SPRESSO

I am not blogging about the super dark and small Italian coffee, but about the South Pole Remote Earth Science and Seismic Observatory (SPRESSO).  It is the most sensitive seismometer in the world.  With advances in technology, seismometers these days have become so sensitive that even the waves of the oceans breaking against the coastlines of the continents can be recorded.  But a seismometer needs to measure the movements of the earth, not the action of waves, so the South Pole, located nearly 1,000 miles from the closest body of water, and away from vibrations produced by human civilization, provides the quietest location on earth and allows us to sense the most subtle movements of the earth.
To isolate the seismometer from the activities of the station, it had to be located 5 miles away, and it is one of the farthest scientific instruments from the station.
A couple of days ago I was called to go service the instrument.  5 miles is far enough that we have to take some precautions before going, and we have to go in pairs.  So, I hopped on a snowmobile with Tim, our surveyor, and off we went bumping up and down the sastrugi, like riding a boat on a rough sea, out in the middle of nowhere.  There are no groomed tracks that far out on the ice, so we have to follow a flag line to our destination.  After the 30 min ride we were far enough that the station was barely visible as a dot in the distance, and we could enjoy the view that the first explorers had when they first arrived at the South Pole, 99 years ago.  It took us about 1 hr to do our work, document it, and enjoy the vast expanse of white nothingness in -25 F (-32 C) temperature and 15-knot (17 mph) winds.

Field work at SPRESSO.

Tim, our surveyor, is a veteran of the ice, having spent 9 seasons at the South Pole, and a true lover of the outdoors.  He drove the 5 miles to the SPRESSO site and back.

Cryo

You wouldn't think we needed cryogenics at the South Pole.  At least I didn't: after all this is one of the coldest places on earth!  In fact, we happen to have one of the most sophisticated cryogenics production and storage facilities in the world.  For the non-techies, cryogenics refers to refrigerated liquids, typically liquid nitrogen and liquid helium.  Liquid Nitrogen has a temperature of -196 C, or -320 F, and liquid Helium reaches down to -269 C, or -452 F.  They are used in a variety of scientific and medical applications.  Here we use them to cool the detectors in our telescopes, so they can reach the highest sensitivity to observe the faintest signals from the skies.

The South Pole telescopes: MAPO on the left, the 10-mt telescope and BICEP on the right.  They are located approximately 0.75 miles from the station in what we call the Dark Sector (Photo courtesy CS).

We produce liquid nitrogen on site by compressing and purifying air, while we receive several tons of liquid helium from the US every year.
Once the liquid Helium arrives on station it is stored into very large containers called dewars in a dedicated hi-tech facility.  From these containers it is transferred into smaller dewars that can be delivered to the various science projects.
I have been cross-trained in the cryogenics operation.  The cross-training turned out to be useful when Nick, the primary cryo operator at South Pole, left the station last week to go fetch the year's supply of Liquid Helium from New Zealand.  I made my first delivery to one of the telescopes yesterday.

In this photo taken two weeks ago in the cryo facility, under Nick's supervision, I am being trained in the transfer of liquid Helium from one of the large dewars on the right (the white tank) into the smaller 250-liter dewar (the silver tank on the ground), which is suitable for transport around the station (Photo courtesy AB).

Yesterday I delivered my first dewar to the BICEP telescope.  We secure the dewar onto a sled and haul it with a snowmobile to its final destination in the last mile of a complex liquid helium transportation system.  The liquid helium was produced in the US and transprted on land, sea, air, and, finally, on ice.

This is a photo of the Galaxy Cluster 1ES 0657-56, first observed with the South Pole Telesope.  Now when I look at these beautiful images I can think that I, too, contributed some (photo source: http://mm04.nasaimages.org)/

Happy Camper

This was the first time in my life that I got paid to go camping!  It is part of my job training, a mandatory requirement for everyone who needs to work farther than a few miles away from station.  As my job includes servicing a seismometer located 5 miles away, I got one of the coveted spots in this year's class.  So, after a quick briefing, 9 of us plus a mountaineering instructor piled up into two Pisten Bullys (see http://marcopolie.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html) and headed to a designated spot about a mile away from the station to practice some survival skills and to spend the night out.  Not everyone gets excited about camping out in these temperatures.  It takes a little effort to overcome the psycological barrier of leaving the warmth of the station and brave the elements for a whole day -a little bit like jumping in a pool of cold water- but once out, we all worked hard to stay warm, have a good time, and keep our spirits high.  We were lucky with the weather: the wind had died down to a breeze and the temperature had risen to -26 F (-32 C).  

