South Pole
Diary February 7th, 13:00
From
Michael Burton.....
Well
this should be my last report from the Pole, but looking at
the way flights are right now, it probably wont be. My flight
out today has so far been postponed twice, and then cancelled.
No reason given, but there are 3 more flights scheduled in
today, and they might just let passengers on them (for various
technical reasons passengers - PAX - are not allowed to actually
go on all flights - some are regarded as more `dangerous'
I believe. Anyway that's the military for you again!
I thought my last couple of days would be relatively light,
but in fact I've only had 6 hours sleep in the last 48, and
really just want to get out of here now! Various minor teething
problems, and just packing up simply take much longer than
you anticipate. That's really a rule of Polar life - every
task takes that much longer than back in the real world -
as simply living is that much more of an effort.
Even
now I am not leaving a trouble free instrument. I am having
an irritating problem with a loose valve. Something which
in the lab would be a slight inconvenience but here in the
middle of the winter might mean the difference between an
experiment and none at all. Still, I think I have hit upon
a solution (replace the valve - simple!), and given the flight
cancellations I might even have time to carry out the task.
Of course then I expect to find another problem to worry about.....
 I
did take some time out to visit the AST/RO telescope, one
of the other CARA projects that actually occupies its own
building (smart people!). AST/RO is a submillimetre telescope,
taking advantage of the new windows that open up for observation
into space at these wavelengths. AST/RO has just completed
its first winter - and come out with some very impressive
results. 80,000 spectra of which about 20,000 are actually
good! In fact the whole telescope is a lesson in how to deal
with Antarctica, a project designed for the Pole in the first
place, rather than retro-fitting an existing experiment. As
a result the winter-over is actually able to concentrate on
the science rather than just getting things to work. The entire
instrument is inside, making working on it very easy and just
the telescope is outside. Richard Chamberlain, last year's
winterover even managed to write a couple of papers while
he was down here!
AST/RO
seems to be making a habit of employing foreigners, and at
times there have been no Americans working at Pole on the
project! Currently a German and a Brit are in charge, with
the Brit wintering over. Actually of the 5 winter over astronomers
this year, Americans are in a minority. There are only 2 of
them, with 2 Brits and 1 Oz (Jamie once more).
Well
the weather is finally turning away from the heatwave conditions
we've been experiencing, and dropped below -30 at last. Still
some way to go to reach -40, but we're moving there. Its been
a much harder spell at Pole for me than I anticipated before
arrival - I thought I only had to shake down an existing experiment
and that would be that, but all kinds of unexpected difficulties
have arisen. Its symptomatic of the environment, and all the
people in the MAPO building have been working absolutely flat
out. Amazingly it does look as though most experiments are
actually going to work, though SPIRAC looks in trouble right
now as their detector wont actually record data at the moment!
But it would be nice to have a few more resources in order
to get the job done - the Pole is a challenging place to work!
Michael
Burton
 
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