McMurdo, Antarctica. Our training has continued this week to include four of our team members going through the Snowcraft I training (AKA "Happy Camper"), two guys getting trained on track vehicles, and everyone getting a chance to cruise around on Ski Doos. The Happy Camper course teaches basic techniques for cold weather survival. Things like how to identify and treat hypothermia and frostbite, which may come in handy once back in the states considering the temperature in Kansas is currently in the single digits. In fact, it's actually colder in Kansas than it is in Antarctica right now, but that won't stop us from telling stories of how our rugged team managed to endure the harshest environment imaginable.
Well, the conditions here may not be as harsh as we want people at home to think, but that doesn't mean that Antarctica hasn't taken it's toll. One person on our team, whom shall remain nameless, was so exhausted the day he got back from Happy Camper that he went to bed right after dinner. He woke up at 8:45 and immediately popped out of bed as we had training at 9:00am and he didn't want to be late. He got dressed and went to the Science Support Center only to find that it was actually 9:00 pm and he had only slept for a few hours. This whole constant daylight thing is trickier than it looks.
After the guys returned from Happy Camper (and they figured out what time it was) we went to the Science Support Center for snowmobile training. We got a fairly thorough breakdown of general vehicle maintenance and then we got to have some fun. We went out on to the snow and followed our instructor, Brough (One of the cooler names I've ever heard) around the training course. We climbed over some bumps, weaved through some flags, and felt cooler than we probably looked. Nonetheless, it was a good time.
Our hangar became ready for us to start moving in on Saturday December 12. We took the Yak-54 out to start getting it ready for flight as Saturday was also the first available flight day for us. We had a window from 9:00pm to midnight. We left camp in a Pisten Bully a little past 7:00pm. Eleven miles and two hours later we were at Pegasus field. The trip took much longer than expected so we decided not to fly, but we still got some very useful time in on the runway. We calibrated some sensors, tuned the engine, and performed further ground testing of the systems. It is said that everything works differently, if at all, in Antarctica so we are taking time to make sure that all of our sensors are working properly.
On Sunday December 13 we made the trip back out to Pegasus (this time in a shuttle). We unpacked the Meridian shipping container and started getting the hangar set up. We are very happy with the hangar thus far. There's plenty of workspace for computers, ample room to work on the Meridian, heat, and there should be phone and internet lines early this week. Having a hangar like this right next to our runway will definitely make operations easier and more efficient than they have been in the past for us. It seems like it's been a long time since we left home, but we are finally getting close to being up and running.
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