Twilight

A few last auroras before it gets too bright

We had our first (and hopefully only) power outage of the season this week. Outages aren't unheard of, and we've been lucky so far this winter. The generator only failed for about 30 second, so not long, but long enough that I got to run out to cryo to check on the compressors just as I was getting ready for bed. And then I got to hike out to MAPO to restart one of the experiments I'm monitoring. So, a late morning, but I did get treated to this on my way out to MAPO.

Flaglines in the early morning

Along with a beautiful skyline, the lack of wind and "warm" weather (~-60F) made for a pretty nice walk. And things are definitely getting brighter. In fact, if you look closely, you can see shadows (which are, admittedly, partially due to the moon being up right now). We are officially in nautical twilight. Another couple of weeks and we'll be in civil twilight. Then sunrise!

Other than that, we had our monthly ERT drill this week. Not particularly exciting, although we did lose our dummy patient, who was asystole when we got to the scene. But our other patient survived and is doing fine.

The pole marker with the sunrise, moon, Mars, Saturn, and Spica
in the background

The moon behind the power plant

Blog note: I also wanted to point your attention to a new link, South Pole Tumblr. It has pictures, and a few comments, that don't make it onto the blog.

Glow

A glow around the station.

It has been pretty amazing to watch the changes outside the past couple of weeks. Things have gotten brighter, at least when it's clear. Along with the rising light, we've also gotten a little bit wilder weather. Today it is cloudy and in the -60's, yesterday it was clear and in the -90's. While we probably won't make it back down into the -100's again this season, we'll probably get some pretty big swings in temperature as the sun comes back up and more energy is pumped into the atmosphere because of that.

On clear days, we've also been treated to a view of Mars, Saturn and Spica trailing the sun along the horizon.

Spica, Mars, and Saturn off to the right. Wave hello to Curiosity!

That picture is a couple of days old, and since Mars has been moving fast in comparison to the others, those three now form something close to an equilateral triangle, rather than a line. Also, while the picture doesn't show it, now instead of a hint of light, we've got a little bit of orange and pink just above the horizon to go along with the general glow. I think that the prospect of the sun rising has also brought the mood up around the station.

This weekend was our monthly two-day weekend, and to celebrate some folks organized a small fair. There was a chili cook-off, a photo booth, a bean-bag toss, a pie-eating contest and an auction. I somehow got talked into doing the pie-eating contest, so now I will never have to do one of those again. I did come close to winning, but Shawn beat me in the tie-breaker (30 seconds to eat as much pie as we could) by a half an oz. I think his beard gave him an advantage, what with being able to stick more pie to his face. I'm trying to get pictures from some of the spectators, so I will post those when I get them.

Also, I finished up my biggest milage week so far at Pole. 42 miles on the treadmill, and felt good for most of it. I was pretty pleased with myself, and then I read Nicole's blog, where she did 115 miles. So, while I'm still pretty happy with myself, that certainly put things in perspective. Also, the group I've been working out with finished up our P90X rotation and we are now moving on to Insanity, which we should be able to finish up before we redeploy.

Oh yes, we've finally gotten an ETA on our redeployment. No ticketing info yet (we probably won't get that until October), but at least we've got some info. I, and most of my friends are scheduled to get out of here on Nov. 2nd, so depending on weather, it could be the 5th or 6th before we get to New Zealand.

Auroras out by SPT and BICEP2

Maybe getting brighter?

So we are officially in twilight now. The picture above was taken be Robert Schwarz a couple of weeks ago, with a circle around a little bit of brightening on the horizon. It isn’t very obvious. The last couple of days though, it has been noticeably brighter along the horizon. Less than two months until sunrise!

There is light on the horizon!

Probably my most exciting thing down here in the last couple of weeks, is that I did my last liquid nitrogen delivery to Aurora Cam last night. I am also switching over to a swing shift schedule in the next couple of days, so that Steffen and I can do LHe deliveries to BICEP before dinner.

While we haven’t been able to watch the London Olympics (which a number of us are pretty bummed about), we have been doing something with McMurdo to celebrate. The folks at McMurdo are “running the torch” out to us, and we are running is back to them. Basically, people are keeping track of their running mileage and pooling it together, with the goal of reaching 830 miles before sunrise. After a little more than a week, the South Pole runners are at 80 miles, and I’ve added 46 of them. There have only been four people adding mileage so far, so hopefully a couple more people will start posting their miles, so we can get the torch back to McMurdo faster.

