In the late afternoon Steve Keil arrived from Christchurch. Steve is a solar physicist with the Air Force. He works in Sunspot, New Mexico, where I spent 4 months in 1988. We are responsible for the science aspects of the program. Steve is actually doing most of that work since I was concentrating on the optics.
Not much was going on today. I start to feel a little bit bored. I would rather start working on the payload. Recycling here works very well. There are typically about 10 containers for food, food contaminated stuff, burnable material, plastic, metal, aluminum, etc. When giving back the plates from dining, you scrap food into one box, burnables go into another.
The weather is still just great, condition 3 as they tend to say here. Under condition 3 you can basically do anything and go anywhere, as long as you take your emergency equipment with you, i.e. the complete set of cold weather gear etc. Under condition 2 you are not allowed to walk around on your own, there need to be two people at least. Furthermore, whenever you take a vehicle, you have to radio when you start and say where you go and call again when you arrive at that place. Condition 1 is easy to imagine: don't even think about leaving the building you are in right now. We have not yet experienced anything else than condition 3.
The science talks make life here more interesting. There are about 90 science projects going on simultaneously. Everybody is working hard on their experiments so that the talks are a great way to learn something in detail about the other projects.
At 8:30 am we (everybody except Phil) took a van to Williams field. The ride was fantastic. The weather was a little warmer and the strong temperature gradients in the air led to wonderful mirages. We saw a large lake with islands and mountains on their peaks. I have been seeing mirages when driving to Kitt Peak in winter, but I have never seen such spectacular mirages before. I only took a few images and do not know whether they show the phenomenon well. The weather was very pleasant, no clouds at all. Mt Erebus with over 13000 feet extends right from sea level up to the peak and is a spectacular view. It always has a little cloud on top, since it is an active volcano and puts some steam out. Ross Island where McMurdo is located is also of volcanic origin, which is reflected in the type of dirt we have here. It is like coarse black sand.
At Williams field there are two buildings we are using. There is the Silver Barn, a former machine shop. They have gotten rid of things in there and installed a new wooden floor since the original one was very greasy. However, they still had a mezzanine filled with old stuff. We helped the people there to bring this stuff either into other buildings or put it on trucks that go to McMurdo. It was amazing how much old stuff they still had here that was not used anymore. In any case, it was a good work-out for all of us. The other building is just adjacent to the Silver Barn and we call it the Silo. It is the new wooden building they built for us to integrate (prepare) the balloon payload. We share these two buildings with a smaller group that launches a balloon payload to study cosmic rays (JACEE), i.e. high-energy particles such as protons, from various astronomical sources. Their payload is very simple, it consists of a stack of photographic emulsions that will spend 2 weeks at high altitude where the cosmic rays have been less attenuated by the Earth's atmosphere.
We had lunch in a tent at Williams field. These tents look like half of a cylinder laying on the flat side and are called Jamesway (the name of the company who built these tents). They have a wooden floor, heating, windows, and insulation; they are quite comfortable. After lunch we had a meeting with the people there from the NSBF (National Scientific Ballooning Facility) who will be responsible for the balloon. NSBF is part of NASA. Things are more or less ok. The cosmic ray group should launch their balloon next Monday. We hope to have the telescope out of its box by the end of this week, which is more delay than I would like to have. However, the silo is still missing the doors, and we cannot risk to put the telescope in there without doors to be shut in the case of a storm. Unfortunately, the Silver Barn has not large enough a door to have the gondola in there (the gondola is 13.5 feet or 4 m high).
After the meeting we started unpacking the computers and other electronic equipment. Due to moisture in the boxes either left over from packing in Palestine, Texas, or from sea water getting into the boxes on the ship to New Zealand, most equipment was wet and a little corroded. We therefore unpacked things and stacked them in the Silver Barn. If we would try to power up wet electronics, it might easily get damaged. We expect that we have to dry things for about 48 hours. Around 4pm we headed back to town (McMurdo) and had a short meeting to plan tomorrow's activities. After dinner we watched a movie that Dave had rented (actually we don't pay anything to rent a movie). It was called 'The Wild Thing' and was quite amusing.