First we erected two Scott tents.  One was for sleeping (it can sleep up to 4 people), the other was our kitchen and mess tent.  Here I am standing next to one of them.

Then we started cutting snow blocks with a saw to build a wall that would protect our three mountaineering tents from the wind.  Luckily this was only an exercise, as the wind never picked up.

Here is our completed camp -two Scott tents and three mountaineering tents- only 1 mile from the Geographic South Pole.

The kitchen in the Scott tent turned out to be too hot for some of us, so we built an outdoor kitchen on snow blocks and we ended up drinking hot chocolate and cider and cracking jokes late in the night, while a group of five people (but not me) decided to build a snow cave to spend the night in it.  They worked until 3 AM to build a full size room about 8 ft x 6ft, buried three feet under the ice, while we kept the kitchen going to supply them with hot drinks.  In this photo (taken at 2 AM) our friend OV is warming up with one of his favorite drinks.

I chose to sleep in one of the mountaineering tents.  This is the view from the vestibule out towards the open-air kitchen.  I woke up around 9 AM, went skiing for a half hour, and came back just in time to break camp with the rest of the group, eat a cold breakfast, and wait for the Pisten Bullys that would take us back to the station for lunch.

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday, Nov 27.  It was a full  and exciting day for me: I met the first people who skied to the SouthPole this season; I gave a station tour to a group of tourists; I spent 4 hours out and about, running and skiing; and I had the first sit-down dinner with wine and candles since ... oh, I don't even remember.

When I went into comms to check out for my run at 6 in the morning, I found everyone stuck to the windows with binoculars looking at 4 people approaching the station on skis.  We did not know who they were.  I was ready to go out, so I ran out to welcome them to the South Pole.  I found out they were a group of Slovakian who had skied the last degree - meaning that they got dropped off at 89 degree latitude from a plane, and they skied from there.  It took them 7 days to cover the 69 miles to the Pole, pulling sleds and camping along the way.  Unfortunately I did not have my camera to take photos of them, but they looked strong and happy.
After my morning run I got back to the station to guide a group of nine tourists (eight from Russia and one from Switzerland).  We give a canned tour that lasts approximately 90 minutes, showing the highlights of the station, and divulging some of the trivia.

This is the DC-3 that brought the 9 tourists to the pole on Nov 27 and took them back 4 hours later.  It also picked up the 4 Slovakian that had skied the last degree.

I took this picture with the Swiss tourist in front of our Post Office.  If someone can help me identify him, please let me know, so I can send him this photo.  All I know is that he lives in Morges, Switzerland.

The galley transformed into a fine restaurant on Thanksgiving day.  Everone contributed some.  I ironed the table cloths and helped make apple pies.

The Indian Traverse

One of the perks of coming to South Pole for me was that for 12 months I would not see a single car ... not so!
A couple of days ago three Toyotas showed up, having driven more than 1,250 miles from the edge of the continent in a mere week and a half.  They came with the Indian Traverse, a scientific expedition organized by the Indian Station in Antarctica to take meteorological data from the continent.
The cars are modified Toyotas, built by ArcticTrucks, a company in Iceland.  They run on jet fuel, and they each cost about $150k.  They can drive at speeds of up to 25 mph on the ice.  Fuel efficiency?  Just 4 mpg!  They are equipped with a Ground Probing Radar (GPR), a system that senses the presence of crevasses.

The Indian Traverse on final approach to the South Pole in their Toyotas - Foto courtesy AB

Initially I was not impressed by people driving cars to the South Pole, when less than 100 years ago the true heroes of Antarctica risked their lives skiing and pulling sleds here, and I had no interest in going out to see the cars.  But then yesterday I bumped into one of the members of the expedition and had lunch with him: a very nice mechanic from India who has spent the last 13 months in Antarctica at the Indian station.  He told me about the cars, about the axle that broke during the traverse and that he had to repair in the field.  I then met one of the Icelandic Engineers who designed the car, and I started considering that, after all, I had it a lot easier, making the trip from the coast in a much more comfortable airplane and in just 3 hours.  I gained respect for the pioneering efforts of this traverse, and I went out to take some photos of the cars before they left on their 1250- mile trip back to the coast.  Here they are.  Good luck, Indian Traverse!

