Q: Does it get dark enough down there to see any stars?
A: No it does not. Even during the middle of the night, the sun is out and shining. The only time it "darkens" is when clouds or storms move through and block the sun. But even then, the light level is only that of early evening before sunset.
Q: Or will it get dark enough by the time you leave to see stars?
A: It will not. McMurdo's next sunset is expected to occur on February 21, 2012, a couple weeks after I am scheduled to leave.
McMurdo's appearance has almost inverted in the 3 months I've been here. As the summer has progressed, the white background with brown speckles has become a brown, dusty background with white speckles. Our Christmas Day weather was quite nice so I hiked the Hut Point ridge line again and took some updated pictures. Below are a couple sets that best illustrate the changes.
Finally, another short video from the hike. This video starts looking at White Island and pans by Black Island and the Royal Society Range. About 5 seconds into the video, the path leading out onto the sea ice is the old road that used to lead out to the Sea Ice Runway (the vague rectangular area also seen). The speckling seen around 10 seconds in, below Black Island, is Pegasus Runway. The runway was moved from the sea ice to the ice shelf the first weekend of December as the sea ice conditions deteriorated.
This disreputable looking bunch is the McMurdo NOC and Help Desk, the folks I work with on a daily basis. This picture was our Christmas card to the McMurdo and Denver IT groups.
Back to front, left to right:
Claude (Network Engineer), Michiel (Systems Administrator)
Anthony (Systems Administrator), Martin (Help Desk), R.E. (Network Engineer)
Blaise (Systems Administrator)
No need to send shoes. Outside shoes are not allowed in the NOC to avoid tracking dirt and dust in around the equipment. We either walk around in our socks or change into a pair of slippers.
Around McMurdo there were increasing signs of Christmas over the last few weeks, though much less than expected. Some dorm room doors were decorated, a few work centers had decorations up (technically the NOC has a tree, but it was never taken down from last year), and every so often Christmas music could be heard. Organized festivities included a Christmas Choir, the town Christmas party on Friday, a community theater production of "A Charlie Brown Christmas, and regular weekly events with a Christmas theme (Bingo, trivia, etc).
Some pictures from the town Christmas party:
Penguin jack in the box.
The Christmas Choir performed for 30 minutes during the party and again Christmas Eve before the midnight worship service.
In Antarctica, Santa doesn't travel by sleigh, he travels by Piston Bully!
Update: Added a much better picture of the decorated Piston Bully.
For the most part, the atmosphere feels a lot like it did around Thanksgiving: people are more interested in an extra day off, a special dinner, and the extra drinking that comes with both. The attitude is not completely unexpected. After a busy couple of months, thing have hit a lull: seasonal infrastructure is back in place, things are becoming routine, station population peaked and is falling off as science groups head home for the holidays, and a lot of people are feeling the stress of being away from home.
I'll wrap up with a weather report from Christmas day. While not as intense a White Christmas as I'm used to, from what I'm hearing, we have a lot more snow on the ground than Minnesota.
Continuing our tour around Byrd, we pick up with getting water for drinking, washing, and use in the Galley.
Obviously, with the large abundance of snow, water is available, but in the wrong state and must be melted. As seen in Part 1, stock pots on Kuma stoves can be used to melt snow, but that method is time consuming and requires constant attention. While it works for the small, mobile camps, the water demand at the larger, fixed camps has led to a dedicated melting system like the one shown above. Operation is as expected: snow is collected and added to the snow melter on the right with the resulting water is stored in the tank on the left. Not shown to the left of the storage tank is a filtration system and water heater.
Directly behind the Galley tent is the snow mine, where the snow for the melter is collected. Even though the water is filtered, snow is only collected from the mine and it is flagged to prevent people from walking through it and contaminating it with dirt and debris. As the mine diminishes, the heavy equipment operators dump more snow which is gathered from another designated place away from camp.
Collecting snow is almost a full time job, though nobody at the camp is dedicated to it. Therefore, every person in camp is asked to fill at least two buckets a day to support their water use. If a person plans on taking a shower, a third bucket should be filled, essentially letting people can shower as often as they like. The buckets pictured are standard plastic trash cans and it only takes 5-10 minutes to fill two. While the water created from the snow is filtered, it isn't the same level of filtration done at McMurdo or in the US, so the buckets and the shovel at the snow mine, are flagged for gathering snow only. Despite a lower level of filtration, the water at Byrd tasted much better.