Here is a little 'social' story. We all think that we gain weight here, just because we feel a little lonely and bored. Dave and Harry therefore decided to make a bet. They both measured their weight yesterday, which defines their zero points. They both will now either gain or lose weight. At the end of the expedition, they both will weigh themselves again. If both lost 10 pounds, they do not owe each other anything. For each pound of difference there will be a 'charge' of $10. If Harry looses 10 pounds while Dave gains 10 pounds, Dave owes Harry $200.
After lunch I spent time with image processing. One of the tasks of Phil's program is to automatically adjust the position of the electronic camera so that we get the sharpest possible images. This is equivalent to focusing a photographic camera. During our discussions in the morning we realized that we are unlikely to be able to test this program from the ground since the images here from Williams Field will always be heavily distorted by the Earth's atmosphere. I therefore wrote some code to produce artificial images that seem to be at various positions out of focus. I can also simulate motion of the images due to instabilities of the gondola on the balloon and noise due to electronic problems. Phil now has these images and starts to test his program.
We had a meeting with all nine people of our group at 5:30pm. We shortly discussed what we have done today and what we want to do tomorrow. Kim and Russ unpacked more stuff at Williams Field and prepared it for drying. In general not much has happened. A noticeable change today was the weather. Today was mostly overcast and the weather department even predicted condition 2 for this afternoon and tonight. However, this condition 2 never occurred.
After lunch we headed for the talks at the Crary Lab. Between 7:30 and 8pm the NSF people gave an overview of flight opportunities and operations during the next week. They will try to keep the ice landing strip open during the next week. Afterwards the 'airport' will be moved to Williams Field, which is on the permanent Ross Ice shelf, but further away from McMurdo. A woman from the Kiwi (New Zealand) Scott base reported on a management plane for the hut peninsula ( this is part of Ross Island where both McMurdo and Scott Base are located) where both the US and New Zealand have an interest in. At 8pm a science talk was given on 'Why fish do not freeze here'. The talk was very interesting and I will spend some time here to describe it. Please keep in mind that I am only an astronomer, my recollection is likely to contain big mistakes.
First of all it was interesting to learn the difference between arctic and antarctic oceans. The arctic region is an ocean surrounded by land and some warm ocean streams, while Antarctica is land surrounded by an ocean. Circular ocean streams provide a rather strong barrier between antarctic oceans and the northern, warmer currents. There is actually a rather strong temperature barrier where the water temperature decreases from 6-7 C to 2 C. This barrier is hard to jump over for most animals.
The water temperature here is about -1.9 degree C or 28.5 F. The water is filled with small ice crystals. The fluids in fish would freeze at that temperature. How do the fish manage to stay alive. Their fluids are super-cooled, i.e. the temperature is below their freezing point and would instantly freeze if it would get in contact with ice crystals. The ice crystals from the water can enter the fish since they are only about 5 micrometers in size. How do the fish avoid death by freezing? One might think that NaCl or glycol might help here, but it turns out that the required amount of antifreeze would be enormous and not efficient. The fish have developed a system that is much more efficient and requires only a small number of molecules. The have glycopeptids (proteins with sugar added if I got that right) that attach to ice crystals. Actually they attach to those faces of the crystals that are most likely to grow in size. These proteins therefore inhibit the growth of ice crystals in their body fluid. It is not yet clear how the ice crystals get removed from the fluid. They speculate that the proteins attached to the ice crystals might be detected to the immune system and being removed in a way comparable to the handling of bacteria etc.
