Antarctica Blog Ring

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Trails

One of the trail heads around station.

Mactown from T Hill

Not your Average AIrport Shuttle

This beast meets the new arrivals at the runways to shuttle people back to station.

This old Deuce

Has a great name. Don't know who Shagnasty is or how this sad old truck got the name. Other vehicles around are Hot Lips and Ivan the Terra Bus.

Long Duration Ballooning

One of the NASA groups down here is the LDB people. They work our of Palestine, Texas and Goddard. They have this cam out on the sea ice between us and White and Black islands. They have these large helium balloons which they attack a payload to. They do this so that they can do mission much cheaper than launching a satellite given their constrainsts of being in upper atmosphere and only over the pole vs low in low earth orbit. Being down here is ideal for them since the polar winds around Antarctica lets the balloons fly around in the circle over the continent, allowing the payloads to be retrieved on the ballons bust. they try to land the payloads int he path of the South Pole traversers so that it can be picked up on the way back. These balloons can stay up for weeks at a time because of the winds have a high recovery rate.

Scott Base

This is Scott Base, where the New Zealander hang out. Its really close to our base. One of my roommates, Brook who's a Fireman, got invited over to watch France vs. Wales after they did some drills with the Kiwis. We were all jealous since visiting Scott Base is by invitation only outside of Thursday night American night. They like their building green and their stewardesses hot. Also apparently they have a ski lift!