The Galley is the largest building in camp and according to one of the members of the camp staff, the largest Rac-Tent in the world by a couple sections. It's open 24 hours a day for people to warm up, grab a snack/drink, or gather. One of my tasks at Byrd was setting up two desktop computers and and a printer for people to use.
The three main deep field camps (Byrd, WAIS, and PIG) all have limited connectivity to the outside world via Iridium data modems multiplexed together and a local e-mail/FTP server. While a generally unstable connection (modems lose their connection frequently as the satellites come in and out of range), the Iridium system provides slightly slower than dial up speeds to the camps. With the exception of the camp manager, each person is limited to messages no larger than 50KB and the local server sends and receives mail and FTP files as there is connectivity. Web browsing is not permitted due to the lack of bandwidth. People at Byrd can use their personal computers on the local wireless cloud to access the webmail interface of the sever or they can use the computers we set up in the Galley.
Behind the Galley and to the right of the snow mine is the freeze cave where food stores are kept. It may not see like an issue, but as the summer progresses, the rising temperatures along with the constant sunlight can cause issues. While nothing more than a large hole in the ground with a plywood and snow ceiling, it is incredibly effective. In the picture of the entrance (top), the interesting thing to note is the level of the snow. Three years ago when Byrd was moved to it's current location, the base of the door was at ground level.
Taken from the winter berm (aka Byrd Hill), the high point in the area, the video above gives a good perspective of the surrounding terrain features, or lack there of. The blowing snow stopped by the buildings and cargo lines (Byrd was at one time located where the berm is), along with intentional build up for winter storage of the camp are responsible for the abnormal elevation change. The video starts facing east and turns counterclockwise.
A picture of Byrd from the winter berm.
Despite the impression given by the pictures and videos, the weather was not constant sunshine. Taken from the area in front of the Galley on the day before I left, the video above shows what could be considered an "overcast" day for Byrd. I stated in Part 1 that the motto for Byrd is "If a plane lands, get on it!" and the weather is the primary reason. A day with winds of 5-15 miles per hour is considered "calm" and more often than not, the wind is a lot stronger and moving some snow around. Originally, I was supposed to go out to Byrd about 2 weeks prior to Thanksgiving, but due to weather delays of my flight and the flights before mine, I didn't leave until the week after Thanksgiving.
And yes, that is somebody waving from the peegloo at the end of the video.
A plane! This was actually the second plane than was able to land in the 5 days I was there, though the first arrived around 2am the day after I arrived and since I didn't have my work done, I couldn't get on it.
Overall, I enjoyed my time at Byrd. While the work that took me there was almost exclusively indoors, I had a lot of free time and was able to get outside and shovel snow and help with a couple other small projects. I don't think I would want to spend the entire season there, but I would go back for a few days to a week if necessary.
If you are interested in more information and some interviews with previous camp staff (some of which are back again this year), an independent site exists at http://www.byrdcamp.com.
Okay, back to posts with pictures! As mentioned in the Miscellanea post, last Wednesday (Tuesday in the US) I flew out to Byrd Surface Camp (motto: If a plane lands, get on it!) for 5 days to help with the installation of the network and communications equipment. I ended up with a lot more pictures and videos than I expected, so I've split this into two posts.
Unfortunately, the best map I could find that shows Byrd's location relative to McMurdo was too large to post with cropping it down. I left as many reference features as I could while still keeping it clear. Most maps of Antarctica are orientated such that McMurdo and the Ross Ice Shelf are located towards the bottom center, with the Antarctic Peninsula (the "tail" by Chile and Argentina) in the upper left corner. Byrd Camp can be found near the center by WAIS Divide.
Byrd is located in Western Antarctica (about 800-900 miles from McMurdo), supports approximately 50 people, and serves as a staging point for science groups and the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) Traverse and PIG Camp. It's located at 5,270 feet above sea level and is one of the oldest deep field camps in the program, though it has been closed, rebuilt, and moved numerous times since it's initial construction as Byrd Station in 1957.
As you can see from the aerial photograph above (taken from the 2011-12 Byrd Welcome Guide), the camp does not consist of much. A staging area for the Bassler and Twin Otter aircraft used by the science groups, a few cargo lines, 10 Rac-Tent "buildings", and a tent city where the staff and scientist sleep. The camp is only open for the summer season and at the end of the season, the buildings, heavy equipment, and other equipment used around camp are packed up and stored on the winter berm (not shown) until the next season. At the beginning of each season, the staff and a crew of carpenters are flown out in Basslers to pull everything off the berm and rebuild the camp.
