To Work

Last flight out. Goodbye summer. Bring on the winter!    

             Two days ago we said goodbye to the last of the summer folks. For me that meant that the cryo facility is now officially my responsibility. Normally, when a new cryo tech is hired, they spend 13 months down here, four of which are spent getting trained and getting to know the systems. But because of the fact that I was hired late, I got about 6.5 days of training. The previous cryo tech, Flint, and I put in a week of long hours trying to get me oriented and trained on all my duties, and making sure everything was in good working order before winter and station close.

Flint and I, just before he leaves and I take over cryo.

             Usually, when people get to the pole, they get the rest of the day to relax and acclimate a bit, but we got straight to work. That first day was mostly me watching and listening to Flint and a couple of scientists from BICEP2, the main science I am supporting this winter. The next couple of days consisted of transferring the helium Flint and I escorted from McMurdo to the pole in 500L dewars into our three Wessington dewars, each ~4000L.

From L to R: Simon, Theo, and Alvin

I did one of these for each dewar, as well as couple of other fixtures.
This is mainly used to help regulate the pressure in the dewars.

             Flint joked that the cryo tech is basically a glorified plumber, and there is certainly a lot of that happening as well. I did a lot of rebuilding of the fixture on top of the dewars, swapping Teflon tape with Locktite and replacing some of the fittings and valves, in an effort to seal up some leaks. That is especially important this year because we have less helium than is normal for the winter. Usually, liquid helium is transported down to the Pole in a 12,000 and 18,000L dewar, but due to a couple of screw-ups that made for a hectic summer for Flint the helium had to be brought down in many small dewars, and that translated to less helium. My goal for the winter is not to run out of helium before the first week of November. That translates to roughly 38L/day or less used; last year they used ~42L/day. Before he left, Flint and I came up with a couple of plans to help the helium last. I also learned how to run the LN2 plant, recharge the compressors, change the adsorbers on said compressors, how to pump down a lines who’s vacuum has gone soft, along with all the record keeping and reporting. I’ve also got two, or possibly three, science projects I am running/monitoring this winter.

            Now that training is over, things have calmed down a bit and I am working a little shorter days (our hours are supposed to come to 54hrs/week, or 9hrs, 6 days/week). It still feels weird that I am responsible for this, though. It is my first real job, and if I screw up it means that the science I’m supporting doesn’t happen. But I feel pretty optimistic, and that I can handle things.

            On a different note, when I first got the job offer Doug (from Finn Sisu) and I were doing a little research on South Pole Station. We found out that the tradition is to watch The Thing and The Shining after the last plane leaves. We didn’t watch The Shining, but we did watch The Thing (1982, Kurt Russel) and The Thing (2009). The 2009 one was a prequel, and I actually thought it was pretty good. The movies both take place at remote stations in Antarctica in the winter, and in the last few weeks before winter, respectively.

             Lastly, yesterday my heart rate was finally back to normal, more or less, so I took that to mean I had adjusted to the 9,000ft+ elevation here and went for a run (short and on a treadmill). It felt great. My next step is to find the ski hut, and go ski.