The truth is out there

Not that I know everything about this place that there is to know, but this old web article from 2006 was news to me:

South Pole Telescope (SPT) — America’s New Planet X Tracker (from yowusa.com)

"America is now spending huge sums to deploy the massive The South Pole Telescope (SPT) in Antarctica. The final installation will be the size of a mini-mall and will require a massive C-130 airlift effort to transport pre-assembled modules and a large staff to the most desolate, inhospitable and inaccessible region of the world. Why? Because Planet X / Nibiru was first sighted in 1983 and this discovery spurred the USA to build the SPT — humanity's new Planet X tracker."

Someone printed this article and posted it on the Galley wall where we used to have a joke of the day posted until someone complained that they were a little too offensive. Now we have this joke of an article that shows the entire station being the South Pole Telescope which is not looking at cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang like we always thought, but is actually seeking out Planet X.

"Now we have the corroboration we've lacked for years, The South Pole Telescope (SPT). Far more powerful capable and survivable than the 1983 IRAS spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope put together, this manned observatory will soon begin tracking Planet X / Nibiru from the pristine skies of Antarctica."

So the guys "manning" the Planet X observatory this winter are Dana who is here for his 4th winter and is one of the best drummers Antarctica has ever seen, and Keith who has a cute Canadian accent and hosted a Canada Day celebration last week with Crown Royal drinks and face painting of maple leafs on cheeks and foreheads. They also are skilled photographers and if you want to see some amazing outdoor shots of auroras and such, please check out their websites.

I don't think, however, that you will be reading much about the latest research on Planet X/Nibiru from the South Pole Telescope but some of us were thinking that the premise would make for a great SPIFF/WHIFF film, our versions of film festivals usually featuring hilarious homemade films about life down here. I'm sure one of us can act the part of a Planet X alien.

It's official

I usually don't put too much really personal stuff on my blog but I do have to share this news with family, friends and total strangers.

This picture has been on our scroller for the past few days:


Yes, Michael and I are officially engaged! He proposed on June 25 as we took a moonlit stroll around the station. For anyone who knows Michael, for him to want to go outside here for a walk should be the first sign that something unusual is up. But he said that he wanted to get away from the station and enjoy the moon so we suited up in our ECW and headed out. Even though the temperature was -90F at the time, it was indeed a nice afternoon with soft waning moonlight and a faint aurora overhead.

We got to the geographic pole and that's when he got on his knee and popped the question. He even had a symbolic ring that our friend Paul, a plumber/maintenance specialist, made for us out of a section of copper pipe. Of course we had to take off our gloves and mittens to get the ring on, which led to some mild frostnip on the fingertips, but how often do you get a marriage proposal at the actual geographic South Pole?

Then he led me to the Cargo office where Nate had helped him decorate it with Christmas lights, had a video of a roaring fireplace playing on the TV and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice which had frozen solid on the way out there. We toasted and tried to make a call home to family to tell them the news but the satellite was squirrelly and we couldn't get a line out. So we headed back to the station for dinner and to my surprise, just about everyone there already knew the news. And soon, our Comms tech Shaun had the above message on the scroller to congratulate us.

So now the word is out and although we're enjoying the winter here, we're now especially looking forward to getting off the ice and starting a new life together. South Pole will always be a special place to me but now it's even more special since this is where I've met the love of my life and it's only perfectly fitting that we got engaged right at the pole marker for 90 degrees South.

Mid-Winter

We've reached the halfway point of winter.

Mid-Winter's Day is the biggest holiday for all Antarctic stations with crews wintering over on this continent. The winter solstice marks the farthest that the sun is going get away from us and from now on, it's all downhill from here. We sent out our official greeting card plus an invitation to join us for dinner, as if anyone could drop by, but it's a tradition for many of the stations to extend jocular invitations to fellow Antarcticans or a toast in their absence.

Calee was the photographer for our group photo and although it looks like we have daylight, honestly it's pitchblack dark out. She used a 15 second exposure which caught enough moonlight so that you can see us in the dark. I'm the shortest one standing in a red parka.

Our menu reflected the talents of our fabulous chefs and Deb, Chris and Sous Chef Michael planned out an internationally themed feast featuring ingredients and recipes from around the world.

The main entree was a trio of duck, salmon and tenderloin, all paired with unique sauces and starches like homemade spaetzle. The half eaten roll in the corner is homemade kumara bread, a recipe from a Kiwi show that we're watching, Hunger for the Wild, and we used the last of our fresh kumara (like sweet potatoes) from New Zealand in the bread.

