Ice Cube was interesting. It was about a mile walk over to the Ice Cube Lab. I walked off the trail straight across the sastrugi right towards the geographic pole which was fun. I went to bed early on my Saturday night and got up early on my Sunday morning. Today is theoretically my day off. I am currently in the shop and I just downloaded some schematics so I can get some equipment repaired. Later today I will be going out to the RF building. Since there are no flights (except for a single twin otter for expiditioners) scheduled for today that reduces the risks of serious comms problems. We have a satelite tech who gets to worry about the satellites.
These pics are me with a DOM http://www.icecube.wisc.edu/info/how/dom.php and an extreme close up of the pole at the pole. I wandered around in the tunnels last night. It is a spooky place. Access is good. Nothing is locked at pole. Not even your room is locked. Not that a lot of our stuff at McMurdo is locked, but even compared to McMurdo there is nothing locked here.
I am supposed to head back to McMurdo tomorrow. I believe I am leaving the shop in better shape than I found it a week ago. I am soo much better after having a week to adjust to the incredible dryness and altitude change. I can still get winded running up two flights of stairs but I am now sleeping well and feel normal.
Today I will getting a tour of the Ice-cube project. Ice cube is a huge array to hopefully detect neutrinos. You say so what if we detect neutrinos? ... let me give you a potential outcome. If we can create and modulate a neutrino effectively it will make all of our satellite communications obsolete. We will be able to send a signal through anything we want, including the earth. Of course the physicists will be able to use neutrino detection as means to help figure out the begining of time and space. But the radio thing is a neat idea too. http://icecube.wisc.edu/
Last night I got on 20 meters and worked my new friend at Patriot Hills Antarctica. He is the radio guy for an expedition company. He gave me the heads up of adventurers headed our way. We have a few more treking over ice to get to pole. Most do just the last hundred miles. Some do over 600 miles. His company flies folks in from Argentina on Russian jets that land on a blue ice runway at Patriot Hills. It does cost them a little money of course.
This is the dining room in between meals at the New South Pole station.
This photo was taken out the galley (here at pole sometimes called the dining room) window. It is the area called the "back yard". You can see some old snow sculptures, some camping expiditioners that just arrived and the geographic south pole.
Station life surrounds (especially in my department) the satellites rising and setting. It is interesting that in a place that has 24 sunlight and no visible moon the culture surrounds an artifical satellite rise and set. Sleep and meals and other activities are scheduled around the visibility of the satellites. You may hear in the galley "Well, I might as well wait till the satellite rises since I am up now"
This place is so much like a sci fi story waiting to play out. The scenes are built, the characters are cast, the lighting is set. We just need a story.
I got another radio call last night. The air-to-ground radio system was out with planes in the air. Luckily, I didn't have to walk out to the RF building a mile away to get it going again.
The prime minister of New Zealand will be arriving today with the head of the NSF and some other folks. I suspect I won't be having dinner with them.
Here is a screen shot of a screenshot.. of a ...jeepers. Oh well.
The old pic was taken 95 years ago to the day. It is Scott and his men with Amundsen's tent after reaching the pole. We just had a few expitionors reach the station. They have been sking pulling sledges for (I guess) the last 2 degrees. The Prime Minister of New Zealand will be here tomorrow.
It is much stranger than I though having limited connectivity with the outside world. I am about to lose the satellite. See you in the next pass.
Hopefully the folks who wanted to see me on the webcam did. Now I have to see if steering the camera for my personal amusement will get me in trouble. The picture of the buiding is what I was looking at for the webcam (the other side of the lens). It is the NOAA building. I am not going to tell you what the sign I was next to said. You have to come to the pole yourself. Ok. Ok... it says basically "No vehicles past this point" There are a lot of buried wires that the comms tech doesn't like to have to splice.
We have been reminded here that it was 95 years ago today 1/17/12 that Scott arrived at 90 South. Upon seeing Amundsen’s tent his words: “The Pole….Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority….Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it”. It is a good time to reflect on the heroic age of polar exploration.
There is a whole bunch of nothing out there.
The pole is a lot different from McMurdo. The culture is different. The place is different. The culture here is of a very large deep field camp. Pole people naturally pitch in. Pole peolple understand the harshness of Antarctica. Pole people know each other a lot better than folks at McMurdo.
I am getting used to the physio-altitude here. Avoiding coffee and alcohol really makes a difference when your body is trying to create more of the good stuff that moves oxygen from your lungs to your body. I walked around a bit last night but I also had to work. I am on call 24/7 here and I am responsible for all the radios systems, analog and digital telephone systems, air-nav equipment. I am also the guy who works on the web cams including the one that appears on the USAP website. Yesterday I had to splice a recently un-buried telephone cable, reset the the TACAN (air-nav beacon) and get one of the channels of the trunked UHF radio system working. I am also trying to clean up the shop and get some of the lower priority work done too.
The picture shows me at the entrance of the dome. Originally it was build at ground (ice) level but the polar plateau slowly (but surely) engulfs everything with the unrelenting cover of snow, which turns hard enough to use an excavator to dig things out. The other picture shows the beer can. It is an enclosed open staircase at least 6 stories high. It goes several stories under ground (well snow). There are interconnected tunnels down there over to the dome, a bar (the old gym) and the power plant.
I work on the 1st floor of the new station. I eat and sleep on the second floor.
I am planning to go out to the webcam approximately 55 minutes earlier than this post tomorrow. So that would be noon Wednesday on the east coat of the US. I apoligize if I am not there because I had to do something for work. Somebody take a screen shot for me please.
I am at South Pole Station!
The new station is really incredible. This place is not like a building it is much more like a space ship or something. There is always a little vibration and sounds of machinery and ventalation. I am so lucky to be here in this time frame. The new station is fully inhabited and the dome is starting to get torn down this winter. I went straight away to the dome. It really is quite the structure. It stays about 60 below zero in there and the related tunnels. It only feels like -30 or so because there is no wind. None. It is extremely quiet.
I am concentrating getting my body adjusted to the physio-altitude. I ended up not taking Diamox and I am fine. I knew what it was going to be like and have taken the precautionary steps. I should be almost 100 percent today on my first full day on station. Southpole is an inside place. I have not yet gone outside, but I suspect I will tonight and get down to the actual pole. I got on the ham radio last night and talked with a couple of folks in New Zealand.
These pictures are not of the new station. They are in the connected older parts and connected dome. They will be gone soon. I lot of history is there. I have heard conflicting stories of where the dome is going to end up. Florida was one of the places. I think it would make a good night club and restaurant and you get a free meal if you ever visited it on the ice.