Part of rebuilding the camp is creating a ski way so LC-130 flights can begin bringing in cargo and personnel. There were 11 people, 5 from IT/Communications and 7 scientists from the POLENET science group on my flight in, along with about 20,000 pounds of cargo. Though the cargo comes right up to the passengers, the flight is only about 3 hours and isn't too bad.
The 5 of us there temporarily lucked out and instead of getting put in tent city, we were put in a couple of the heated Rac-Tents with cots.
This is the front door of the Rac-Tent I was in. For some reason this was the only door in camp that swung out and there were a couple mornings where we had to unzip the back flap and shovel before we could use the front door.
Shown above is the nice Kuma stove that kept the tent and us warm. When we arrived, it was on the highest heat setting, which led all three of us sleeping on top of our sleeping bags (rated to -30F) the first night. None of us slept that well so we turned it down to where sleeping in the bag with it zipped was quite comfortable.
You may notice that the tent walls are not much more than insulated plastic tarps. With the wind blowing constantly (more on that in Part 2), they make quite a racket when you're trying to sleep so earplugs were a must. Also, since the sun won't set until February, a sleep mask or something to cover ones eyes with is very helpful.
The video was taken outside our sleeping tent the night we arrived. The video starts by looking north at tent city, pans past the cargo lines (the winter berm can be seen behind the cargo lines) to show the north half of the main building line (the Galley tent is the longest tent seen). I then walk to the east, show part of tent city again, pan from north to south and walk back to where I started.
Like out at Happy Camper, the bathroom facilities were 5 outhouses spread around camp. One addition is the "peegloo" seen between the outhouses. Basically a half circle of snow blocks built up to provide the men in camp urinal services with some wind protection and pseudo-privacy. The down side to the peegloo is you stand facing into the wind and, in the case of the peegloo above, you are on display for anybody using the main entrance of the Galley tent.
Showers are an option thanks to the "Byrd Bath".
At one end are the two shower units seen above (the one on the left is hidden behind the cubby holes). Inside each unit is a changing area, a shower stall and a Coleman portable water heater. Normally, the pump unit is connected to a propane tank and can heat the water up to 160 degrees before pushing it out of the shower head. To take a shower, fill a 5 gallon bucket with water, place the pump hose inside, and enjoy! 5 gallons may not seem like much, but I found that it was sufficient to provide constant water for 5-7 minutes.
A few days before we arrived, there was a small fire in one of the units, so the propane was disconnected for safety reasons. Our only option for a hot shower was to fill the bucket with hot water (120 degrees) from the Galley and supplement it with water from the stock pot on the Kuma stove (on the left). Though the water from the stock pot was boiling and intended more for making hot water bottles to warm sleeping bags at night. I found that after adjusting to temperatures in the single digits or teens, constant wind, and tents heated to around 60 degrees, a shower with 120 degree water was almost scalding.
The other half of the wash tent was reserved for more cubby hole space as well as a sink for washing. The sink faucet was connected to a pedal activated pump that sat in a large bucket of water. Sadly, there was no heater for that water. It only took one morning of cold water before I found that mixing a couple gallons of boiling water from the stock pot was usually sufficient to get lukewarm water.
In the next post, we'll look at getting water, the Galley, cold storage for food (yes it's an issue), leaving, and a few more videos.
The living situation is dorm living similar to what I experienced in the Army (similar to college dorm life as well from what I've been told), with most people having 1-4 roommates, depending on season, station population, and dorms being shut down because of fire or carbon monoxide (another story, another time). There are also some areas designated for overflow or people transiting McMurdo to Pole or camps that can have more to a room.
I live on the second floor of building 155 (part dorm, part chow hall, part office space, part gym, library) and share a room that is approximately 19'x14' with 3 other guys. The rooms can be arranged in any manner that is agreed upon by everybody, provided all the furniture stays in the room. The beds are modular and in our room, we have the beds stacked and on one half of the room with the wall lockers and leave the other half as a living room. Other rooms have a bed and wall locker in each corner, with a small living room in the middle of the room.
