Right now it is Saturday morning, November 8. On station we work six days a week, 7:30-5:30. Yesterday was by far the quietest day of this whole adventure.
Upon waking up, Scott checked the flight schedule on TV channel 7, as he’d become accustomed to doing over the past couple days. His flight to the South Pole had originally been scheduled to leave at 7:30am on Wednesday, but he had been bumped six times due to the windy weather that had moved in. The flight had been rescheduled again for 8:30am yesterday morning, and that one was a go. Before he left I gave him a photo of Sara & I on our wedding day so that he could take a picture of it attached to the geographic South Pole.
Josh & I had breakfast and then headed back up to building 175 for a day of work. Anna, a POLAR ICE teammate back in Denver, had forwarded me an email thread where she had asked Steve Alexander, the lab manager here on station, for some input and clarification on a version 2 requirement. He had responded back to her that the application was too slow to be able to go in and see what she was talking about. What a great opportunity to show him our super fast local mirrored copy, I thought. I replied back to him with the URL of our local POLAR ICE instance and the standard disclaimer that it’s simply an experiment and we’re just looking for feedback on the performance differences between this copy and the production copy. He replied back right away that the application was like “greased lightning” and he forwarded the URL to his entire staff – all 12 of them. So now there are about 16 people using the copy of POLAR ICE on my laptop as their production instance.
This is good and bad. Good in that we achieved one of our primary goals coming down here, which was to help them out with the speed issues seen using POLAR ICE from McMurdo. Bad in that now I can’t do any real development on future functionality until we find a permanent local host for this mirrored version. Josh & I met with Cleve, the IT supervisor on station, and two of his network people. They all seemed to have no problem with maintaining a local copy of POLAR ICE here once we leave. When Scott gets back from Pole we’ll continue moving forward with this, hopefully it will make everyone’s lives much easier and make POLAR ICE a more positive user experience. It’s all about the user experience.
For lunch I ate way too much as usual. Today’s selection was kielbasa and roasted peppers. Just what I needed. After work I decided I’d finally get off my lazy bum and work out, but first I wanted to try and call Sara again. There are only 4 external phone lines on station, so trying to place a phone call is much like trying to win a radio contest. It’s taken me up to 20 minutes of constant dialing, hanging up, trying again just to get through to my calling card number. However, for some reason it went through on the first try yesterday and I was able to talk to Sara for a while. It was great to hear her voice and she reassured me that Dexter still remembers me. However, it’s only been a week. Will he still remember his daddy after another month? I hope so.
Walking back to my dorm after work I noticed that the weather had cleared up a bit; the skies were clearing and the wind had died down a fair amount. I had originally planned to run on a treadmill in the aerobics room, but thought since the weather had gotten nicer I might try running on the sea ice runway road.
I layered up and headed out for my first run in over a week. I had been running 40 miles a week in September but since then I probably haven’t even run 40 miles total. Combine that with all the food I’ve been eating and things are starting to get ugly. My “food blister” is getting bigger than it’s been in a while :-( So, I headed out down the hill towards the ice, enjoying the feeling of being out running again. Running on the ice is a unique experience to say the least. Most of it has some snowpack on it, so there’s some traction to be had, but the parts that aren’t covered with snow are the most brilliant blue color I’ve ever seen. The ice is beautiful, and running away from station it gradually got more and more quiet. Looking at the mountains across the bay on this nice, clear day, I was feeling very tranquil and again counting my blessings for the opportunity to run in such a picturesque location. After about 20 minutes I crossed the road to head back to station. Immediately I was met with a blast of wind. While it wasn’t as windy this day as the previous couple, the wind was still probably blowing about 15-20 miles an hour consistently, and out here on the exposed sea ice it had picked up a bit more than it was on station. Running out to this point the wind was helping me along, but now I was running head on into it, and felt like I was towing an open parachute.
After a while, however, I got used to it, and was able to soak in the beautiful views of Mt. Erebus, the volcano to the left of the station, and Ob(servation) hill, to the right of the station. McMurdo itself from a distance looks like a cluster of buildings; it’s hard to imagine how much activity is actually occurring within them.
After returning from my run I took a quick shower and met Josh for dinner. We ate with two other Raytheon people that we flew down with, Rob Mitalski and Mike Hoffman. They’re here on an IT security audit project and we filled them in on the potential poop storm we may have opened up by exposing a local instance of POLAR ICE. Not a problem from a security standpoint or even implementation, just the whole coordination between McMurdo and the Denver office when this wasn’t a planned-for project. I think everything will be fine, though. It’s for the good of the program, and makes our customers, the science planners, much much happier. That’s why we’re here, right?
After dinner I did a couple loads of laundry. Across the hall from the laundry room there’s a lounge with a pool table, where Josh and I played several games while waiting for our clothes. When they were done I took them up to my room and started to watch a movie but fell right asleep. I woke up a couple hours later, about 10:30, and got ready for bed. I slept like a baby and woke up feeling refreshed for the first time in a couple of days.
MCMURDO STATION (most of this pulled directly from the station guide):
McMurdo Station is the largest U.S. research facility in Antarctica. It is located on the southern tip of Ross Island and lies 2,415 miles south of Christchurch, New Zealand, and 850 miles north of the South Pole. The National Science Foundation (NSF), through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), coordinates U.S. scientific research in the Antarctic. Research performed in and around McMurdo includes marine and terrestrial biology, biomedicine, geology and geophysics, glaciology and glacial geology, meteorology, aeronomy, and upper atmospheric physics. During the austral summer the population of scientists and support personnel at McMurdo often exceeds 1,100 people. In the austral winter, the population drops to roughly 250 people.
McMurdo Station was constructed by the United States in 1955-56 as part of its Operation Deep Freeze series of expeditions.
Antarctica was not sighted until 1820. It is believed that no one actually set foot on the continent until 1895.
In 1841, James Clark Ross’s ships the Erebus and the Terror were the first to penetrate the Antarctic pack ice.
Ross named McMurdo Sound in honor of Lt. Archibald McMurdo, an officer onboard the Terror.
In 1901, Robert F. Scott wintered aboard the Discovery in Winter Quarters Bay, immediately west of McMurdo Station.
Beginning in 1901, Scott’s Hut on Hut Point Peninsula was erected by the Discovery explorers.
Robert Scott’s sledging parties deployed from Scott’s Hut in 1901-03 and 1910-1913; Ernest Shackleton’s in 1907-09 and 1914-16. Huts used by these expeditions still stand at Cape Royds and Cape Evans.
In 1902, Seaman George T. Vince disappeared over Arrival Heights in a storm. Vince’s Cross, approximately 270 feet southwest of Scott’s Hut, commemorates his disappearance.
Robert Scott, Edward Wilson, Ernest Shackleton and their sledge party left McMurdo Sound in early November 1902 and headed south across the Ross Ice Shelf in the first serious attempt to reach the South Pole.
On December 14, 1911, after a 57-day journey, Roald Amundsen and his team of explorers arrived at the South Pole, a month before Robert Scott’s party of 1911-12.
In 1913, the Memorial Cross to Scott and his polar party was erected on Observation Hill. The cross is constructed from Australian jarrah and bears the following inscription, taken from Tennyson’s Ulysses: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Williams Field, the continent’s busiest airport, is named for Navy Seabee Richard Thomas Williams, who drowned when his tractor broke through the sea ice in 1956.
Admiral Richard E. Byrd led a private expedition to Antarctica in 1928-29. He established a base at the Bay of Whales and made the first flight over the South Pole in November 1929.
Ross Island is approximately 45 miles long and 45 miles wide.
Mt. Erebus, Ross Island’s most active volcano, is 12,448 feet high. Its crater is 900 feet deep by 2,640 feet wide.
Erebus crystals are formed in the summit lava lakes of Mt. Erebus and are ejected as volcanic bombs, which weather away and leave the summit largely made up of crystals. Only on Mt. Kenya in Africa can similar crystals be found.
Weather Conditions
There are three classes of weather and travel restrictions which apply to all personnel working in and around McMurdo Station.
CONDITION 3 is defined as having winds less than 48 knots, wind chills warmer than –75ºF, and visibility greater than ¼ mile. This is considered the normal weather condition in McMurdo. Checkout with the Firehouse is not required for vehicular travel.
CONDITION 2 is defined by one or more of the following conditions: winds speeds of 48-55 knots, wind chills of –75º to –100ºF, or visibility of less than ¼ mile. You must check in and out with the Firehouse by radio prior to leaving town and upon your return.
CONDITION 1 is defined by one or more of the following conditions: wind speeds greater than 55 knots, wind chills colder than –100ºF, or visibility of less than 100 feet. Only “mission critical” travel is permitted, with approval from the RPSC Area Director and the NSF Station Manager.
