End of the journey

As usually happens, the end of my trip went by rapidly, without too much to write home about. My two days in McMurdo weren't so bad afterall. I managed to go on some good hikes around the station, getting some close-up seal-views and a great view of Mt. Erebus from Arrival Heights. On my last day it snowed about an inch leaving McMurdo almost pretty in it's coat of white. The weather was a bit dicey, so my flight out was delayed, but only by two hours. There were about 140 of us flying out, but we got to fly on a shiny new C-17. The plane is much bigger on the inside than the outside and even has forward facing seats that recline! It was very comfortable --much more leg room than the commercial airlines. We were back in warm dark Christchurch by 11pm.

I left for the US the next morning, arriving in San Jose, CA some 27 hours later. All told, it was a great trip. Thank you (both) for reading.

Same time next year...?

cheers,
Doug
posted by Doug Caldwell at 8:53 PM

Leavin' on a jet -well, propellor- plane
The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to log into "phobos," our computer on the tower to check on the camera. It was still working. Almost twelve hours of continuous operation! It's not quite an entire Antarctic winter, but it beats the alternative. I vowed not to go to the AASTO or climb the tower on my last half day, figuring I'd just break something if I touched it. The next thing I did was to look out my window and notice that the wind was still blowing hard. As I went up to breakfast I heard the announcement that my plane was "off-deck" and headed for the South Pole, to arrive at 10:30 am. The voice from Comms (the nerve-center of South Pole) was trying to sound optimistic, but the weather wasn't buying it. I packed up, cleaned my room, and put on my ECW gear to get ready for my flight out. By this time two more flights were off-deck and headed south. The third one is to be the last passenger flight out until October.

I went up to the galley to await my flight. It was the most crowded I'd seen it in a week with the 40 exiting passengers and almost as many winterovers there to see them off. Everyone was peering out the windows trying to see the flags one mile from the station: the minumum visibility before planes will land. We all tried to convince ourselves that it was clearing, but in reality we could barely see the ARO building only about 1/2 mile away. At 10:10, Comms announced that my flight was at "pole-3," which means... I'm not sure what..., but it's about 20 minutes from landing normally. Then they added that it would be holding pending improved weather. Around 11, the second plane arrived at "pole-3" and started circling. By noon, the third plane had joined the aerobatics. It was clearing slightly, and the planes have enough fuel to fly for twelve or more hours. Three hours to Pole, three hours back, means they could circle for six hours. More, if they could steal some fuel back from the South Pole reserves. My inside source assured me that they would land no matter what, though she wasn't happy about all of the fuel they were burning flying around in circles. Sure enough, around 1pm the voice from Comms came on and reported one mile visibility (she has really good eyes) and that the first plane would land in 15 minutes. All pax were to report to the flight deck immediately! We all gathered our stuff and set out to wait for the plane. Even though I've only been here for three weeks, it's sad to leave these great people and even sadder to see the people who are separating from their significant others for a long 9 month winter. The plane landed and after a quick cargo offload, then onload, the passengers were hustled aboard. The plane was on the ground for only about 25 minutes.

The flight north was crowded, but not so bad. The LC-130s are pretty comfortable, for a cold, noisy cargo plane. Once again, the spectacular trans-Antarctic mountains made for the most scenic flight of my life. A short three hours later, we landed on the warm (+20F) and sunny ice shelf near Ross Island. The 35 "polies" on my flight got in Ivan the Terrabus for our 1/2 hour drive to McMurdo station. Though it was still below freezing, it was more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the Pole and seemed like a tropical paradise. Mt Erebus looked close enough to touch and had a small plume of smoke coming from its summit. The islands and mountains in this area are spectacular, especially after featureless (though still beautiful) polar plateau.

In short order, the second and third flights from the Pole arrived. The polies were all assigned their rooms in the main building at McMurdo. In spite of the much larger population here, there were enough polies -and they were loud enough- to make there presence known throughout the station. The polies have a certain reputation around here, one which they certainly encourage, and they tend to think themselves superior to the Mactown dwellers. Even after only three weeks there, I was wondering why all these people would want to live at sea level where it's so warm and there's all this dirt!

