Today is my last day at the office before I leave. It's hard to believe that I'm actually leaving for Antarctica in just two days. In my short career I've been fortunate to visit some great places on business travel -- Chicago, Washington, D.C., Orlando, San Francisco, etc., but never did I imagine my job would take me to the bottom of the world (at least not before accepting this position).
Yesterday my digital camera finally arrived so I familiarized myself with it and plan on taking as many photos as possible. I'll hopefully be able to post them on a regular basis. Check out the photo album link on the left nav bar to see them.
I just noticed it's currently -5 degrees at McMurdo. It's been getting warmer there, reaching the double digits at times, but it will still be an adjustment, I'm sure.
Some people have asked what it is exactly that I'll be doing in Antarctica. I work for Raytheon Polar Services Company, which is the National Science Foundation's main operational and logistical support contractor for the United States Antarctic Program. Basically, our company runs the three US Antarctic stations (McMurdo, Palmer, and South Pole), as well as two research vessels (Laurence M. Gould and Nathaniel B. Palmer). Our charter is to maintain the operations of these stations and to support the NSF-funded science events on the Ice.
In order for our company to properly support a science group (research project) on the Ice, we need to know every detail of what the group will require from a support perspective. Everything from how many people are going, when they're going, where they're going, what lab equipment they'll require, when they'll be in the lab, any custom remote field camp construction that they need, any frequency registrations they need, diving equipment, heavy equipment, explosives, etc., etc., etc. -- more detail than I can possibly list here.
That's where I come in. I'm on the POLAR ICE team (Participant On-Line Antarctic Research Information Coordination Environment). We built a web-based application to gather all of the above requirements from the scientists (grantees) and feed the data to the appropriate workcenters on the Ice. This system is used by every funded grantee that will be performing science in Antarctica via the National Science Foundation.
Traveling with me will be my boss, Scott, and POLAR ICE teammate, Josh. They each have blogs as well (see the left navigation for the links). Scott just returned from his first Antarctic deployment, where he visited Palmer Station by way of a cruise on the Laurence M. Gould. This will be the first time Josh & I have been to the 7th Continent. Our goal is to meet with as many POLAR ICE users as possible so that we can better fit the application to support the actual processes. One thing we've discovered along the way is that a lot of processes are not very well defined, and that many are done a certain way just because they've "always been done that way." We're hoping to use POLAR ICE as a means to improve on these processes and streamline the science planning operations.
It's an unusual application in that we have three main audience groups. The National Science Foundation funded the project, so we obviously need to make sure it works well for them. The grantees need to enter their requirements into the system, so usability is huge. If they don't enter complete or accurate data we won't be able to properly support their projects. Finally, my colleagues at Raytheon Polar Services Company need to be able to pull the data back out so that they can accurately plan and prepare for the research season on the Ice. We'll be visiting with members of all three user groups to gather requirements and get a better understanding of how each does what they do on the Ice. We're hoping to see as much about how the program works as possible so that we can make the best product we can.
Today I'm planning on tying up a few loose ends, writing some documentation, and making sure I have everything I need from the office all packed up and ready to go. I have a lot of flight time ahead of me so I should also load up the iPod to make sure I have a good 30+ days worth of music from which to choose ;) Hopefully the fires in California and the pending snowstorm on Thursday won't affect our travel plans.
