life in Mac Town Continued

A view looking down the dorm Hallway. Can you tell which door is mine? Yeah, we have the plastic ivy vine on our door.










100% of all waste generated on station is sent back to the US on the cargo ship that comes in Feburary. An interesting fact is that almost 70% of all the waste generated is recycled. All of the garbage is sorted and the recyclable materials are then sold on the open market.








With many people in a confined area the "McMurdo Crud" Goes around and can cause a problem. one of the solutions to reduce the spread of the crud is frequently washing your hands, so they have this hand washing station next to the entrance of the cafeteria so we can wash our hands at least before each meal. the soap and water disperce automatically...A great idea








I toured the "Mac Ops" (McMurdo Operations) office today. This is the communication center. All groups who leave town have to file a trip plan. They check in periodically when in the field and check back in when they get back. This office supplies all the logistics and communications for everything out of McMurdo and the South Pole (exept air traffic control, thats seperate).






This is a view of part of the weather center. There are weather forcasters and weathers observers who take data from many automated ground weather stations, live satellite imagery, and launch small balloons daily that record almost every parameter of the weather for the whole continent. It doesn't look like much, just a bunch of computers, but the stuff they can do is really cool. They have a computer modeling system that uses all the live data to generate forcasts. It was very interesting.

Antarctic Weather

The past few days have brought some fairly intense antarctic weather. The weather center classifies the weather into 3 conditions.

These series of photos was taken looking out of the same window in the dinning room. Observation Hill is in the background. This is a "Clear day," Condition 3. (my picture)










This is what a condition 3 looks like. Under condition 3 there are no hiking resrtictions, so If I wanted to I could hike to the top of Ob. hill (my picture)

Condition 3: When conditions are greater then Condition 2, upto and including clear, calm, sunny days.






This is what a Condition 2 Looks like. During Condtion 2 there is no recreational travel. The person in the photo is walking to the work, (the tan building).

Condition 2: "When any one or all of these conditions exist: — wind speed is greater than 48 knots (about 55 mph) — temperature is below -75°F (-59°C) — visibility is less than ¼ mile."
(my picture)




This is what a Condition 1 looks like. During Condition 1 there is no going outdoors period.

Condition 1: "When any one or all of these conditions exist: — wind speed is greater than sustained 55 knots (more than 60 mph) — temperature is below -100°F (-73°C) — visibility is less than 100 ft. for one minute or more."
(my picture) (not looking out same window, but the effect is the same)

Cool Science Stuff

This is a great sign on a door in the science lab...So naturally I went in to check it out (ok, I had an authorized person with). One of the projects going on right now uses a large laser that shoots a green beam of light straight out of a small hole in the roof. I can see it on clear nights. The laser beam shoots 30Km into the atmosphere and an instrument records data (on the reflected light) on high altitude air crystals. These high altitude air crystals act as sites that allow for the chemical breakdown of the ozone layer to occur. These high altitude air crystals also form Nacreous clouds. http://www.atoptics.co.uk/nacr1.htm (a very rare cloud that I might get to see if the weather wasn't overcast most of the time).

This is the "Big Scary Laser", and the cool Italian guy that runs it. Actually the large silver tube is the telescope that collects the reflected light. The laser is on the other side. The "eye piece" of the telescope is a series of 6 sensors that feed into the computer system. I think the total cost is about $60,000 euro. This data is collaborated with data from frequent balloon launches, and allow us to better understand the vertical profile, and several other variables of the Ozone layer.

What I've Been doing

Climbing Castle Rock at night isn't for the faint of heart. After reaching the summit we were pumped the view was great and the night was perfect. We had a mini picnic and "jumped for joy" before making the descent and heading home. (photo by Thai)







1.2.3. Jump!


On Saturday I found the Green house, the greenhouse here is very small. It was started and initially run soley by volunteers as a community project, now there is a greenhouse tender, they grow a few tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, ect. But not enough to support many people. It is a great asset for the people who winter-over. It my new favorite place, it's open all the time so we can just hang out, read a book, or take a nap. (my pic)

I took a tour of the power plant. All the electricity on the station is generated by Caterpillar 16 cylinder diesel engines hooked to generators. The power plant has 6 large generators, although they only use 3 at any given time. These generators have been running for 25 years! The water that cools the engine's is piped to the dorm buildings and used to heat the rooms. Great idea, use the "wasted" energy to heat the buildings. About half the buildings on station are heated this way. (my pic)



Cosmic bowling. There is a two lane bowling ally here in McMurdo. It was built in 1961, the lanes aren't quite level and there is no automatic pin machine, so there is a person at the end of each lane to reset the pins, and roll the ball back! The pins and some of the balls are fluorescent, and they blow fog on the lanes to make it even more challenging. It's a lot more fun the bowling at home. Everyone who works at the VMF had a department bowling night on Saturday, we had a good time with it. (my pic)