I'm getting close to the end of my deployment. It has truly been the experience of a lifetime. I'm lucky in that if all goes well, I'll be home in time for Christmas. I'm looking forward to that a lot.
In some ways, it's hard to convey what it's like. When I thought of this, it was mostly the cold and the daylight that struck me. I didn't mind the cold, and I still don't. This is my kind of weather. The daylight makes things really interesting. Perhaps one of the best metaphors is the movie Groundhog Day.
I think almost wherever you are, it's normal to fall into a routine. If nothing else, work brings its own rhythm. This is true at the Pole as well, but it's different. You are pretty much stuck within an area of a few square kilometers. As far as the eye can see is nothing but a white plateau. You wake up, you do your work. You find a way to relax, you sleep. You wake up, ...
Time begins to blur. Almost everyone I talk to works to remember what day it is, or when a particular event happened. You will spend every day with pretty much the same 250 people. You'll spend it in pretty much the same place as yesterday. There will be variations, but tomorrow you wake up in the same bed with the same day ahead of you. It's not bad, but it helps you realize how much your time sense is based on the normal diurnal cycle.
There are a ton of little things you never really think about. The only living things I've seen since November 9th are humans and a few plants in the small greenhouse here on station. If it moves, it's either blown by the wind or human. We get a load of laundry per week (cold water only), and two two-minute showers per week. It's extremely dry; effectively zero humidity. I've been lucky in that I haven't suffered the effects of no humidity as acutely as others. Many people get nasty bloody noses, have trouble sleeping, and get the all the fun associated with dry skin. Many people bring humidifiers to their rooms so they can sleep at "night." Cuts don't really heal at all. I have several cuts that were not even deep enough to bleed. Normally, these would have been gone in a day or two, but now happily linger for weeks or months.
I think about the most interesting thing to see here are some of the atmospheric effects. There have been some really spectacular SunDogs. You get those in the north, but not nearly so often. Surprisingly, it doesn't actually snow much here. Most of the snow build up is from snow that blows in from other places. We have had some flurries, but no real snow storms.
Those sorts of little things are really about all that vary. The rest is pretty much the same thing day after day.
It's Groundhog Day! I should really get an alarm clock that plays "I've got you babe".
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Cable pull
All of the strings we put in the ice eventually terminate in one building (the IceCube lab). There, they are plugged into computers (one for each string) containing the custom built cards that read the data coming from the modules. The computers are on the secod floor of the ICL, so the cables are pulled from a pit 10 feet below the base of the building to the second floor. That's about 30 feet or so since the building itself basically stands on stilts.
Our first pull happened last Monday. There were about 12 of us all together. The cable is attached to a couple of ropes; one inside a vertical tower outside the main building, and another inside the main building. A couple people are positioned inside the tower to keep the cable on track. A team outside pushes the cable into the culverts that are the entry way to the tower. The teams on the ropes pull (and pull, and pull). Inside the main building there are a couple people that take care of snags.
My part was on the team handling the inside rope. There were two of us pulling, and a third spooling up the rope. The first guy in the chain (Perry) has a handle that clamps onto the rope. The handle comes off and reattaches to the rope pretty easily. That handle is on a vertical section of rope, so he can put his weight into it. I was at the anchor position. There's a pulley at floor level changing the direction of the rope from vertical to horizontal. I hold that section of rope.
The team outside pushes, we pull. You try to get a rhythm going so things move smoothly. There are stopping points where the ropes must be repositioned, or the cable anchored. There are also snags which stop things unexpectedly. All told there were twelve of us (or so) working to get the cables in. The cables themselves are about 2 inches in diameter and weigh between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds. It's exhausting work.
We pulled in six in two hours last Monday. That's a record and is due largely to having a large team that worked together pretty well. One of the things I will never forget was at a point where Perry was hanging completely off the floor, I was pulling as hard as I could, and Delia (the woman spooling the rope) was advising me not to die. The order from the team leader? Pull harder.
Tomorrow we plan to pull in eight more. Ugh.
Our first pull happened last Monday. There were about 12 of us all together. The cable is attached to a couple of ropes; one inside a vertical tower outside the main building, and another inside the main building. A couple people are positioned inside the tower to keep the cable on track. A team outside pushes the cable into the culverts that are the entry way to the tower. The teams on the ropes pull (and pull, and pull). Inside the main building there are a couple people that take care of snags.
My part was on the team handling the inside rope. There were two of us pulling, and a third spooling up the rope. The first guy in the chain (Perry) has a handle that clamps onto the rope. The handle comes off and reattaches to the rope pretty easily. That handle is on a vertical section of rope, so he can put his weight into it. I was at the anchor position. There's a pulley at floor level changing the direction of the rope from vertical to horizontal. I hold that section of rope.
