A quiet few days: December 6-8, 2014.

The last few days here haven't been too exciting--we've mostly been hanging around McMurdo. We ended up postponing our pressure ridge tour to sometime later this week or early next week, but I'll definitely put photos up of that once I do. We had our outdoor safety lecture on Saturday morning, so I'm finally able to (officially) start hiking around and going out on the trails around McMurdo. The Observation Hill Loop is pretty much the same as last time, and I'll probably start doing it regularly again if the weather is nice. Sunday the weather wasn't so great, but I still went out to Hut Point and saw some seals.

Discovery Hut Restoration

Hut Point is a bit different this year since there's an ongoing restoration of Discovery Hut. If you head out during the workday, like I did today, a few people from Scott Base are out there working. The hut looks a lot less cool with a couple containers and a bunch of equipment next to it.

Sunday night we went to the weekly science lecture in the galley. It was given by Ralph Harvey of ANSMET, who was on our flight down from Christchurch. They're going out into the field to hunt meteorites soon.

Erebus looked cool today.

Today, we went and did our Crary Lab walk-through, where we went over the safety precautions and everything we'll need to use Crary, even though we likely won't be around there very much. After that I went up to the Science Cargo office with Thomas to double-check the answer to a question he had about shipping our equipment home, and then Sean, Thomas, and I went out to the LDB site. We got to see a very cloudy view of Erebus and had a delicious chili lunch (Sean and Thomas also had smoked salmon. It's a harsh continent.). We rode back into McMurdo with two of the station chaplains, who had been out getting a tour of the LDB facility.

Hut Point and some other people that were there today

Once back in McMurdo, we did an inventory of the tools and other equipment that are sitting in the two shipping containers that we have. We set aside and recorded all the equipment that we plan to take out into the field, and then started thinking of things that we needed but did not have. We went back to the BFC to look at their snow shovels, but left with just a scale (since we'll need to weigh things in the field), since Thomas is going to pull the list of equipment they got from the BFC last year.

After that I went for a hike along the Hut Point Ridge/Arrival Heights trail. I stopped at Hut Point and watched the seals that were there for a little bit, and then went up the hill. I got a little bit above halfway before my path was blocked by a Skua. Since I was apparently not so close that the skua was reacting to me, I knew I was fine, but I couldn't go closer until it moved. I got a lot of very good close-up shots of the skua while I waited about 15 minutes for it to get out of my way. Eventually, it did, and I climbed the rest of the way up the hill. At the top, I was greeted by a view of McMurdo Sound, still almost entirely covered in sea ice. I walked along the ridge, and most of the way back into town (I got a ride down the hill from a couple of guys in a pickup that were working on top of the hill).

Skua, just hanging around.

FINALLY

McMurdo Sound

McMurdo Station

It looks like there will be a launch opportunity for COSI and the superpressure balloon tomorrow morning. They're going to be picked up by The Boss around 3am, and then potentially launch closer to 10. We're probably going to go out to Willy Field (as close as they'll let people be outside and watch) and take a look. I've been told to expect a new roommate tomorrow (my previous one left Saturday morning), so I'm glad I took the time over the weekend to re-arrange my room the way I had it two years ago.

Briefings, more briefings, and a trip to LDB: December 4 and 5, 2014

Thursday morning I grabbed a quick breakfast before heading over to the NSF Chalet for our Science in-briefing. After that talk was done, Sean, Thomas, and I went over to the Crary Lab IT center to get our computers set up and configured for the McMurdo wifi network. After that, we had some time to kill, so while Sean went to grab a pillow for his dorm room, Thomas and I went around McMurdo for a bit.