At 9am we took off towards the north. After a few hours of driving on the ice, we reached Shackleton's hut on Cape Royds. Shackleton was British and led an antarctic expedition in the beginning of this century. The hut has been preserved as a historic monument and looks almost as if it had been used by Shackleton and his men only a few years ago. One can still see food containers (some are open and one can see the content), the skeleton of a dog, and a lot of their equipment like sledges, skis, books etc. We had a key to the hut and could therefore also go inside. Even more fascinating were the penguin and seal colonies close by. We could approach penguins up to about 15 feet (5 meters) and I think that I got some good pictures. Penguins look so funny when they walk. I estimate that there were about 1000 penguins. The seals are Weddell seals, about 6-8 feet (2 to 2.5 m) long and they look really heavy. We also saw a smaller colony of seal females feeding their puppies. The reason for the seals and the penguins to be there is that the sea ice ends at that point (at this time), and both species can therefore have access to the water to catch fish etc. The seals also like to catch penguins. At this crossing from ice to water, the ice has often strange forms and there are little lakes on the ice. The animals and the landscape were really fantastic. We had lunch close to the penguin colony, where we shared small snacks that we have brought along. What else could I have brought along than Swiss chocolate? Imagine, 6 people sitting on the ground, watching and taking pictures of penguins, eating snacks, and all this at 10 degrees F (-10 C) without feeling cold because they are dressed almost like astronauts on the moon.
The reason for Matt and Karen to go out there was to take away the flags that lead the way to the hut. The ice is getting thin and they do not want people to move out there anymore. They were looking for volunteers to help them. On the way back we therefore got all the flags along the path. These flags are made of bamboo sticks and carry red or green flags. The flags have a distance of about 100 feet (30 m). On the way back we stopped at Cape Evans, which is another hut used during the early antarctic expeditions. This hut was even more impressive. Inside it really looked like people have just left. Outside we could see the skeleton and skin of a dog, still on its leash that is attached to the hut. Inside there was a large pile of seal meat (stinking just a little after almost 100 years). It is amazing how well preserved things are here and how easy and unrestricted the access to these buildings is (well, there are no regular tourists here).
The ride in general was also interesting. I saw antarctic glaciers that extend into the frozen ocean, fantastic ice structures made of blue and white ice. We even had a little precipitation in the form of snow. I also got to know the forms of ice and how to estimate the thickness of the ice. I saw and learned a lot of things today.
We arrived back at McMurdo around 5pm. Driving on the snow mobiles is not too comfortable. They are very loud so that we had to wear ear plugs, which makes any communication hard. I was glad to get out of the many layers of cloth and into more comfortable cloth. Using a heated bathroom was also a pleasure, compared to 10 degrees F (-10 C) on the ice and in the wind.
Kim, Harry, and Phil were out at Williams Field today. They experienced their first condition 2. The wind speed was up at about 20 miles per hour (30 km/h) and the wind blew a lot of snow into the air (remember that Williams Field is on the Ross Ice shelf which is covered by at least 15 feet (3 m) of snow). Therefore the visibility was low. On the ice air strip the visibility was so bad that an LC-130 (which is a C-130 with skis) Hercules could not land and decided to land at Williams Field. Phil told me that the pilots called on the radio and asked whether the place at Williams Field is free. After Phil went out and checked that nobody was close by, the LC-130 landed on its skis. Our three guys were further unpacking things and started to power up the 'dried' computers. So far everything worked well.
This time we went out on the the frozen ocean ice to a place where they had studied large penguins until recently. Unfortunately the penguins were gone, but there were three Weddell seals. I got some great portrait shots from a distance of about 10 feet (3 m). One of the seals then decided to go diving through a hole in the ice. We didn't see it for a long time. I then suddenly heard something breathing quite hard, but I couldn't find any trace of a seal. Finally I noticed a small black thing on the ice. It turned out to be the nose of the seal looking out through a very small hole in the ice, about 4 inches wide. Later on the seal showed up again in his larger whole (where he went into the water first), and I hope that I got some good shots of that too. The Weddell seals are about 6 feet to 8 feet (2-2.5 m) long and look fat and heavy. They have small flippers and a split tail that looks a little like very flat feet. Their fur is kind of grayish with some marks in it. We are amazed how they find holes in the ice. The place we were at yesterday was about 15 miles away from the open ocean. The holes that the seals used today had been drilled by the penguin researchers since they kept the penguins there, far away from any other water hole so that the penguins were forced to use those holes. As far as I know the researchers made blood and other measurements while the penguins were diving in these holes. Although these were artificial holes at a place far away from the water and at a location were one would not expect holes (on the open ice), the seals found them. This is very amazing.