The team outside pushes, we pull. You try to get a rhythm going so things move smoothly. There are stopping points where the ropes must be repositioned, or the cable anchored. There are also snags which stop things unexpectedly. All told there were twelve of us (or so) working to get the cables in. The cables themselves are about 2 inches in diameter and weigh between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds. It's exhausting work.
We pulled in six in two hours last Monday. That's a record and is due largely to having a large team that worked together pretty well. One of the things I will never forget was at a point where Perry was hanging completely off the floor, I was pulling as hard as I could, and Delia (the woman spooling the rope) was advising me not to die. The order from the team leader? Pull harder.
Tomorrow we plan to pull in eight more. Ugh.
Drilling!
It's a big day for the summer 2009/2010 southpole season: the first hole has been drilled, and the first string deployed into the hole. The IceCube detector will be made up of 86 individual strings (cables) each holding 60 light detecting modules. Installation of a string involves drilling a hole 2.5km into the ice, and then attaching the light detectors toa cable which is lowered into the hole.
The drill itself is a simple device to understand. Heat water, pump it through a long hose into the ice. Easy. Of course, like so many things that are easy to understand, there is a lot of complexity in the actual device itself. In fact, it has taken 30+ people working around the clock since November 11th to reach this point. The drill camp is a group of buildings (basically shipping containers) housing the heaters, pumps, generators, water tanks, and control systems necessary to drive hot water through the drill head. The water is heated to 190F and pumped at 800psi through a 3/4 inch nozzel. The power output is about 5 mega-watts or roughly equivalent to the output of a diesel locomotive at full power.
From the drill camp, the hot water is pumped to the tower operation site (TOS). The TOS is positioned over what is essentially a pilot hole drilled through the top layer of snow (called the firn - about 30 meters deep). The drill head and weight stack (a lot of weight that helps keep the hole straight) are lowered into the hole and away we go. The hose is taped to a support cable as it descends. Of course, it's all more complicated than that for the folks that have to do it. The TOS itself is quiet; nothing more than a hose going down into a hole. About every four meters, a sophisticated timing device goes off telling the person doing the taping to wrap another few rounds of tape around the hose and support cable. The action is all back at the drill camp where the pumps and generators are howling.
It takes anywhere from 24 to 30 hours to drill a hole. The slower you go, the larger the diameter of the hole. For the most part, 24 hours produces a hole large enough for the light sensors. Occasionally, however, we send different devices into the holes, some of which are larger than the typical sensors. To accomodate those devices, a slower drilling speed is used to produce the bigger holes. When the hole is done the drill is pulled out of the hole (a process that takes many hours) leaving a 2.5km column of water in the ice.
At that point, the hose and drill are moved to the second TOS (pain, I tell you), and the deployment team moves in. Deployment is the process of attaching the detectors to a cable which is lowered into the hole. I have not seen that process in person, so I can't comment much more than to say that it takes about 12 hours. There's usually an informal race between the drillers and the deployment team. The drillers try very hard to start the next hole before the deployment team finishes lowering the string into the hole. It's usually close. The string is anchored, and the water slowly freezes around the modules. In 100,000 years, they will reach the ocean.
As always, the first hole of the year has its little glitches. This year was no exception, but for the most part, things went smoothly. In fact, the official schedule says that the start of drilling should be 7 December, so we are already three days or so ahead.
The drill itself is a simple device to understand. Heat water, pump it through a long hose into the ice. Easy. Of course, like so many things that are easy to understand, there is a lot of complexity in the actual device itself. In fact, it has taken 30+ people working around the clock since November 11th to reach this point. The drill camp is a group of buildings (basically shipping containers) housing the heaters, pumps, generators, water tanks, and control systems necessary to drive hot water through the drill head. The water is heated to 190F and pumped at 800psi through a 3/4 inch nozzel. The power output is about 5 mega-watts or roughly equivalent to the output of a diesel locomotive at full power.
From the drill camp, the hot water is pumped to the tower operation site (TOS). The TOS is positioned over what is essentially a pilot hole drilled through the top layer of snow (called the firn - about 30 meters deep). The drill head and weight stack (a lot of weight that helps keep the hole straight) are lowered into the hole and away we go. The hose is taped to a support cable as it descends. Of course, it's all more complicated than that for the folks that have to do it. The TOS itself is quiet; nothing more than a hose going down into a hole. About every four meters, a sophisticated timing device goes off telling the person doing the taping to wrap another few rounds of tape around the hose and support cable. The action is all back at the drill camp where the pumps and generators are howling.
It takes anywhere from 24 to 30 hours to drill a hole. The slower you go, the larger the diameter of the hole. For the most part, 24 hours produces a hole large enough for the light sensors. Occasionally, however, we send different devices into the holes, some of which are larger than the typical sensors. To accomodate those devices, a slower drilling speed is used to produce the bigger holes. When the hole is done the drill is pulled out of the hole (a process that takes many hours) leaving a 2.5km column of water in the ice.