Bathrooms are communal and have 2-3 showers, 4-6 sinks, and 5-7 toilets. On my floor there are 2 men's bathrooms and one women's bathroom for at least 100-150+ people (there are people living on the first floor, but I'm not sure how many, 155 has about 300 people living in it total). The other dorms typically have a men's room and women's room on each floor and serve no function other than living space.
When I first arrived, it didn't seem like enough resources for the number of people, but so far I have not seen much backup. The longest shower line I've seen is two and there has never been a line for a sink. Even with the population peaking right now, the 24x7 shift operations and the fact that most people take a shower every other day helps.
The big resource scarcity is laundry. 155 has one laundry room with 5 washers and 6 dryers, though at least one of each always seems to be broken and it can be tough to get laundry done without a lot of waiting around. Waiting until Saturday night when everybody is focused on partying and getting drunk works if you don't want to be out partying with everybody else. The other dorms each have a laundry room of a similar size and I have had some luck going over to a different building on Sunday mornings. They are looking at remodeling part of 155 to accommodate a larger laundry room, but nothing is funded yet. It can be frustrating, but not too big of an issue if one is patient. My routine is to do two loads (socks/underwear/gym clothes/undershirts and jeans/shirts/hats/jackets) each week, with an extra for linen as needed.
Breakfast is pretty standard: an egg dish, a line for eggs and omelets made to order, meat (bacon/sausage), potatoes, waffles, pancakes, cereal, toast, fruit, etc. Occasionally grits and/or biscuits and gravy are out on the line in addition to everything else.
Lunch and dinner have three main dishes choices and sides. The mains consist of a vegan dish and some combination of chicken, beef, pork, or fish dishes. Beef and chicken are the most common and they do a pretty decent job with the beef, though when they screw it up, there's A1 or some 57 Sauce to take care of it. The chicken is a different story: So far, with only a couple exceptions, the chicken been badly overcooked. Think saltines without the crunch. The side dishes are usually some form of potato or rice.
Wednesday is Mexican day for lunch, and there have been a few cases where there has been a clear Thai or Indian theme. Lunch usually has a sandwich line and occasionally they have a burger bar open at night.
Other than the main lines, there is a cold salad bar (usually consisting of the leftover saltine chicken chilled and mixed with pasta), jello, fruits, vegetables, and dessert. From talking with some of the long time returning folks, this year they have done a much better job getting "freshies" (fresh fruit and vegetables), though how well they're treated on the trip down from New Zealand varies. Most of the time, the lettuce consists more of stalks than leafs and that too some getting used to. Eating it usually makes you resemble an animal eating hay or alfalfa. Throw on some salad dressing and if you're not careful, you use a lot of napkins.
Dessert is the best part of any meal, and sadly, not an option for anybody who likes what they currently weight or feels they could lose a few pounds. Since getting here I have seen cheesecake, lemon meringue pie, brownies, cinnamon roles, angel food cake (next to a giant bowl of whipped cream), rum cake, cookies (every Wednesday is cookie day!), creme brulee, and the list continues. Everybody likes the bakers.
Overall, the food is edible, though I've found that the longer/fancier the name, the less likely I am to enjoy it. By far the best meal so far has been the night they had flank steak cut into strips and soaked in barbecue sauce.
Barring more weather delays, I'm headed to the continent itself today to do the network install at one of the deep field camps. Originally, we were supposed to leave on Thanksgiving Day, but the weather that moved in, along with the two days of no air operations, delayed us through the weekend. Not does this trip mean I am finally getting to the continent, it also means I will be able to say I have walked off a LC-130 rather than going out the back with a parachute.
I have a series of posts written that should automatically post while I'm gone. So far, topics are coming from things I do/see that I think people will be interested in, or from questions I have received. If there is something you would like to see a post about, or pictures of, throw it in the comments and I'll put together a detailed post. If it doesn't generate enough information for a full post, I'll start a Q&A section on the blog.
Finally, here are some more random pictures I have taken over my time here that I think people will find interesting.
To freezing, and beyond! The high for November 14th was reported as 34F. It's the first an only time I've seen it go above freezing since arriving.
The Hut Point ridge line as it runs North. I need to get back out and take an updated picture to show how much of the snow is now gone.
Mt. Erebus as seen from the sea ice runway. The shorter peak in the middle is Crater Hill and the smaller peak on the left is Observation Hill.
A couple of the Recreation folks getting the Frisbee Golf equipment out of the snow. Yes, that is a mountain bike in the picture; one of the many they have down here for people to use later in the season. The large blue building is 155 and the small building in front is Southern Exposure, one of the three bars at McMurdo.
The two pictures above show the difference three weeks of warm temperatures (15-25F) and constant sun can make on the snow. Since the second picture was taken, a storm blew through and made it look more like the first, though we're back in a melting period right now. According to the people who have been here before, it'll be off and on muddy until sometime in December when everything dies out and gets dusty.
Part of the Royal Society Range, taken from the sea ice runway after a storm blew through, but before all the clouds cleared out.
Black Island, taken from just past Pegasus runway.
White Island, also taken from just past Pegasus runway.
Ross Island, also taken from just past Pegasus runway. The top of Mount Erebus can be seen just above the cloud cover. Hut Point is the darker ridge line in the shadows in the center of the picture, Observation Hill opposite it on the right. McMurdo is nestled between the two and not visible. The peak in between Hut Point and Ob Hill is Castle Rock. There is a 7+ mile hiking loop that goes out to Castle Rock, on to the Ross Ice Shelf, past Scott Base, and back to McMurdo. Once the mountaineers check the climbing rope and allow people to climb to the top of Castle Rock I intend to go out and get some pictures from there.
Pegasus sits about 14 miles out from McMurdo on the Ross Ice Shelf. In the bottom half of the picture is an area of blue ice where the wind has cleared all the snow off the ice shelf.
One of the options for getting from Building 155 to the Crary science building and other buildings in that area. The building shown in the background is Building 189, also known as the JSOC (Joint Spacecraft Operations Center) or "the NASA building", where I work. NASA has the entire first floor and the Network Operations Center is on the second floor, accessible via the stairs shown
Like every good bridge, it has it's own troll to guard it.
Other than people saying "Happy Thanksgiving!" to each other yesterday, it was just another work day for us. We will officially observe the holiday on Saturday the 26th (Friday in the US) with a day off and a special dinner put together by the chow hall staff. Some weather moved in a couple days ago and shut down air operations right before the weekly resupply of fresh fruits and vegetables was to arrive, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of meal they put together. Since the chow hall can't seat everybody at once, the meal is being served in 2 hour shifts (3, 5, 7, and 9pm) and people had to sign up for a seating or for a particular time to pick up a take out plate.
Each year, McMurdo Station and Scott Base celebrate Veteran's Day together, with the site alternating between the two. Scott Base hosted the celebration this year and a shuttle was run from McMurdo for those able to attend. Despite being out of the Army for almost 7 years now, this was the first time I actually attended a Veteran's Day celebration. Attendees consisted of New Zealand Defense Forces personnel, US Air Force and Army National Guard personnel, high ranking management from both stations, and the US veterans that were able to take the morning off to attend.
The ceremony lasted a little over an hour and was simple, yet respectful. First, we gathered outside by the flag pole where both flags were lowered to half staff, a moment of science was observed, and an invocation given.
(The yellow sign seen between the Kiwi soldiers gives the distance from Scott Base to various major cities around the world (in kilometers of course). I have a close up picture of it I plan to include in a later post about Scott Base.)
After the invocation, we moved indoors for the remainder of the ceremony. After posting the colors, the Kiwis sang their national anthem, the American's sang ours, and speeches were given by both Kiwi and American personnel. Sadly, I found the American's participation to be a bit embarrassing. The Kiwi speeches sounded prepared and rehearsed, and it sounded at though some effort had been made to view the day as a joint celebration, despite differences in name and typical observation style. On the other hand, the American speeches sounded hastily prepare and geared toward the American audience, with just enough mention of New Zealand to acknowledge that we were guests at a New Zealand facility.
After the speeches, a short POW/MIA Remembrance ceremony was held. It was a very powerful ceremony, with the two soldiers taking turns setting objects on the table as two narrators (one Kiwi, one American) took turns telling the audience what they symbolized.
For those not familiar with the ceremony, here is a sample script that I found online. Upon returning to McMurdo, I discovered that one of the tables in the chow hall had also been set up to remember. The the kitchen staff's credit, it is still set, 4 days later.
Setting the table concluded the ceremony for the day and we were invited to join the Kiwi's for lunch. Unfortunately, I turned the offer down and returned to McMurdo to discover that after breakfast that morning, the dish washer broke down and lunch was a salad bar on paper plates with plastic silverware. Be careful offering me food when I get back, I've learned my lesson about declining a meal!