Star trails. Since the stars never go below the horizon, if you
do time-lapse photography, you get something like this.
Photo courtesy Robert Schwarz

Green

Auroras at the South Pole, from the ground (courtesy of Robert Schwarz) and above from the ISS

So, there has been lots of solar activity the last couple of weeks, which means we’ve been getting some pretty amazing light shows down here. And since the sun is slowly making it’s way towards the horizon, we are also starting to get some reds and purples along with the usual green auroras.

The other place we are getting green is of course the green house, which has been our only source of fresh food since station closing back in February. It is also a great place to just hang out. It is warm and bright and humid and has actual smells, unlike the rest of the station, which tends to be a little chilly, a little dark and very dry (relative humidity is usually in the single digits).

Our green house is run by the University of Arizona, which is the same institution that is developing greenhouses for a possible human settlement on the moon. Since the Antarctic Treaty prohibits bringing soil down here, the plants grown in a hydroponics-system, fed by nutrient rich water. The system is closely monitored, from water, minerals, CO2, and light, to temperature, pH, and humidity, and the outputs, like the weights and types of produce harvested are carefully measured.

The rate at which things grow down here is pretty incredible. In their natural habitat plants do fairly well, but they have to make due with what they have. Down here the plants can be given almost exactly what they need so they grow really well. We could probably make them grow even better if we optimized for a single crop, but since variety is the spice of life, and makes meals more interesting, we have to make compromises. So things like strawberries don’t get as much light as they’d like, which means they don’t grow as fast or as big as they could.

Basil sprouts, among others

Seeds are planted in a sponge-like substrate, which is initially placed on a tray with a thin layer of water on the bottom. As the root system develops, they are moved to troughs that line the green house.

The plants are fed through a complex computer-controlled system of hydraulic system of pumps, mixers, tubes and measurement sensors hidden under the troughs.

Our not very big strawberries

The troughs are built on rails so that different plants can be rolled in and out depending on how much light the various plants need.

We've got lots of lettuce down here

Also, a variety of chard. Very colorful, and tasty.

Our tomatoes have not done very well this winter

But the peppers look very pretty, even if I don't like them

What's left?

Auroras above DA

Well, we are down to our last week of full dark down here at the Pole. Next week the moon rises once more, and once it sets we will be in astronomical twilight. The sun will still be ~17 degrees below the horizon, but things will be getting slowly brighter, until sunrise hits in about 70 days.

We’ve also hit our coldest temperatures so far this season, at –104F, and things are expected to get colder before the end of July. Along with the cold temperatures, we’ve also had some very active skies, due to lots of solar activity. Even though it is supposed to be dark out, today when I walked out of the station to go to cryo there was a glow in the sky, and I could see the outline of the buildings out in summer camp. Compare this to yesterday, when I couldn’t see my hand a foot in front of my face and just about missed the stairs to get back up to the station. 

Moon and auroras from moon set last week

So what is still left of the season? Like I said above, we’ve got less than 70 days until sunrise. After that we’ve got station opening on October 27^th, which is in 93 days. That means less than a hundred days until we get freshies (fresh fruits and veggies), which I am looking forward to. I’ve got at most 111 days until I leave the Pole, depending on weather and when Lockhee-Martin gets around to ticketing us. We’ve got 4 emergency drills, 4 safety stand-downs and 4 two-day weekends left before the summer folks show up. We’ve got about 15 soccer and volleyball nights left.

Out at cryo, we’ve got 6,700L of LHe left, and from my projections, we’ll have about 2,500L of LHe left on the 1^st of November. This winter will just beat the record for most efficient in terms of LHe usage. I’ve got no more than 20 LHe deliveries to BICEP left. Once this winter is over, there will be no more LHe used on station, and the summer cryo tech, who will be closing down cryo, will be the last cryo kid at Pole, at least for the foreseeable future. Two of the LHe dewars will get pulled pretty much as soon as possible and be replaced by a brand new experiment.

In terms of life, this week was pretty uneventful. We started out with pretty warm temperatures, which made my Wednesday delivery easy. By Friday, temps were down to the –90’s, and have been below a hundred for most of the weekend. There is a group of us that have been working out together before dinner most days, and thanks to that I can now pretty consistently do a couple of pull ups, so that’s exciting. And in order to keep out of trouble, some of us have been making our own fun, in the form of office slacklining.

Happy 4th!

South Pole Station in the moonlight

Happy 4th of July to everyone. Here at the Pole we didn't actually get to celebrate until yesterday, when most folks had a half day. Those who were awake (a.k.a. not me, or the handful of other people working nights) had a party hosted by the heavy shop. From what I hear, there was horse shoes, and corn hole, a roast pig, and lots of other food. Jared was kind enough to make me up a plate, so I didn't completely miss out on the festivities.

