Happy Christmas, I Guess ...

The annoyance of being in Antarctica for Christmas, something that sounds kind of cool but isn't, has subsided.  Though this is mainly because Christmas Day is now a distant (and rather blurry) memory.

The remaining ANITA members at Christmas

So merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all!

The run up to Christmas down here was actually pretty fun.  With the ANITA cooperating nicely in all areas but its flight path everyone had the chance to kick back and relax.  I cant remember dates, because each night was all too full of sorrow drowning, but at some point I went to a Christmas show full of funny songs, founded years ago by a set of brothers down here and now something of a tradition, though only one brother was down this time around.  There has been alot of eating - I had Christmas dinner twice, once having snuck into the night shifters' Christmas meal (would have only gone to waste otherwise).  I've watched co-workers drink way too much and then breath Bicardi 151 fueled fire.  There other stories too ... but I'd better not go into them too much!

Anyway, having avoided exercise for a little too long apart from one 7 mile ski, I went on a long hike yesterday.  And seeing as my experience on Ob Hill was such fun, I joined Brian in a climb up this:

Castle Rock

Luckily I had help and motivation from Brian to climb the rock, had I been alone I doubt I'd have had the guts.  Once again, I am a pussy.

Brian on the ascent (there is a rope to hang on to pretty soon after this!)

View from the top over the sea ice

Christmas Time ...

I'm hungover and working.  Great.  Here's a photo, I hope you enjoy it......

ANITA has launched!!!

ANITA launched at about 11am NZ time on 21/12!  Fantastic!  It was also pretty good to send it off on the 2nd attempt - last year it took 7.

I'm writing this having been at work for 20 hours yesterday, with 5 hours sleep before another shift today.  Others have been awake and working longer too.  It's possible to track the payload position at http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon8/balloon8.htm.  Not the most interesting website admittedly, but still ... here's to hoping for a nice path over the bulk of east Antarctica.

Launching the balloon is a pretty slow and painful process ... here are 4 photos representing few hours!

ANITA on the boss as the balloon gets filled with helium ... slowly ... (about 2 hours after reaching the pad)

Nearly 4 hours after getting onto the pad the balloon is finally ready to launch ...

ANITA gets released and the drop downs deploy

Now I just sit and watch data coming down.  Tomorrow I'm going to do some serious catching up on lost Zzzs.

4 hours after launch, the balloon is at 36km and fully inflated!  ANITA is still visible.

Not launch day!!!

Turns out it wasn't a launch after all.  The balloon was about to be laid out on the pad.  ANITA was ready to get attached.  The weather was so perfect even the weatherman couldn't stop us.

But then a hard drive in the SIP (support instrumentation package) failed.  So after a day of hoping, waiting, watching the goings on and of taking photos of ANITA, we'll have to wait until tomorrow to (hopefully) launch the balloon.

Fingers crossed again.  And a 4am start.

Launch Day!!!

Today is launch day!  As long as the weatherman doesn't screw us over we'll have come into work at 5:30am for a reason.  Photos will follow if anything happens ....  fingers crossed!

Hikes

As the weather gets warmer down here more hiking trails are opened up for members of the local communities to use.  Having hiked only up Ob Hill so far (unless you count my stroll along the pressure ridges) I decided I needed to get out a bit more.

A nice length walk around the coast to the West of McMurdo (Ob Hill being just to the East) got me off to a good start.  The ground here is still loose like Ob Hill, though not quite as treacherous.  But the best part was views over the sea ice - away from McMurdo and with views of neither town, LDB or Scott Base for the first time since the ice caves (when I wasn't sick of them anyway).

I've also been cross country skiing a few times, mostly around the balloon pad which isn't exactly a great distance but still leaves muscles aching.

On Thursday, to keep up the good exercise routine I joined Andres and Abby in walking all the way back to Scott Base from work.  It's about 8 miles and was pretty refreshing.  The view across the ice shelf, even towards Ross Island, just didn't change for the first hour, which was actually quite calming.

But it turns out that drinks are cheaper at Scott Base than McMurdo.  The walk home was interesting ....!

Acronyms and MacTown slang....

A little over 5 weeks ago I left London for New Zealand, my final destination being McMurdo, Antarctica.  The day after my arrival into Christchurch I made my way to the CDC.  Here I got my flu shot (final requirement of PQ) and picked up my ECW gear, necessary for the extreme cold climes of that most southerly of continents.  Most useful in this pack is Big Red, mine smells of spilt beer right now though so I don't wear it unless necessary.  The following morning, at some ungodly hour, I returned to the CDC to board the C17 bound for Pegasus.  The weather was kind, so our flight made it all the way, unlike later in the season when a number of aircraft had to boomerang.