We then started picking up all the flags from the former camp site to the main route over the ice. After driving a little further north on the route we took yesterday, we drove to the edge of a glacier (where it meets the sea, still frozen now). There people had discovered an ice cave, i.e. a system of crevasses that form a system of caves. It was great in there. The cave was only covered by maybe a foot (30 cm) of ice so that sunlight could still partly get into the cave. The light in there was very blue and violet, almost like a UV lamp. There were fantastic ice crystals and structures. Brian removed all the ladders, ropes etc. that were helpful when climbing around in the ice. Since Cathy and Joe already knew the cave, they had collected all the flags to the main route. We drove back to McMurdo with some stops to take pictures of more seals. We arrived at 6:30 pm after collecting about 300 flags. We just made it for dinner.
At dinner I met Graham, Phil, and Steve. Phil told me that I can move into a better room in a better building. I am now in a new, large building where the rooms have their own bathroom. We are still two people in the same room. I have not yet met the other guy. After dinner I moved all my stuff to the new room.
When I got back to my room, I met my new room mate Dave. He is with ASA and works in the mechanical shop on the heavy machines. We have a window that looks out onto the frozen ocean and the mountain range on the other side of the McMurdo bay, a very nice view indeed. Dave works during the 'night' from 7:30pm to 5:30am. So we are almost never in the room at the same time. We share a bathroom with a shower with the people of the next room.
At 11 am we had to take a class in outdoor safety, and I now have a US Antarctic Field Safety Training Certificate. This allows me to go outside on field trips on the ice or on glaciers on flagged routes. The trips I did in the last two days and any trip to Williams Field would basically require owning such a card. Well, bureaucracy here is strange. They require us to take these classes, fill forms and sign things, but it is not so important that you do it before you are actually required to have it. It seems to me that many things here are very bureaucratic in theory, but practice is a lot better. At this class we saw a video that mentions recent accidents and why they happened, the signs and effects of freezing noses and fingers etc. We also got to know the different colors of flags on trails. Red and green mark safe routes (red is to the right when returning home, the Navy uses the same convention red-right-return), black flags mark dangerous things, if you see a black flag, don't even think about approaching it, and yellow flags mark recommended spots for urinating (in an attempt to centralizing the yellow snow). We didn't learn too much, but we got a nice booklet that describes recreational activities outside of McMurdo including a trip to a close-by mountain.
After lunch we were supposed to go out to Williams Field to work on the payload. Russ was already out at Willy Field and was supposed to drive in to pick us up at McMurdo at 1:30pm. Shortly before that Russ called and said that there was no van available to pick us up. Dave then went around to search for one of the two vans that we can use. But he couldn't find one. We were then supposed to be picked up by somebody else at 2:30pm by another van. Of course, nobody showed up at 2:30pm, because people out at Willy Field said that the van was in McMurdo. It turned out that Dave didn't read the vehicle numbers correctly to find out which van we can use. So, indeed, our van was sitting in McMurdo all the time and we arrived at Willy Field around 3:30pm. The carpenters have been working on the silo structure, but the cloth door they constructed did not survive the first test. So, at least another day will pass before we will get to move the gondola inside the silo and I can work on the telescope.
I had nothing to do out there and just helped other people doing some mechanical stuff. We had dinner out there. After dinner we organized a party with dancing for the carpenters and whoever else wanted to enjoy the evening (actually I didn't do anything for it except for getting my ration of beer so that the others could drink more). Graham and I are not really into such parties and left for McMurdo around 8:40pm, before the party had really started.