This is what the trip to Mars will be like.
We recently saw a movie called Antarctica, about the winter crew. I found it apt, as I had just finished up building some telescope equipment that a bunch of my coworkers had taken to the South Pole Telescope.
The most interesting thing for me was that the winterers felt resentment at having to wait in line for food after the first plane of spring arrived and the cafeteria was clogged with perky, fresh summer visitors. They didn’t mention that the food was therefore also fresh instead of canned.
I was a bartender in Antarctica makes for lively reading. While you’re at it, check out Dr. Broughton’s blog Funranium Labs. And buy some coffee.
I know it’s not quite the same…but that photo looks eerily similar to my neighborhood here on the South Shore of Massachusetts right now. I’m only exaggerating a little. We are buried…and its currently a balmy 8 degrees right here on the coast of Cape Cod Bay. It feels like we are living in a polar station.
The South Pole is more like -20F, so don’t feel so cold.
(I’m in Arizona, where it’s been about 80F every afternoon.)
I worked down at the pole through 2004 as a winter-over. The coldest temperature I saw was -107.9F, and it hit -151.3 with wind chill. We got as warm as -7F one day. But the ice is a pretty consistent -55F, so getting that close to 0 was a surprise. We had a partial eclipse that year, and had national geographic down there filming it. We tracked the temperature drop during the event, and posted the graph for fun. I worked on a project called AMANDA, which eventually became ICE CUBE. As for the fresh fruit …it is such a surprise when those new people first show up, the fruit is welcome! And returning to civilization, the solid ground feels strange (assuming you weren’t a base slug), and suddenly you remember that trees and children exist. Its a bit of a shock.
If you are stuck at an Antarctic station for the winter and you have no applicable skills you can at least make yourself useful by shovelling the walks and driveway.
LOL the snow got so high it buried the entrances to the dome, and when it finally got warm enough for vehicles to function we dug a hole to the underground garage, then used the vehicles to clear the rest of the entrances and exits. But based on the weird responses on this place, I’m guessing its riddled with bots?
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