Stepping off the plane in Antarctica I got my first sight of Erebus, standing tall and proud behind the Ivan and two Deltas.  I stupidly didn't take any photos of the plane or the mountain, got onto Ivan and headed out to MacTown.

The next five weeks have been a haze of working long hours with intermittent flurries of drinking.  I spend alot of hours at LDB as a Beaker, though I try to boondoggle now and again.  Before I could get off base for any trips or hikes I had to attend an OSL (safety first).  A couple of weeks back I got to go on Happy Camper.  Most of this was pretty fun, the hours spent in F-STP weren't great though.

At work (reached by bus from DJ) I deal with SURFs and TURFs, handle alot of BNC, TNC, SMA and N-type though I don't see much of the LARKs and SHORTs.  The other members of the team and from UH, UCLA, UW, UD and OSU.  The data we get from ANITA during flight will mainly be sent via TDRSS, though LOS is much better when available.  Right now I'm working on Ryan's MAGIC Display, trying to make pretty plots with the help of a BEDMAP image.

Our neighbours at LDB are CREAM and ULDB.  We're here with NASA and NSF funding.  I'm quite jealous of people who get to go out to base camps away from McMurdo - I've met people headed for AGAP (north and south) and WAIS divide as well as Pole.  There are also people working is ASMAs and ASPAs which must be pretty cool.

The community here is pretty odd, as expected, but I've met some pretty cool DAs, not so many GAs though, and only one PI and no DVs.  Most people in McMurdo are USAP participants, though I have met some from BAS and AntNZ.  I've been to a party in the BFC, which is near the Helo pad and MMI.  It can get dull out here, but there are activities posted on Highway 1 to help keep people occupied.

I'm trying to make the most out of being here, but I am looking forward to heading home already.  Bag drag is still a long time away though, especially with ANITA still on the ground.

Pressure (and pressure ridges)

Long time, no blog!  For the last few days I've spent most of my waking hours here:

Up the bowels of ANITA setting up cabling.

We've been taking calibration data for every channel in ANITA.  This is all highly important to the success of the project, but it would have been good if myself and Abby had only had to take each data set once ... not twice, like we've ended up doing.  It's all very frustrating, but needs doing.

ANITA suspended outside the hangar to test the drop down antennas

There has been good news for ANITA in the last week, however.  The drop down mechanism was tested and works.  Then, last Sunday, we had our hang test.  This involves setting up and hanging the instrument from the 'Boss', the vehicle used to launch the balloons from, in full flight configuration.  After a lot of stress we finally got everything ready and were passed with only a couple of minor difficulties that have since been resolved.  So now we have a period of time during which we're taking all measurements that could possibly be useful while we wait to launch.

Away from work the irritation at measurement taking hasn't been helped by a certain boredom.  It seems idiotic that I've come all this way, to a such an impressive continent that most people will never see, though many would love to, and I get bored!  So I've resolved to make more of an effort!

I did get to go on a tour of the pressure ridges just where the ice shelf meets Ross Island at Scott Base.  The ice shelf can apparently move a few feet a week, so where it meets the land large fractures form.  The ice shelf is only 8 or so feet thick here and walking along the ridges may sound dangerous, but the largest transport to work is 60 tons and crosses the ice near the ridges so I guess it's OK!  Anyway, there isn't much to tell about the walk, other than it was stunning.

Pressure ridges

An issue of charge buildup

I expected it to be cold in Antarctica.  I knew it would be dry and windy.  I'd seen photos of the amazing scenery and even kind of knew what to expect from McMurdo.  One thing I did not expect: static electricity.

Every day I get an electric shock at least once.  Sometimes I'll get shocked a load of times in the space of 5 minutes.  It's pretty annoying!  The fact that the air is so dry down here means that static, that anywhere else would dissipate, builds up very quickly.

My bed covers always feel fuzzy, even from a few inches away, and every time I take off my coat (fleece lining really doesn't help) I can feel the charge stacking up.  So putting on any man made fibers, and then grabbing a door handle delivers a quick shock - the strongest of which jump through the coat lining, so covering up a hand before touching metal doesn't help.

The oddest static moment I had, however, wasn't from grabbing metal after building up static.  I was wearing my Big Red and listening to my ipod on the way to the outhouse.  Sitting down (on the can ... picture it!), I kept getting pricks of pain in my ear.  Now, my headphones had been playing up recently and had lost their protective rubber covers - so I thought the plastic was just poking into my ear. Taking the headphones off though, I realised the covers over the speakers were metal mesh - so each time this touched my skin some of the static build up was conducted down my headphone wire.

The best way to cope with this annoyance - carry a cup of water (or stand near a tap), every time a coat is taken off/put on, wet a hand!