We stopped by building 175, where we've been allocated two cubicles, but the person we were supposed to see to find out which cubicles they are wasn't around. We then went to drop in on Ryan, our NSF contact, but he was on a phone call. Then we went to the Berg Field Center (BFC) and talked to them for a bit about getting our equipment that we'll need in the field. We went back to Crary and talked to Scott Battion, the LDB camp manager and a 2013 SuperTIGER recovery team member. While we were talking to Scott, we ran into James, who will be the camp manager/supervisor for the groom team and our recovery camp. Thomas and I then spent about an hour and a half getting coffee with James and Lyra, a mountaineer who will also be going with us into the field. We went over the plan for recovery and a lot of other options about flights and logistics.

By then, it was time for lunch, so Thomas and I were about to head out to find Sean when Sean showed up. We had lunch with Sean and Dana, and then it was time for our Antarctic Field Safety course. This was basically a refresher course from Happy Camper school, and we went over risk management, how to recognize frostbite and hypothermia, what to do if you fall in icy water, and then practiced lighting stoves and setting up tents inside. 

Once that training was over I took a walk around McMurdo, then met back up with everyone for dinner. Thomas and I walked over to Scott Base for America Night, and got to talking for a while with Peter, my roommate. Eventually, I caught the last shuttle back to McMurdo while Thomas walked back.

Friday

Today I woke up and had breakfast with Dana and Sean. At 8am I went to the Crary Library for more orientation lectures. First, Thomas, Sean, and I got the Light Vehicle Safety lecture, so once we get a walk-around/check out with actual vehicles we’ll be able to drive here if we need to. After that, we were supposed to have a waste briefing, but the person who was going to talk to us never showed up. Instead, we started the Fire Safety briefing early.

After that, we went over to the Science Support Center (SSC), which is where our field safety training had been the day before (and where Happy Camper school started for me two years ago), and talked to our NSF Contact, Ryan, about flight options for getting the groom team and ourselves out to the SuperTIGER site. It now sounds like the groom team won’t head out until late next week at the earliest. Then it was time for snowmobile training, where we got a quick intro to maintaining and checking out the type of snowmobile we’ll have with us out in the field. 

By sleep kit in the BFC

We then went to the BFC to pick up our sleep kits. We each were issued a sleeping bag, fleece liner, foam and air pads, and a tent to use once we go out into the field. I also picked up a thermos. We checked our stuff our and then went and put it all in the SuperTIGER container between the SSC and BFC.

The SuperTIGER containers

We caught the shuttle van out to LDB (a new feature this year, with vans leaving McMurdo every hour) and had lunch in the LDB galley. The entire LDB camp has been moved two miles farther from McMurdo on the ice shelf, so it was weird to see familiar landmarks in the distance but not quite at the same angle. At lunch, we talked again with Scott Battion and I talked a bit with Barth from BLAST, who is back this year with SPIDER, a Cosmic Microwave Background experiment. We went and looked through the two payload buildings after lunch.

The LDB Galley

ANITA Hang Test

The building that EBEX was in two years ago is inhabited this year by SPIDER, and Natalie and Steve, two of the BLAST graduate students, are back this year as well. We talked with them for a long while about their experiment, their recovery plans, our recovery plans, and how the system that points their experiment works. 

The SPIDER Experiment

SPIDER has a dinosaur and a penguin mascot

The building that we were in two years ago now is being used by the ANITA team. ANITA itself was out on The Boss for its official hang test when we showed up, so the building was pretty empty. Dana and Paul weren’t around, so we didn’t stay too long there.

COSI and their "Pig Barn"

Past our payload building is a temporary building put up this year that houses the superpressure balloon, a new type of balloon that CSBF is testing again this year, and COSI, the experiment that will fly on it. We introduced ourselves to the COSI team and talked with them for a while. The box with the superpressure balloon is so big that it takes up most of the space, with only a little bit in front for the experiment to sit on. COSI was outside doing some compatibility tests. If COSI has launched by the time that we get back to McMurdo from the SuperTIGER recovery, then we might end up using that building to pack everything up in.

Maintaining the new LDB site

Today was a good Erebus-viewing day

After that, we came back to town, and have some down time now before dinner. Tomorrow we signed up to go on a tour of the pressure ridges, so that should be a good hike and chance to take photos.