There was a nice gathering of people at dinner and then later at the coffee house/wine bar. Everyone was looking forward to their flight to Christchurch tomorrow. Everyone except me, that is. Because I'd originally been scheduled to leave the Pole last week, I was put on standby for the flight tomorrow. When I got here, I learned that there was no room and I'd have to stay here until the 18th. Kevin and I managed to see all the local McMurdo sights in about six hours last year, so I'm not looking forward to my stay.

cheers,
Doug
posted by Doug Caldwell at 4:48 PM

Wind, wind, wind
There are strong winds for the 4th day in a row. Dana is getting worried that this is the start of an even windier winter than last year. It's unusually warm for this time of year, -30C, but I'd rather have cold and calm when working outside. By morning, the camera had been operating for twelve hours in the AASTO. I had even kept the camera controller in a styrofoam box all night to see if an overheating problem had caused the difficulties. Since we couldn't find any problems, I wanted to test the cables up on the tower, as they are the only difference between the working system in AASTO and the non-working system on the tower.

During the night, the wind had shifted further east, so Dana had to shift our wind break around the tower. Actually, the wind shifted from north to a different north, but they use a coordinate grid here where "north" is along the line of 0 longitude, "east" is 90 degrees longitude, etc. Dana had heard that the winds were supposed to be increasing throughout the day, so we were anxious to get going. We hoisted the camera controller up the tower and installed it in the EES. Next came the camera with the spare set of cables. When we switched in the first low-temperature cable, the camera controller status light went red. I thought we had found the problem, but to be sure, we put the spare (previously working) cable back, and still had the red light of woe. Since the spare cables were very stiff -they weren't designed for the cold- it was hard to tell if they were connected completely. After a bit of discussion, we decided the only way to test the cables was to bring them all into the AASTO. Once again, we lowered the camera and controller off the tower and took them inside. We then set about extracting the cables from the telescope, something we never really considered doing when designing the telescope: they feed out of the telescope through two clamps and several wind and snow shields, then down through the middle of the Gmount and up through another clamp into the EES. One hour, six clamps, and numerous velcro straps later, we had managed to extract the camera cables and brought them into the AASTO.

It was lunch time on the day before the last flight of the season out of South Pole Station and the SETI planet search project was in pieces on the floor of the AASTO, more disassembled than it has been since leaving California more than a year before. Dana was still optimistic that we could get it all back together before tomorrow morning, but I wasn't feeling so certain. When I told Cargo Paddy the situation at lunch, she said something like "...that's not good, really...not...good." She's a big supporter of the project, so her words of doom didn't help my spirits.

Most of the summer people have left, so the galley is very quiet even during normal meal hours. It's kind of nice to not have to finish eating in a hurry and make way for the next round of diners. Today however, I didn't linger, but headed back out to test the camera with the low-temperature cables. I connected the camera and controller, turned it on, and got a green light!? I disconnected the cables and tried again. Still green. I shook and bent and twisted the cables and the camera was still working. By this time, Dana had come back and we had to decide what to do. We hadn't found the problem, but the system was working fine down in the AASTO. Since it would have been practically impossible for Dana to install the camera by himself, we decided to do it today before I left, even though we hadn't really fixed anything. We had six hours before I had to deliver my checked bag to cargo, and then another twelve hours before I had to actually get on the flight. Dana had been right about the increasing winds, too. ...and then a miracle occurred.... 9:00pm and the camera, cables, controller, and computer were all back in place on the tower. We plugged in the power, turned on the controller, and... GREEN! It was working on the tower! Just to be sure, we turned everything off and on a couple of times, then watched it for about half an hour to make sure it wasn't going to die. When we were satisfied, we headed back to the station cold and tired.

As we walked back, the wind was up to 28 knots making it hard to even see the enormous elevated station just 500m away. Again tonight all three evening flights had headed back to McMurdo without landing. With bad weather early in the season, the station was already 30 flights behind schedule and had just barely met their minimum reserve fuel supply for the winter. Several science projects have been cancelled, and numerous winterover workers were sent out since the equipment they needed hadn't arrived at Pole. Missing more flights was making everyone stressful.

As part of a last-night tradition I headed down to the bar in the dome to celebrate our last minute seeming success. There were a number of people there, many of them winterovers seeing off the last of the summer folks. The funky bar is one of the buildings in the dome slated for demolition this winter. It only has a few weeks left. It's not very photogenic, but has 30 years of South Pole "character." It'll be sorely missed in the much more sterile and corporate new station. I'm sure the people down here will manage to leave there mark on whatever new space turns out the be the hang-out spot, though. While at the bar, I was treated to a an impromptu jam session with Tom (of Speed Carrot/Squeaky Meat fame) on guitar, Jess "Janice Joplin" Dempsey singing lead, and Cargo Paddy doing harmony. They were really good and it made for a special last night. Best of all was the improvised -and prophetic- "Mactown Blues." After finishing my one beer for the night, I went back through the dome to my room. On my way I noticed the large doors at the dome entrance had been closed. Curious, I opened the person-sized door to be greeted by a full-on Antarctic blizzard. It was completely white and the winds were howling! I decided to take the tunnels to the new station. The wind was shaking the "beercan" as I climbed the million flights of stairs up to the station. Looking out the galley windows, I could barely make out the flags at the South Pole proper, only about 50 meters away! It was neat to be treated to a little bit of winter weather, though I was glad to be inside and glad Dana and I had finished on the tower before the worst of it.