I couldn't finish everything in the entree but I ate my entire dessert, a mint creme filled chocolate cake covered with rich ganache. It was Michael's personal creation and if he ever opens up his own restaurant, I'm sure this will be a signature dessert.

This will be our last Mid-Winter celebration. After this season it will be time to move on to something different and for now, Michael and I are going to enjoy the rest of our time here at South Pole, look forward to the return of the sun in a few months and think about what will come next in life...

A whole lot of nothing going on

I recently received a copy of this Reuters news article from Rediron, an Antarctic veteran from the glory days of Operation Deep Freeze station construction in the 1950s:

Antarctic base gets condom haul before winter
16,500 prophylactics arrive for 125 scientists, staff before darkness sets in

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported Monday.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them. The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.

"Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable," Henriksen told the Southland Times newspaper. About 125 scientists and staff are stationed at McMurdo base, the largest community in Antarctica, during the winter months when there is constant darkness.

The first sunrise will occur on Aug. 20 and McMurdo's population will start to increase again in September when supply flights resume, peaking at more than 1,000 during the summer period.

News from Antarctica always seems to be popular but making non-news into even more sensationalistic headlines is just too irresistable for the media. Knowing Bill, who was the South Pole Winter Site Manager for my winters in 2003 and 2005, he probably included some bad jokes and sarcastic remarks about the fact that the reporter was trying to turn this into a news story, but it seems that the only pieces of information that caught on were "16,500 condoms" and "125 scientists and staff". The reader's own imagination serves to fill in the titillating details from juxtaposition.

They're almost making it sound like it was a desperate last minute emergency supply flight for a pallet of condoms for the 125 crew members who must have nothing else to do for the winter except screw around. Why didn't they report that there was a supply of Southern Hemisphere flu vaccine on that last flight that will be used to innoculate the winter crew just before the first flight of the summer season which is like a plague ship to the New World? What about reporting about the precious fresh food flown in that will be the last fresh stuff that the crew will see for months? Surely there were some interesting scientific instruments or construction supplies that just made it onto the continent in time for the winter? No, no one will care about that but 16,500 condoms...that's news!

The article also caught the attention of the government agency overseeing the stations and apparently it wasn't aware that our official Standard Operating Procedure for each station states that Medical will provide some OTC items to the community such as ibuprofen, cough drops and condoms. I was told an alarm was raised that we are wasting our precious budget (which is being cut by 10% this year) by providing FREE condoms to everyone and if you do the math suggested by the headline, that's 132 condoms per person. By the way, our supply at South Pole is 2592 condoms which comes out to only 43.2 condoms per person for the winter. We're getting gypped here.

Of course, it should be emphasized that these large numbers of supplies are meant to last a population that fluctuates to more than 1000 at McMurdo for more than a year and it's probably expected to last well into the next season.

In case anyone thinks we're just having orgies down here...it's just not the case. We have 48 men and 12 women here for the winter and there's a whole lot less shacking up than you probably think. I stocked the bathrooms with condoms in February and they haven't needed any resupply as far as I can tell.

Now because of this ridiculous article, the idea of charging people for the condoms has been raised because the government agency certainly don't want to be subsidizing the wanton free-for-all sex that must be going on at these hedonistic stations. It's been a part of the Medical budget for years and it makes sense from a public health standpoint that condoms are easily available to the community because some things are just inevitable. This important part of our standard Medical supplies was never an issue before this article came out.

The price for a supply of condoms for an isolated community: a couple of thousand dollars. The price for several unwanted pregnancies because people were too embarassed to buy condoms at Polemart in front of their colleagues and supervisors: priceless.

Memorial Day BBQ

Once again, the Heavy Shop (garage) hosted a huge BBQ for the station.

This past weekend we had our monthly 2 day weekend but this time, we got Sunday and Monday off so that we could pretend that we were also getting Memorial Day off. And like many others celebrating the holiday, we held a barbeque, although it was far from the summertime activity most people know.

The mechanics, Jack and Jason (above), cleared out the garage bay of the heavy equipment usually parked there, except for the LMC behind the beverage cooler.

The BBQ grill was moved outside instead of having it inside the garage like last year. It got so smokey inside last year, the bay doors had to be opened to ventilate and people turned into icicles as they munched on their burgers. The heat from the grill kept Jack and Jason warm enough even though it was about -80 degrees F outside.

And like last year, the horseshoe pits were brought in from the berms and a tournament went on into the wee hours of the night. Here's UT James showing his excellent follow-through.