Arrival in McMurdo: December 3, 2014

Wednesday morning, I woke up at 5am for the flight down to the ice. I re-packed what I had used in Christchurch (and, in the process, packed my passport into a checked bag, which led to a frantic ten minutes at the CDC later), and checked out of the hotel. Thomas, Sean, and I waited around for the shuttle to the CDC while the sun came up for the last time for us for a long while.

Once we got to the CDC, we found out that the cafe at the Antarctic Centre was closed, so we would either have to walk to the McDonalds a kilometer away or go without. I was glad that I bought extra snacks the day before. We then put on all the required ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear for our flight down to the ice. This included our boots (because of recovery, I got the Baffin boots instead of the Bunny boots), wind pants, parka, gloves, hat, and sunglasses. Most of us ended up shuffling things around between our bags to make sure that our checked bags were under the 75 pound limit while our carry-on was under the 15 pound limit. 

All the gear I was issued at the CDC.

Then, we each grabbed a cart and wheeled our luggage around to check-in. Since we were flying on the Kiwi Herc (a C130 Hercules flown by the Royal New Zealand Airforce), this was all done by New Zealand military personnel (last time, it was the US military). They weighed all of our checked bags, and then each person with their cold weather gear and their carry-on luggage. From there, we had some downtime before we got to watch another series of videos about the US Antarctic program, environmental policies, and other important information.

Once the videos were done, we went through security and got onto the bus to the aircraft. We drove out onto the tarmac and parked near the plane. After we waited about 15 minutes, the loadmaster for our flight came on and gave us the safety briefing, before we filed out of the bus and onto the plane. Thomas, Sean, and I were the first on the plane, so we ended up near the front on the far side from the door. While I had slightly more leg room than my trip on the LC-130 back from McMurdo last time, there still was not much room on our very crowded flight.

The Kiwi Herc on the tarmac

The Kiwi Herc is generally faster than the American LC-130s, and we got down to McMurdo in just 7 hours. The flight was pretty uneventful, but boring.

The Kiwi Herc at Pegasus

We landed out at Pegasus, the furthest of the airfields at McMurdo, around 4:30pm. Waiting for us was our old friend Ivan the Terra Bus, ready to drive us into McMurdo. I’d forgotten how much Ivan bounces up and down when driving on the snow roads, and some of the people on our flight that are making their first trip down to McMurdo were not expecting it. On the way back, we passed Willy Field, where the LDB site was formerly located, and could see the new LDB site off in the distance. LDB was moved about two miles farther back onto the ice shelf, and Willy Field is now being used as an airfield for the fixed wing fleet. 

Mt. Erebus is as imposing as ever. I'd forgotten how much it dominates the landscape out on the ice shelf.

Ivan dropped us off at the NSF Chalet, where we had our orientation briefing and got our room assignments. We also met up with Ryan, our NSF point of contact, and Dave Sullivan, from CSBF. From there, we went over to housing to get our bed linens, and then on to the dorms. Sean and I are in  203a, the same dorm as two years ago, but I’m on the first floor rather than the second. Thomas is in the dorm that he stayed in his second trip down two years ago. We were kind of surprised to be put here, since we won’t be in McMurdo too long, and normally these dorms aren’t used for temporary housing.

Our old friend, Ivan

We still had about 45 minutes before our bags would be ready to be picked up at the MCC (Movement Control Center), so we went over to the galley in 155 for dinner. On our way in, we ran into Paul, our SuperTIGER engineer here for ANITA, and once inside we saw Dana, the fourth member of our recovery team. We caught up with them and had dinner. Frosty Boy was working, so it was a good day. Then it was time to go pick up our bags.