cheers,
Doug
posted by Doug Caldwell at 10:32 PM

Still here...
I was a little disconcerted again last night as I watched 40 people leaving on the flight I was supposed to be on. It was originally scheduled to leave this morning, but got bumped to last night in order to meet the connection out of McMurdo. I found out that the flight was leaving early when Dana and I were about half way through disassembling the telescope to take out the camera. Leaving last night would have meant leaving Dana with parts of the experiment scattered all over the floor. I called the flight coordinator and was happy to learn she had already figured I was going to want to stay an extra day. I'm now scheduled to leave tomorrow (Tuesday) morning for McMurdo. That gives Dana and I one day to re-assemble the telescope.

We decided to take it apart yesterday after we had exhausted all the attempts to fix it that didn't require working up on the tower for two hours in the wind. Fortunately, it was quite warm for this time of year, only about -30C, but it was still windy. We had to take two breaks to warm up in the AASTO during the procedure. When we finally got the camera out, I connected it up to it's controller and computer, which I'd already put in the AASTO, where it's been working fine since last night!? The only difference between there and up on the tower is that I'm using a spare set of cables. It's bad if a cable is the problem, because the spare set isn't designed for low temperature and wouldn't survive the cold. We're going to re-install the camera in the telescope today and switch to the low-temperature cables one-by-one to see if we can figure out which one, if any, is bad.

We have to finish all this in time for me to get weighed in for my flight at 7pm. I guess if we're taking too long I can always catch the next flight out,... in November!

cheers,
Doug
posted by Doug Caldwell at 8:02 AM

More wind, same old problems
It's still very windy today and looks like everyone expects Antarctica to look. The clouds have come in, making it 10 degrees warmer today than yesterday, but it's just as windy and the visibility is poor. Part of the time I could barely see the elevated station, about 1/2 kilometer away, and rarely could I see the buildings in the dark sector, about 1 km away. Although it's not too cold, any bit of skin that is exposed to the wind quickly gets really, so I have to carefully tuck my neck gaiter up under my goggles and pull my hat down over the top of them. The big red parka is great. It's got a wonderful long hood that keeps out most of the wind, except when you have to walk into it (which of course I do, both ways to the AASTO and back).

After two days of wind there are already really big drifts starting to form. We've lost another step into the AASTO. It must be very impressive at the end of the winter. The three evening flights were all cancelled today because of the weather. Two of the planes flew all the way here from McMurdo and circled around for awhile hoping for a clearing in the weather. It didn't come, so they flew back to McMurdo, 3 hours away! The third turned back sooner.

Again today, I thought I had fixed the camera problems. After talking with our Roper rep. on the iridium phone, I brought the controller down off of the tower to test some more things. He had suggested that it may be overheating, explaining why it would work for awhile, then quit. It sounds ridiculous to have things over heat at the South Pole, but it is a real problem. The air is thin and very dry, so computers and things that are kept indoors, or in warm boxes outdoors, can't cool themselves as well as they do at sea level. Sure enough, when I looked at the camera controller, I noticed that one of its fans was not running. I figured that should be easy to fix. I set out to scour the entire South Pole for an appropriate replacement and even managed to deputize a couple of people. The exact replacement didn't turn up, but I did manage to find three potentials, one of which was the same size and could be made to work. A bit of soldering (with our brand new soldering iron) and it was installed. I took the repaired controller back up the tower (still in strong winds) and installed it in the EES. When I turned it on it had a happy green light. I quickly ran down and took a couple of pictures to be sure it was working. Again I went off to dinner happy, but this time a bit more skeptical. As I suspected, when I came back after dinner, the controller was again in its error mode with that hateful red light.

Tomorrow.... Take the camera out of the telescope? I'm not looking forward to trying that on my last day here, in this terrible wind.

cheers,
Doug
posted by Doug Caldwell at 10:57 PM

Up! then down...
I started out the day depressed about the prospects of fixing the camera. It was very windy, 25-35 mph, and cold. At one point in the morning the wind-chill dropped down to -100F!! It wasn't very much fun trying to work up on the tower and by lunch-time I hadn't managed to solve anything. I could ocassionally get the camera to start-up ok, but it would always revert to some error condition.