Station manager Katie also had some good tosses after putting some dents on the heavy shop floor.

A new feature for this year's BBQ was a station in the adjacent UT shop making frozen martinis with liquid nitrogen, the same stuff that I used to make ice cream and another procedure that I won't mention in the same sentence.

Here's construction manager Kevin mixing away, complete with his safety goggles. He carefully poured the liquid nitrogen into the martini and stirred until a nice slush formed. It was very smooth going down.

This is Chris our cryo tech. He maintains the plant that makes the liquid nitrogen and he made it all possible by supplying plenty of the super cold nitrogen.

Of course we don't have flamethrowers down here but if we did...

And of course this is the South Pole and things freeze a little faster than anywhere else. Even the beer cooler (a sled filled with snow) did too good of a job on Nate's Corona. Another fun-filled weekend has passed and now we get the added bonus that this week will be short...only 5 days long.

Our boy is back

Frosty Boy is back!

Comms tech Shaun and Galley Materials extraordinaire Leah serving up some vanilla ice cream.

With great sorrow, I wrote about the health problems of our ice cream machine, which we generically call "Frosty Boy" in a previous post "Save Our Frosty Boy". After many frustrating days, our UTs were able to resurrect it to life.

Now we can have our ice cream bar on Saturday nights once again! To the Frosty Boy CEO in Brisbane who left a comment, thanks for your sympathy and I'm sorry that we don't have real Frosty Boy ice cream in our machine but it's truly a well-intentioned compliment that we call our machine "Frosty Boy" and not just the ice cream machine.

And while the boy was down, I made some ice cream the old fashioned way. Well, it's more like an old-fashioned science-aided way of using liquid nitrogen for the freezing. Our cryogenics tech Chris maintains a liquid nitrogen plant out at MAPO and the nitrogen is used to cool down the telescopes optics. He brought over a dewar of LN2 that I used to freeze a plantar wart on a patient and with the leftover nitrogen, I whipped up a batch of ice cream.

Add a little chocolate ice cream mix, add a lot of Kahlua, add a little bit of liquid nitrogen and watch the show. It's a fun and quick way to make it and the nitrogen completely evaporates after doing its freezing business. The Kahlua chocolate ice cream pies turned out really well even though I did a very inelegant job of decorating the tops with whipped cream. Even though Frosty Boy is in good health these days, I might keep making special batches of nitrogen ice cream...mmmm...cookies and cream...or maybe mint chocolate chip...or pecan praline or...

Solar minimum?

We've been told that this year should be a bust for auroras. The sun goes through a solar cycle with usually predictable variations in activity of solar flares and sunspots. The cycle is about 11 years but can vary give or take a couple of years. At the low point of activity or the solar minimum, there are far fewer sun spots spewing out charged particles towards Earth. These particles collide with oxygen, nitrogen and other atoms in the upper atmosphere, causing the atoms to emit light as they release their briefly borrowed energy. And this is what we see as wonderful, magical aurora shows.

I don't know. So far this winter, the auroras have been really spectacular with some of the largest and most dynamic displays I've seen in the years that I've been spending the night down here. It's a daily occurance and you can usually count on the southern lights getting fired up around 1-2pm or so.

On of the projects here at South Pole is the All-Sky Imager run primarily by Nagoya University. The camera used to be mounted on top of Sky Lab, the orange tower next to the Dome, that used to have the nicest, comfiest lounge on station. Now the camera is operational on top of the Elevated Station and once again showing images of our night sky.

You can see them for yourself at the All-Sky Imager website. It's not updated in real time but you can still see the most recent still images of our auroras and some movie clips as well.

And we received an email from Ethan, one of the science techs running the aurora projects, that SpaceWeather.com provided this news alert:

ERUPTING PROMINENCE: Today, astronomers are monitoring an unusually active prominence on the sun's eastern limb. Even veteran observers are impressed, using words like "amazing" and "jaw-dropping" to describe the activity they have seen. One onlooker described the fountain-like eruptions as "volcanic in appearance." This beautiful activity may herald the approach of a new sunspot--or it may be just a temporary upheaval, here today and gone tomorrow.

I've not attempted to take photos of auroras because that would require me to do something with my point and shoot camera that is more complicated than leaving it on the automatic setting and pointing and shooting. Calee however is a photographic genius who doesn't seem to mind sacrificing her fingertips to the -70 degree F temps and has posted some nice shots on her blog.

So I'm not complaining if this is a solar minimum year because we've had some really incredible light shows so far this winter. I just need to find more excuses to go outside to my ringside seat to the show.