I brought my bags back to my dorm and then unpacked. After a while, I went over to the Coffee House with Sean and Thomas. Since the last time I was here, the Coffee House went from being a BYOB Wine Bar to a Wine Bar that actually sells wine. While we were here, we ran into Paul, and ended up talking with him and a couple of people from ANITA. After that, it was time to sleep, although Thomas and I made a slight detour to sample the 24-hour pizza.

Clothing Issue and Christchurch: December 2, 2014

So I know I promised Christchurch photos yesterday, but those will have to wait another day (and hopefully be accompanied by some initial Antarctica photos).

I was woken up by a group of tourists either arriving or leaving the hotel at 4am, and again by an argument in Korean outside my door* at 6:30 and 7 and 7:30am. Around 8 I went down to have breakfast with Thomas and Sean. Sean had arrived late last night, but had a chance to go downtown in Sydney during his layover.


*Thomas insists it was outside his door; in either event, it was loud enough that we both heard way too much of it.


At 9am, we got into a shuttle to head to the Clothing Distribution Centre (CDC), where we would be issued our gear. We sat through a series of videos for our orientation to the US Antarctic Program before we got a chance to switch out the gear we'd been issued with other gear. To streamline things, the CDC keeps records of the gear everyone needed on previous trips to Antarctica, which meant that Thomas and Sean had only a few things they needed to change. Since I wasn't previously slated to do recovery, I had to get a lot more stuff, including an extra Carhart jacket and overalls. I'll post a photo later of the full inventory of gear that I was issued.

After clothing issue, we waited around for a while for a shuttle back to the hotel. Initially, we were planning to get lunch at a small walk-up restaurant built out of a shipping container near our hotel, named Pedro's House of Lamb (because Pedro's House of Lamb sounded really delicious). Once we realized that the only thing on the menu was a NZ$35 Lamb Shoulder (even though it sounded really delicious), we decided to walk down to a food truck next to where Thomas and I had gone the night before. We had lunch there, then walked back to the hotel, where we split up. Thomas had some last-minute shopping to do, and Sean wanted to take a nap, so I went out into Christchurch on my own.

I walked through a nearby park to the Botanical Gardens. It was a nice, sunny day, so I ended up wandering around the park and gardens for about an hour and a half (I took a lot of pictures of flowers and stuff). Eventually, I walked past the Canterbury Museum and walked back into downtown. I walked all the way around the cathedral, which was severely damaged by the 2011 earthquake. Then I walked back to the hotel, stopping at the gas station across the way to pick up some snacks for the plane ride tomorrow.

Back at the hotel, I finished up packing everything for tomorrow. One bag will be checked all the way through; the other, my "boomerang" bag, will be available if our plane gets delayed or turned around in the air for some reason.

I met Sean and Thomas around 6 for dinner at the Brewer's Arms, the restaurant that two years ago we went to the night before flying down to the ice. Once again, I had the kangaroo meat (and pork and steak and lamb), served/cooked on a hot stone in front of me. The meat was very good, and the side of garlic butter made everything taste a lot better. We had a drink or two after dinner and then went back to the hotel.


Tomorrow, we're supposed to be picked up at 6am for a 6:30 check-in for our flight to the ice. Hopefully, the next blog update will be from the ice (with the long-promised photos!).

4 planes, 45 hours, and the longest commercial flight: November 29-December 1, 2014

My trip to Antarctica started at 5am on Saturday, November 29, 2014. I woke up early at my parents' house in Minnesota, and said goodbye to them at the airport before boarding my first plane of the day before sunrise. I made it back to St. Louis without any problems, and went home to finish up packing (and re-shuffling things between suitcases). I had lunch with a few friends and then a got a ride to the St. Louis airport, where my trip officially started.

There wasn't much exciting about my flight from St. Louis to Dallas (except for the check-in agent asking me if New Zealand was part of Australia). I got to Dallas on time, and decided to head to the terminal with the best BBQ place for dinner. I got a call from Thomas more or less immediately after getting there, and he soon met up with me for some brisket. We continued on to the international terminal, charging our devices up before the flight.