Other than that, it has been a long week in cryo. It looks like our compressor contaminated some of our vented helium that we were pumping into storage tanks, and then recondensing back into liquid helium. So, we ended up with an ice block and a very slow transfer during the weekly delivery. It took 3 hours, instead of the usual 1.5 hrs. We did get the ice block cleared afterwards, but still had work to do on the condensation line, like pump it down to vacuum again to make sure that we got any air and water vapor out of it. That involved draining the cold trap, and then waiting for the line to warm up enough that we could pull it out. Even with waiting for that, we still ended up damaging the line. So, I learned how to install aeroquip fittings on a high pressure line, which was actually kind of fun. After that we got everything put back together. We're waiting on starting to condense into the LHe dewars until we need to, though.

I also started doing maintenance on the compressor, only to find out that the spares we are supposed to have down here don't actually exist. So, no parts, no maintenance.

Good news, I think I have finally figured out the exact right gear to wear during deliveries. Generally when I'm outside I just wear my Carhartts, but deliveries require more gear since I am usually out for longer, and riding around on Buzz can get pretty chilly, especially on the hands.

So here's what I've found works best. Long underwear under regular clothes. Then my long sleeve with thumb holes (so I don't end up with gaps at the wrist). Then the overalls. NEOs on my feet. Liners and ski gloves on my hands. A buff, two hats, another buff, another hat, goggles, and a head lamp with a red light. Then to top it all off, my USAP parka with bear paw mitts. I also put hand warmers in the mitts, one in the main part of the mitt for my fingers, and one stuffed in the thumb. I've been using this combination for the last couple of weeks, and my fingers can get a little cold, as can my face if I have to put the goggles up because of fogging issues, but the rest of me stays warm, and no frostbite on my face or finger tips, like I was getting earlier in the season.

Beyond that, not much has been going on here. We are into the third quarter of our stay down here, which means that people, including me, are starting to feel the effects of the "third quarter phenomenon". This is generally characterized by boredom, fatigue, irritability, and a general low in moral and mood. And I've certainly been feeling a bit bored and run down lately. Other people have been feeling the same way. This is actually a pretty common occurrence for people in any isolated environment, and occurs for pretty much any length contract. For example, here in the winter, we've got "Cry in July" and "Angry August".  In the summer, third quarter is called "Summer Toast". So far, things haven't been too bad, just a matter of keeping myself engaged and not doing anything overly stupid. We'll see what the next couple of months bring though...

The moon through the smoke trail from the power plant.

Happy Midwinter!

This week we celebrated midwinter. It officially happened sometime on June 21^st, but we had our party over the weekend. At this point we are about three months from sunrise (although we will have about a month of twilight before that), four months from station open and the first flight in (scheduled for Oct 27^th, that may or may not happen depending on weather), and about four and a half months from the official end of the winter contract. Midwinter is one of the three big holidays down here over the winter, a bit like Christmas. And like at Christmas time, we’ve been getting greetings from the other Antarctic stations, and sent our own out to them.

Sorry about the blurriness. There are about 30 greetings from other
stations, along with four or five letters from various government agencies.

Here at the Pole, our celebrations kicked off on Friday night with a screening of “The Shining” in our drive-in theater, a.k.a. the gym.  I had a delivery though, so no movies for me. I also missed most of the festivities on Saturday, since I am still on nights, and will be for at least another month. I did wake up for Midwinter dinner. Beforehand, we had appetizers and drinks in the lounge.

Travis wore his Antarctic Service Medal from a few seasons ago.

Then we made our way to the dinning area, which had been set up and decorated by a number of volunteers, with a number of people donating  illegal candles to the cause.

My table, from L to R: Heather, Sven, Katie, Nate.
Not pictured: Jared, Jeremy, Tracy

Shawn made a bunch of these copper sleds as table center pieces.
They were pretty cool!

2011-2012 patches from the IT folks

For dinner we had:

Crab bisque in a bread bowl

Green beans, garlic mashed potatoes, brie-and-apple stuffed halibut, lobster tail.

It was my first time trying lobster, and I can't say I was super impressed, but the halibut and potatoes were very good.

Chocolate lava cake, with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce. Yum!

After dinner there was a dance party that I caught part of before heading out to work. There were still a few people still dancing when I came back in at around 2AM.

All in all, a good weekend!