The ArcticTruck modified Toyota at the South Pole.

At the main entrance of the South Pole Station, ready to leave on the journey back to the coast.

Hotel South Pole (3) - the dining room

I like a restaurant with a view.  One of my favorites is the Cliff House in San Francisco, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  Another one is the Mountain House Restaurant, nestled in the redwood forest on the ridge between the Bay Area and the Ocean.  Well, I have not been disappointed here at the South Pole Station.  The dining room -we call it the galley- has lots of windows, all of them featuring one of the most surreal, unobstructed, and unique views that one could imagine, including the Geographic South Pole and some of our scientific stations.  Getting a window seat is never a problem.

The view from the galley

The galley can sit approximately 100 people at a time.  The large LCD screens hanging from the ceiling constantly display weather conditions, flight arrivals, and satellite connectivity.  The galley is also where we gather for the Sunday night science lectures - last Sunday we learnt about cosmic microwave radiation, the big bang, and the origin of the universe from John Carlstrom, from the Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago, the father of the 10-mt South Pole Telescope,

It is nice for a restaurant to have a view, but it is so much better if the food is good, too.  And the food here is absolutely excellent, starting from the ingredients, to the preparation, to the variety of the selections, and to the friendliness of the kitchen staff.  We have several cooks, and even a baker who makes specialty breads, pastries, and desserts.  The dining assistants and cooks know us by name, they always have a smile on, and know our favorite dishes (tofu scrambles with fresh vegetables for me in the morning, instead of eggs, liquorice tea in the evening).  They do not make me miss home!

A couple of days ago was mexican dinner night.  Notice the fresh tomales, rice, beans, corns, fresh vegetables all the way to the right, and fruit and chocolate dessert on the top.

We have a wide selection of drinks, too: milk, coffee, hot water with  lots of different teas, and fruit juices.  At the far right is the ice cream.

Hotel South Pole (2) - the gym

Every respectable hotel has to have some exercise facilities.  Here at the South Pole Station we have both indoor and outdoor ones.  I will take you through my typical morning routine and show you some of them. On a typical day I get up around 5:30 AM, put on my indoor exercise clothes and head out straight into the gym.  I start with a 5-minute warm up on the stationary bicycle and some stretching.  Then I put on my layers of fleece, balaclava, neck gaiter, heavy socks, two pairs of gloves, goggles, and I am ready for my outside run.  I have tried several running paths, but by far the nicest is the skiway, because it is well groomed and therefore the easiest to run on. 

The gym has stationary bicycles, treadmills, stairmasters, an elliptical machine, a rowing machine, and, not pictured, weight lifting equipment.

To access the skiway I need to check in with "comms" first.  Comms, short for communications, is our operations center.  It is composed of four people who take turns in the control tower and manage the communications with the airplanes and within the station.  In general, no planes move in the early morning, so I can use the skiway until at least 7 AM.  I need to carry a radio with me on my runs, so comms can contact me in case of any changes.  Likewise I need to call and let them know when I get off the skiway.  I love the people in comms: they are super nice, and they always have a little joke for me when I come back from my run with frost all over my clothes.

Sundays are fairly quiet days in comms (today we only had one scheduled twin otter flight), so Sherry let me sit at the control post for this photo.

Running to the end of the skiway and back is only 5 miles, but it takes me close to one hour.  I am not sure what slows me down so much, whether it is the extra weight of the clothes and radio, or the altitude, or the sligthly slippery surface of the ice, or the breathing through the mesh in the balaclava to pre-warm the air that I breathe.  After the run I go back to the gym for a 15 minute warm down on the stationary bicycle and some more stretching, before cleaning up and heading to breakfast.
I will show our dining room (we call it the galley) in a future blog.

Here is a partial view of the skiway from comms.  The two small buildings on the ice are what we call the passenger terminal.  My run goes all the way to the left of this photo and out of the field of view.