The flight from Dallas to Sydney is apparently the longest non-stop commercial flight currently available. It was scheduled to take 16 hours and 50 minutes, but the flight crew assured us it would be more like 16 hours and 30 minutes. It was my first time on an Airbus A380, which seemed much bigger in person. I ended up in a window seat, but the middle seat was empty so I was able to spread out. The most noteworthy thing that happened on the flight was that I actually managed to fall asleep on a plane for several hours.

Our layover in Sydney started well enough, with Thomas and I finding our gate area to be a quiet place with a good wifi connection. That didn't last long. Soon, crowds of people on other flights crowded the wifi network, and the loud boarding interruptions were pre-empting one another constantly.

Thomas got an upgrade to business class for our flight to Christchurch, so he got a seat with a lot of leg room and a real meal. Meanwhile, I was 5 rows in front of the back of the plane. This meant that Thomas ended up waiting a long time for me to get through immigration and customs, since I waited about 35 minutes in line while he had no wait at all.

After taking a shuttle to our hotel (and briefly meeting some other McMurdo-bound scientists), we took the opportunity to freshen up before heading out in Christchurch. We walked from our hotel into the city centre and back before having dinner (well, those of us that flew economy class needed something to eat) and drinks at a bar near the hotel. It was good to see a lot of new construction and the finished products of some ongoing construction projects I had seen two years ago. The recovery from the earthquake is still very much ongoing, though, and it looks like it will be several years before everything is back close to how it was.

I'll post some photos tomorrow, but I'm too tired to do that right now. We're getting picked up at 9am tomorrow for clothing issue and orientation, so I'll also have photos of that. Tomorrow we'll also (hopefully) meet up with Sean, who's scheduled to arrive in Christchurch a little before midnight tonight local time.

Getting Ready For Recovery, Round 2

Hey everyone,

This is Ryan again. I’m taking the blog back from JohnE, because I’m heading back to the ice for recovery this year, and also because JohnE moved to Barcelona.

The Story So Far:

On December 9, 2012, the SuperTIGER experiment was  launched on a NASA Long-Duration Balloon from Williams Field, Antarctica. It flew for over 55 days—a NASA heavy-lift balloon record—and came down on February 2, 2013, at 82°14’40.2”S, 81°54’42.0”W. During flight, it collected millions of cosmic-ray events. The flight ended too late in the season for any attempt at recovery.

During the 2013-2014 Austral Summer Season, a team of four went to Antarctica to attempt to recover the SuperTIGER payload. Due to various logistical and weather-related reasons (detailed in previous blog entries by JohnE), we did not get the payload back, but did get a flight over the payload and some sense of the conditions on the ground.

The Plan

While everything in Antarctica is “weather and logistics permitting”, the plan for recovery goes something like this:

The SuperTIGER science recovery team, made up of people who worked on the SuperTIGER experiment, will deploy to Antarctica in early December. We’ll spend about 10 days in McMurdo getting our equipment, doing required trainings, and otherwise preparing for the field.

In the meantime, a “groom team” will fly out to the SuperTIGER site and land as close as it is possible/safe to do so. They’ll establish a camp there, and, using ground-penetrating radar to avoid crevasses, find a safe route to the payload. Once there, they’ll move the camp closer to the payload and begin grooming a skiway nearby for convenient airplane landings.

The SuperTIGER science team will then deploy to the SuperTIGER site via the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Field Camp. We’ll spend a night or two at WAIS and then fly in to the new skiway at the SuperTIGER site.

Some of the groom team will then leave on the plane that brought us in, while the rest stay behind and stay with us at the SuperTIGER site. We’ll then spend ten days or so disassembling the payload (and maintaining the skiway). 

Once disassembled, we’ll bring the pieces of the SuperTIGER payload back to WAIS Divide over the course of a few flights. Over a few days at WAIS, we’ll put everything on pallets for easy shipping back to McMurdo.

