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A Day at Williams Field
After meeting
for breakfast in the main
galley at around 6:45, Dave Sullivan and some of the NSBF riggers
carted Dana and me out to Williams Field in one of the LDB vans.
(LDB is the general name for everyone involved in anyway with
ballooning here - Long Duration Balloon). The snowfall this past
winter was supposedly a little more than is normal and the LDB guys had
some work on their hands digging the Payload Integration (Pig) Barn and the Weatherport
out of the snow. This year, since there are two balloon payloads
going up - TIGER / ANITA and TRACER from the University of Chicago, it
is necessary to have these two facilities in which to work on the
instruments before they are launched. Since TRACER is much bigger
than TIGER, it is being placed in the Pig Barn and TIGER / ANITA is
going in the Weatherport. The first of our sea containers that
were shipped to New Zealand and flown down to McMurdo was at the
Weatherport when we arrived. After clearing out the area (some
Skidoos and four-wheelers), we began setting up tables and getting the
first box unloaded. Some electricians came down from McMurdo to
make some repairs to the power system after lunch. By 2:00 PM we
had power and an Uninterruptible Power Supply to back up our science
computers in the event of a power outage. Soon after, some help
from networking came down and we soon had a phone line and an ethernet
connection. The sea container that TIGER was shipped in was
forklifted down to the weatherport at around 7:00 PM and we went back
to McMurdo for a late dinner. Then it was to bed.
Now a little about McMurdo Station. First of
all, McMurdo is a strange place, with a very interesting social
structure. Until the 1970s, "MacTown" was controlled by the
United States Navy. The responsibility was then taken over by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) who hires Raytheon Polar Services out
of
Denver, Colorado to run the Station. In the height of the summer
season (around mid December), there may be up to around 1500 people
living and working at McMurdo. Not all of these people are
scientists. In fact, most people are employees of Raytheon hired
to do all sorts of things, such as cook, wash dishes, clean buildings,
do plumbing, carpentry and machine work, run communications, etc.
There is an amazing amount of things to do down
here. There are three different gyms, with a basketball court,
volleyball, and stationary cycling. There is a bowling alley, two
bars, a coffee shop, a library, a firestation, a hospital and a
bookstore. There is a heliport and a dock for the icebreakers
that come in at the end of the summer season to bring supplies for the
winter.
But back to the social situation. People work
very hard down here and make very little money. A shuttle driver
can make much less than minimum wage and work about 50 or 60 hours a
week. Because as a Raytheon employee all your meals and lodging
are paid for while you're down here, that isn't really such a bad
deal. People work hard and play hard on the weekends. Many
people return season after season to work at McMurdo. Some can't
get enough of the climate and spend their northern-hemisphere summers
up north in places like Alaska or Greenland - they call themselves
"bi-polar." Some of these people are young - right out of high
school. Others do very different things back in the "real"
world. Two years ago, one of the cleaning staff was a judge back
in the United States.
The NSF grantees or "beakers" as they are known down
here work in many different branches of science - environmentalism,
marine biology, veterinary medicin, glaciology, geology, atmospheric
physics and, of course, astrophysics. I even met an
anthropologist last night who is here studying the ways in which people
interact under conditions such as these. It has been said that
the exploration of Antarctica is done in the name of science. It
makes for an interesting rapport between the scientists and the
non-scientists, living in such close quarters. Bridging this gap
is something that I find rather difficult, even though I've never
really had much difficulty getting along with all sorts of people.
Needless to say, McMurdo is a fascinating place with
a seemingly endless number of incredible people doing incredible
things. It's going to be a great season.
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