Scott included, froze to death while waiting out a blizzard, only 11 miles from a food depot.

The sidebar has links to websites which have more information about the race to the South Pole and the men who went there.

Hopefully my trip will not be so eventful.

Starting the blog

2005-11-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

I am going to McMurdo Base in Antarctica as part of my participation in the CREAM experiment, which will be sent by balloon to the top of the atmosphere from the NASA National Scientific Balloon Facility launch site there. I should be there for a couple weeks. I will keep up entries as time and connections permit, along with a few photos.

I have my plane tickets now. I depart Dec 5 (Monday), at two in the afternoon. I am allowed about 70 pounds of stuff. After talking to others who have been there I will not be taking more than a few token winter clothing items (certainly my own long underwear). Apparently, the facility provides a vast amount of clothing, about 30 pounds worth, all of which I am required to take to the Ice.

My tickets take me from Cincinnati through Chicago and LA to Auckland, NZ, then to Christchurch, NZ, which is the staging area for McMurdo base. It is hard to tell exactly how many hours it will take to get there, but just adding up flight times gives 19.5 hours. From what I can tell by looking at time between flights, I will spend a total of 5.5 hours on layovers, so that makes… a 25 hour journey, not counting the couple of hours of waiting for the original flight out of Cincinnati. Once in Christchurch, I will get my gear requisitioned, then load up on a C130 transport (apparently in cargo net seating) for eight more hours of travel to Antarctica. I am promised a night’s sleep in between.

Preparations:
I have been buying DVDs, long underwear, hiking boots, and updating my ancient laptop. I have been getting all the software I can possibly imagine I will want installed and running on the laptop. This includes some of the more difficult development code using the CERN GEANT4 particle physics simulation software to try to profile the x-ray component of cosmic ray atmospheric showers. Windows is such a pain for that kind of thing, and I don’t have a spare laptop to run Linux on.

I hope to spend a little time in NZ on the return half. We’ll see. Who knows if I’ll ever be through there again?

What do I expect? I’ll list them and see what happens.
1. I’ll grow a beard.
2. I will spend all my time schmoozing while down on the Ice instead of all the work I am hoping to accomplish.
3. I will have far more cold weather gear than I need.
4. I will have far more entertainment items (books, DVDs, music) than I need.
5. I will wish I had more time in NZ.
6. I will not meet Peter Jackson.
7. I will gain 10 pounds. Apparently there is a full hot breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I can hardly wait!