Back in McMurdo, we’ll unpack everything from pallets and re-pack in into a shipping container, which will be shipped back on the northbound cargo vessel leaving in late January. 

The Team

The SuperTIGER team this year is made up of collaboration members who all spent time in Antarctica in the 2012-2013 season. Thomas and Sean from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will be flying down at the same time I do. Thomas has previous Antarctic recovery experience with the BESS-Polar II recovery, which was very similar to the planned SuperTIGER recovery, and also was on the team that went down last year. Sean was part of the planned recovery team two years ago, and stayed in McMurdo into February 2013 just in case we got a flight out to the payload. Dana, our senior mechanical technician from Wash U, will join us in McMurdo, where he’s been for the last several weeks. Dana (and Paul, our head engineer on SuperTIGER) is working on ANITA, a balloon-borne neutrino experiment that will launch from the LDB facility sometime in the next few weeks. Once ANITA is ready for launch, Dana will jump over to start working on the SuperTIGER recovery.

I’ll have more in a day or so when I get to Christchurch.

A Tale of Two Poles, and back to the US.

Apologies for the delay in updating the blog, the last few weeks have gone by in a blur. I am now safely back in my office at Washington University and the balmy conditions of St. Louis (19F/-8C).

Our time at the South Pole, although enjoyable and wonderfully unique was ultimately fruitless given our aim of recovering the SuperTIGER payload. However, before I discuss that, I did promise a brief explanation of my earlier cryptic point about there being two South Pole markers.

Generally the photos you see of the South Pole marker are of the nice "barber shop" pole with the shiny ball on top. This pole is actually the "ceremonial" South Pole, which is not at the exact location of the geographic South Pole. Why is that you ask? Well, the polar ice sheet actually moves (or slides if you will) at a rate of about 10 meters (32') per year, so the ceremonial South Pole (which is not relocated by anyone) is actually a few hundred feet away from 90 degrees south!

It does however look snazzy.

Fear not however, the true geographic South Pole is actually re-positioned every year on January 1st. This pole is a much simpler looking item, consisting of a simple metal pole with a marker on top that is a unique design for that given year. For 2014, the marker was designed as a sun-dial, although apparently it was shifted by someone who didn't know any better and was then 5 hours off from New Zealand time (the time on which the Amundsen-Scott station runs). This really should not present a major problem when you can just walk around the pole and into the correct time zone however :)

"So we arrived and were able to plant our flat at the geographical South Pole" - Roald Amundsen (the master of understatement)

Every way is North.

Did I run around the world several times? Yes, yes I did.

Now, onto the business of the recovery that never happened.

At 930am on 1/22/14, a three man team consisting of Thomas Hams, Scott Battaion and Bill McCormick flew to the SuperTIGER payload location on a Twin-Otter aircraft. The weather conditions were generally favorable and conditions at the site were clear. However, due to large "sastrugi" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zastruga) around the payload the pilot was unable to land!

The payload was indeed spotted, but all that could be done was for photographs to be taken. So we know the payload is there, just waiting once more for us to come get it. Already plans are being discussed for another recovery attempt next season, this time hopefully we will not be hampered by a government shut-down allowing us to get to the payload much earlier.

An aircraft will have to land several miles away from the payload where the terrain is more favorable, and a groom team will ski-doo their way over to the instrument to begin preparing a ski-way again. Once more an intrepid group of SuperTIGER scientists will have to fly in and begin the careful work of deconstructing the payload for transport back to the United States. Until then, we analyze the haul of data from our 2012 flight and wait.

Overall, while disappointed, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to travel to such a unique and beautiful place as Antarctica. My fear of losing fingers and toes never materialized, and I managed to stand at the bottom of the world. I fully expect that next year the SuperTIGER team will have succeeded in recovering our precious experiment, eager to rebuild and re-fly to pursue our goal of unraveling the origins of Galactic Cosmic Rays (you didn't think I did this because I love the cold right?).