After lunch I called Kevin on the iridium phone. He had talked with Roper, the camera maker, and had gotten several new things to try out. I set out up the tower with renewed enthusiasm, bundled up completely from head to toe to keep out the wind. The first test was to start the camera when it was disconnected from the computer. Amazingly, it worked. I unplugged both ends of the camera-to-computer cable and checked them out. A couple of pins were slightly bent on one end, so I straightened them and plugged it back in. When I started the camera, it worked again. I was very excited and ran down to test it out. I took a short exposure of the sky and there was light! I quickly went up the tower, took off the lens cover and pointed the telescope at the nearby Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO). After fiddling around with the focus and exposure time for a few minutes, I had a picture of the ARO building. It was a bad one, but you could definitely see it was there. I spent a few more hours trying to get a better focus, then went off to dinner to celebrate my success. I was very happy and told everyone it was finally working.

Before going to sleep, however, I made the mistake of checking on the system from my room. When I looked at the CCD camera software, it was reporting errors again. I hadn't fixed it after all. Not a happy way to go to sleep.

cheers,
Doug
posted by Doug Caldwell at 10:32 PM

Up, down, up, down...

My urgent message to Roper Scientific, our CCD camera manufacturer, got a response early this morning, so I had several things to try with the camera and its controller. Both of these items are on the tower, the controller in the external equipment shelter, a heated box, and the camera inside the telescope, a heated can with glass at one end.

The first thing to try was to check some diagnostic LEDs inside the controller. This is made slightly more complicated because the box is teetering over the edge of the tower and its quite cramped inside. The controller is tucked underneath several other things with cables winding everywhere. I managed to get it out, put it in a bag and lower it to the ground without damage. Back in the AASTO, I checked out the LEDs (all normal), then swapped one of the electronics boards with a spare we brought down. Next, I had to hoist the controller back up the tower and plug in the cables to the camera to test it. I left its cover off so I could see the LEDs and when I turned it on, the all lit up (that's good) and the controller gave a green (for go!) status light. I packed everything back in it's place in the box and sealed it up so that it could warm up again. Next, back down to the AASTO to see if I could take a picture. When I tried, the software was reporting the same problems I'd seen yesterday, even with the new electronics board. So, back up the tower to unplug and re-plug all the cables and reboot the controller. After several tries it came up green again. Back down to take a picture. No luck. Back up again to check the cables at the camera, which involves taking the back of the telescope off. Luckily, Dana had come out to help, and with the new easy-off wing nuts that Fred installed, we had the back off, cables checked, and back sealed again in only about 30 minutes. We got the controller to show green again, but still had no luck taking images. I sent another urgent message to Roper with the results of my testing and hopefully will have more things to try tomorrow.

I did manage to accomplish one thing: I took off the window cover and checked that the shutter is in fact working. Now, if only we could get the camera working!

There was a fuel leak in the Elevated Station today, just outside the hall from my room. It smells pretty bad and makes being in my room not so pleasant, but many people have been working on it all day, so I'm sure it'll be fixed soon. I can always go sleep on one of the bunks in the AASTO if it gets too bad.

cheers,
Doug
posted by Doug Caldwell at 11:50 PM

Abandoned

Most of the team headed north today. Fred, Jessie, and Colin left South Pole Station at 11am to head to McMurdo and then on to Christchurch. The flight was the first of the big exodus flights before winter, taking around 40 people. There were a lot of people out to say goodbye to people they'd lived and worked with for weeks or months. I was sorry to see them go, and as their plane took off I realized that I'd been abandoned at the South Pole! Watching their plane fly away, I headed out to the AASTO to get to work and take my mind off of my desperate situation. The AASTO is so lonely. The sound of the driving wind claws at my soul. Fortunately, there's probably enough food, the ice cream machine still works, and I only have to survive until Monday, when my flight leaves. Still, it is a little disconcerting...

I did manage to get a lot accomplished today. I installed our newly arrived disk drives, though we'll keep them turned off until winter to hopefully prolong their lives. I also conducted some diagnostic tests on the camera, getting very confusing results. The camera controller works fine some times, then it will work intermittently, then not at all. I recorded the errors it was reporting to send to the manufacturer in hopes they can help us figure out what is going wrong. We now need software and hardware support from them to get this thing going. Other than the camera, most of our equipment is working now. I tested the focus motor, which was able to move the camera around reliably and repeatedly. We also have most of the software working again after the "upgrade."

Tonight was Superbowl Wednesday here, but because there was no pig (there were wings) there wasn't a big turnout. I watched a little, but couldn't get enthusiastic since the Steelers weren't playing.

cheers,
Doug

posted by Doug Caldwell at 10:18 PM