Here's a shot of the all the gear we get. I got just about everything you see on there except for one jacket and we only get one pair of boots. This time, I got the FDX boots (the blue ones), which I was disappointed with. They are a bit more clunky than the Baffin boots (black ones) that I got last time. They also seem to be a little tight in the toe, but I was told that the CDC doesn't have any boots over size 14 so I'm stuck, but I think I should be fine. When I got into Christchurch yesterday, I noticed a C-17 sitting out on the tarmac, and apparently it's in need of repairs. The previous flight south was canceled and my flight out tomorrow has been canceled until further notice. Apparently they are also trying to do an air drop at the South Pole with the same plane we go down on and my thinking is the repair has something to do with that as they talk about possibly canceling the air drop and just doing the flight to McMurdo. We could also get a C-130 flight out, but both Kiwi planes are out for repair and the American C-130's have skis on the bottom so it slows down the flight to 9 hours. The supervisor at the CDC, a New Zealander made a crack about kiwis being flightless as is their Air Force. I'm hoping we get the C-17 but we'll see.
I don't know how the CDC was involved in two shuttle launches, but they have this token of appreciation.
I ran into a guy from CSBF, the NASA balloon people, and they just got clearance to launch after an "incident" in Australia involving a payload crashing into a spectator's car. It looks like there are three payloads they are trying to launch this year so hopefully that goes well.
I'll post some more photos tomorrow of the other things I did today.
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