11-16-08

This is a shot from the balloon base towards Willy Field. The building on the left was known as "the pig barn." It used to be where the gondola's were assembled, prior to having the new hangars. Workers used to spend weeks clearing the snow from around it each year to get it ready for use during the austral summer. The new buildings are on skis, so they get pulled off of the ice shelf at the end of the season and placed on a berm.






Here is a photo of the galley at the balloon base.













In this photo you can see a group of three people in the distance in the early stages of their attempt to walk to the South Pole. There's an interesting story behind their expedition in that they are relatives of Shackleton or his crew, I'm not sure, and they are attempting to complete his trek to the South Pole. Their group has a page at http://www.shackletoncentenary.org/ that may have more info.






Below is the daily progression of the gondola assembly over the last two days.












































As you may be able to tell, we are getting close to having it completed. Next, the instruments still need to go up on the deck, more cabling will need to be done, and then we have to work on getting the drop down antennas on. Other people are still working on calibrating the instrument, so we are in a bit of a holding pattern. Once the whole gondola is together, additional work will need to be done to calibrate the whole thing. We then have to wait for the vortex to set up over Antarctica before we can launch it. The earliest they have ever launched a balloon is December 10. We also will be the second payload to launch, so it may be a bit.

In the mean time I will be going to a field camp to set up a remote station that will be used to calibrate the gondola once it is in flight. Basically it will send a signal to the gondola ever second, and because we know what the signal is, we can calibrate the antennas based upon what they perceive the signal to be.

I will be flying to the field camp with two scientists and one mountaineer. The camp is at 8500 feet or so, but because the atmosphere is thinner at the poles, it's the equivalent to about 10,000 feet at lower latitudes. We will be there for five days, if the weather allows us to be picked up on schedule. While there we will have to find a cable that was attached to an antenna lowered down a 300 foot bore hole in the ice two years ago. It should be interesting. I don't know when I'm leaving, it's been a bit ridiculous. Budget cuts and the fact that the support company's contract is nearing completion means that there have been substantial cuts in support. Over the past couple weeks we've been told we weren't going, and then we were going, then we weren't going, and now we're going again. It is possible that I will only have an hour's notice or so, so it please understand any delay in communication.



Miscellaneous


I learned(not from firsthand experience) that you can burn the roof of your mouth here. The snow reflects UV well enough and the ozone hole allows enough UV in that if you breath through your mouth, you can get a sunburn on the roof.

Here are two videos I've heard about while I've been here(the weather has been pretty mild).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8CAcKw5808

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE