Last Flight Out

[AceJohnny2]

These stories about the logistics at Amundsen-Scott are a fascinating glimpse at the level of logistical complexity that'd be required for an off-planet (Moon, Mars...) base.

Every time I see people get excited about Martian human habitation, I note a lack of discussion of the essential intermediate step: a fully self-sustaining base in the most inhospitable parts of Earth.

Where are the Biosphere++ projects?

And Amundsen-Scott has it easy: pressure, oxygen levels, and dust aren't a problem! (granted: Martian equator has easier temperatures).

Also, I've long wondered what is the comparable level of yearly insolation (for sustainable power) in the South Pole compares to Mars' equator?

[nine_k]

Martian equator has milder temperatures, more sunlight (no polar night), but has worse access to water, and none to breathable air.

I'm certain that a self-contained habitation for a year is a solvable problem; nuclear submarines can be away in the ocean for a comparable time.

A habitat self-sustained for potentially indefinite time (at least half century), while producing its own food and oxygen, is a much taller order.

Unlike Amundsen's, such a station can have a nuclear reactor, with decades worth of fuel.

[Schroedingersat]

Annual DNI or GTI at the south pole is surprisingly high. About 5-6kWh/m^2 which is pretty close to somewhere like california or western Australia.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334411420_Estimatio...

GHI is quite low (your array needs to be very spread out) and seasonality is 1/0, but if seasonal storage were available then a solar array in antarctica is fine.

Mars GHI is about 550W/m^2, but there are no clouds. An array there would perform about as well as france or spain.

[eftychis]

Don't forget protection from solar and other radiation. (Disclaimer: I am one of those that aspire taking humanity to Mars.)

[golergka]

> Every time I see people get excited about Martian human habitation, I note a lack of discussion of the essential intermediate step: a fully self-sustaining base in the most inhospitable parts of Earth.

I remember a pretty popular book and a Hollywood starring Matt Damon which primarily focused on this exact problem.

[Grimburger]

> Where are the Biosphere++ projects?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500

[ReptileMan]

The first people on mars will be self replicating robots. Due to the way the exponential function works - I think enough terraforming could be done really fast.

[dpflan]

If you're interested in the people and personalities and activities at the South Pole, the Werner Herzog film Encounters at the End of the World is a revealing and interesting documentary. It includes a fascinating part about a deluded penguin choosing to leave its flock and begin a fatal journey towards the center of the island...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounters_at_the_End_of_the_W...

- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1093824/

[ta1243]

The shower page was interesting, you get 4 minutes of shower time a week

https://brr.fyi/posts/showering-at-the-south-pole

I'm surprised they can't just melt snow water to run things like showers.

Oddly no suggestions on the page about doubling up your shower with someone else to have longer or more frequent showers.

[jrochkind1]

> Everyone is free to stand in the physical shower stall as long as they want! As long as they keep water flow within the allocated quota.

I'm going to be turning on the water to get wet, soaping up, turning on the water to rinse. If I have some extra maybe I'll let the water just run for some seconds to enjoy it.

More people in the shower isn't going to help, they're just going to get in the way.

Also, at least 10 years ago when I heard from someone who was there, the over-winter population at the base was super-majority men, rather homophobic, and flaunting any hetereosexual couplings you had was... fraught, due to issues of jealosy and competition.

[hibbelig]

Doesn't that post explain that this is just what they do, and that melting the snow is pretty involved?

[hgsgm]

2 people in a shower doesn't effectively decrease water usage per person, and the logistics overhead would eat into the 4 minutes.

[biesnecker]

There's only a few centimeters of snow per year at the pole, it's a high desert, and digging the ice out is probably not worth the energy?

[eigenhombre]

Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34658286

[n1b0m]

I’m game if you are

[Aeolun]

Strangely enough the South Pole Mega Shower is still shorter than my average shower time.

Maybe you can catch and reuse your own water. Then you’d just need to bring a jerrycan and water heater every time.

[stickfigure]

I'm more curious about what they do with the greywater. If you just dumped it you'd end up with a giant, evergrowing pile of dirty ice.

[hollerith]

>I'm surprised they can't just melt snow

They do get their water by melting snow and they use waste heat from the generation of electricity to do some or all of the melting.

Apparently, it takes a lot of energy to melt snow.

[0xbadcafebee]

As someone who has lived rather isolated for long stretches, I think the one thing that helps fight feeling isolated is to find your joy and practice it. My joy is in creative outlets. When I'm alone, I sing, woodwork, cook new recipes, garden [indoors or out], sew. If I had a large indoor space I'd probably practice slacklining, aerial arts, tumbling, parkour, climbing. And then there's the computer, where I can create music and endless programs, websites. I haven't even touched on painting, drawing, playing music. And all that can be supplemented by podcasts, music, movies/TV, reading, chores, working out. There's really so much to do indoors if you can cultivate a creative mindset.

[Aeolun]

Or, instead of all that. You can spend your entire summer at the south pole playing a single game of Factorio.

[a-priori]

I think a lot of those physical things you suggested, like parkour and climbing, would be extremely risky because the last thing you'd want is to injure yourself in the middle of an Antarctic winter.

[mashygpig]

I just finished reading “Alone” by Richard Byrd [0]. It’s about a man who wintered alone in Antarctica during the dark night in 1934. I found it very captivating and I think a lot of those on HN would find it interesting; especially those who find this blog interesting.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368563

[xNeil]

Thank you very much for the recommendation! I now how I'm spending the day today :)

[gnatman]

I thought those fuel bladders were pretty cool! Never thought about transporting volatiles in anything other than a rigid tank. Also had to look up what AN-8 Fuel is:

"AN8 is a special fuel blend unique to the Antarctic and Arctic. It has a lower flash point of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which also lowers the gelling point when extreme cold temperatures can cause wax crystals to start forming in the fuel. AN8 will remain liquid until about minus 72 degrees."

https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/2975

[TheCondor]

Yeah, the SPoT part was fascinating. It takes them 40 days to drive to the South Pole. I guess they drag along a container that is converted in to a living quarters along with the fuel and other heavy things. 40 days... then the return trip which is supposedly quicker. ~25KM a day. No idea if they stop for the night or take shifts and keep the tractors running 24x7.

[bergoid]

Curiously, they refill the empty bladders with air before sledding them back to McMurdo. "For safety", but the article doesn't explain why this is safer.

[kylehotchkiss]

Now I wonder what the cost per gallon is!

[rodolphoarruda]

The "About" page shows an interesting fact. This guy applied to the work position in Antarctica back in 2017 and it took almost 2k days for the hiring team to get back to him for the next steps of the hiring process. Quite a long wait, but I guess it was worth it. A "one in a billion" lifetime opportunity.

[hgsgm]

It's ~5000 people per year, 1 in a million humans per year (and of course most humans aren't interested in going)

[ilamont]

The prospect of a medical emergency would be terrible. I think there was an unplanned cancer surgery at this base many years back, but there are so many other things that can go wrong with no ER or quick evacuation to turn to. Even a dental emergency would be a disaster.

ETA: The cancer emergency was in 1998 required a special air drop but they had to wait until October to fly out the patient. https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/1812/

[teepo]

I feel like my Emacs setup would be perfect after the winter isolation. :) - Has anyone studied the Antarctic winter with respect to deep focus and personal productivity?

[k8sToGo]

Interesting. To me it sounds quite the opposite. Lonely, depressing, and boring.

[alex_sf]

Somewhat related, I've seen mentions here and there of people using cruise ships for the same thing. Minimal distractions from the outside world (via the internet anyway), and most personal concerns out of the way (food, laundry, etc).

[dpflan]

Heh, As in the more extreme the cold, the deeper focus? Perhaps ignoring the ever-looming dread of facility malfunction and death by freezing... Perhaps other cold environments are better suited?

[Aperocky]

Don't think it'd be about deep focus, but definitely spiritual.

[geocrasher]

Is there anything a C-130 cannot do? What an incredible aircraft. That landing, complete with reverse thrust, was incredible.

[joe_lin]

What happens if someone has a true medical emergency? Like heart attack or burst appendix? Are they stranded?

I feel like this fear would be lingering over me the entire time.

[ietktnz]

International rewatch "The Thing" day

[gammarator]

My favorite writing about Antarctica is "Big Dead Place": https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-30/big-dead-place-the-wi...

You can find the blog in the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20120402141259/http://www.bigdea... or grab the book.

Silver medal to Maciej for this one: https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm

[kmoser]

Big Dead Place was great: it gives you a great idea of the terrain, the characters who come through, and the politics, all from the perspective of a grunt who works there.

[walrus01]

Very sadly, the author of that blog committed suicide back in 2012.

https://www.albedoimages.com/blog/2012/12/06/death-of-antarc...

[_joel]

Blows me away everytime I see these bases and the amount of 'stuff' they have there considering it's literally in the middle of nowhere.

[ethbr0]

If you zoom in on the first warehouse picture, you see there's ice inside the stores warehouse.

I guess they let everything that can tolerate it freeze?

[zbaxrl]

Another blog, about the french-italian base Concordia.

https://www.gdargaud.net/Antarctica/WinterDC1.html

[henryackerman]

I just love the domain name!

[dcchambers]

This is a great blog, thanks for sharing. Definitely looking forward to following along during the winter.

I wonder what kinds of science are done at the South Pole.

[TrackerFF]

A couple of my ex-colleagues worked on the Troll station. The Norwegian Polar Institute usually publish the vacancies a year ahead, as there is a lot of prep to get to right people.

Anyway, both of 'em worked as IT/communication engineers some 10 years apart, but told me that the first movie they watched together (with rest of the crew) was John Carpenter's The Thing.

[ncr100]

One area of research at the opposite side, McMurdo, apparently is around glaciers melting.

> Warming seas are carving into massive Antarctic glacier that could trigger sea level rise https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/1...

Q: I wonder if the South Pole station is also involved in active climate research or if the North Pole is somehow more scientifically relevant to near-term climate change?

Enlightning observation:

> [...] researchers have determined that warm water is getting channeled into crevasses in what the researchers called “terraces” — essentially, upside-down trenches — and carving out gaps under the ice. As the ice then flows toward the sea, these channels enlarge and become future potential break points, where the floating ice shelf comes apart and produces huge icebergs.