At that point, the hose and drill are moved to the second TOS (pain, I tell you), and the deployment team moves in. Deployment is the process of attaching the detectors to a cable which is lowered into the hole. I have not seen that process in person, so I can't comment much more than to say that it takes about 12 hours. There's usually an informal race between the drillers and the deployment team. The drillers try very hard to start the next hole before the deployment team finishes lowering the string into the hole. It's usually close. The string is anchored, and the water slowly freezes around the modules. In 100,000 years, they will reach the ocean.
As always, the first hole of the year has its little glitches. This year was no exception, but for the most part, things went smoothly. In fact, the official schedule says that the start of drilling should be 7 December, so we are already three days or so ahead.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Thanksgiving dinner
At the pole, Thanksgiving dinner is held on Saturday giving just about everyone a two day weekend. There are a few folks who have to stay on duty (once we have water circulating in the drill camp, it's staffed 24/7), but folks rotate with them to make sure that they get dinner too.
Preparation starts in earnest on the Thursday before the dinner. I'm sure that the chef and his crew started preparation well in advance of that, but this is when the volunteer help starts kicking in. I volunteered to peel potatoes. There are about 250 people on station, so that's a lot of potatoes. Fortunately, the chef decided that we would leave the skins on the potatoes (red skinned) and they would just mash them up. All we had to do was dice them up. Just for fun, they threw in some peppers to chop up as well. There were probably sixteen of us, or thereabouts, so it went fast - about half an hour. We escaped with all fingers attached and no lost time injuries. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs in close quarters with knives.
The galley isn't large enough to hold the entire station population, so the dinner itself is actually held in three seatings of 90 minutes each. Half an hour before dinner, hors d'oeuvres and cocktails are served, and some of the more musically inclined polies provide live entertainment. The galley itself was reconfigured for the meal. The tables were rearranged, the windows were shaded, candles were put on the tables, and on the big screen monitors there was a fireplace video. It was pretty nice.
Since it's a big holiday, a lot of people dress up. Most of the time, people are walking around the station in their carharts or snow pants, and boots. It's almost a little weird to see people in nice clothes. The mood is festive. Everyone seemed more relaxed than normal, and everyone is ready for some fun. It's difficult being away from friends and family during the holidays, but if you have to be away, this is a good group to be with.
The food was excellent. We had roasted and deep fried turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a green bean salad, and a vegetable salad. A group of volunteer wine stewards made sure that everyone had plenty of wine and/or water. For desert we had our choices of pie: pumpkin, pecan, or chocolate silk. These had been prepared the night before by another group of volunteers. They did a pretty good job as far as I could tell.
I was in the first seating, and before long we had to wind down so the next group could get started. The party moved to other parts of the station. The louges filled up, summer camp got rocking, and eventually the galley was converted to a dance hall.
For my part, early on I took a trip out to the old dome which will be torn down in the next couple of weeks. This was the the station which was finished in 1974. The dome acted as a cover for what were essentially a group of cargo containers that comprised the old station. The original design life was 15 years, so it's done pretty well.
Afterwards, I joined the festivities, at least for a little while. For me that meant talking with a few of the folks around the station. It's interesting hearing about some of the different holiday traditions around different parts of the world. By and large, they seem similar. Most of the variations are around the type of food and timing. In many countries, meals are served at much later times, and the celebration dates may be shifted by a few days. But it all seems to follow the same basic theme - good food, good company.
Can't go wrong with that, I guess.
Preparation starts in earnest on the Thursday before the dinner. I'm sure that the chef and his crew started preparation well in advance of that, but this is when the volunteer help starts kicking in. I volunteered to peel potatoes. There are about 250 people on station, so that's a lot of potatoes. Fortunately, the chef decided that we would leave the skins on the potatoes (red skinned) and they would just mash them up. All we had to do was dice them up. Just for fun, they threw in some peppers to chop up as well. There were probably sixteen of us, or thereabouts, so it went fast - about half an hour. We escaped with all fingers attached and no lost time injuries. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs in close quarters with knives.
The galley isn't large enough to hold the entire station population, so the dinner itself is actually held in three seatings of 90 minutes each. Half an hour before dinner, hors d'oeuvres and cocktails are served, and some of the more musically inclined polies provide live entertainment. The galley itself was reconfigured for the meal. The tables were rearranged, the windows were shaded, candles were put on the tables, and on the big screen monitors there was a fireplace video. It was pretty nice.
Since it's a big holiday, a lot of people dress up. Most of the time, people are walking around the station in their carharts or snow pants, and boots. It's almost a little weird to see people in nice clothes. The mood is festive. Everyone seemed more relaxed than normal, and everyone is ready for some fun. It's difficult being away from friends and family during the holidays, but if you have to be away, this is a good group to be with.
The food was excellent. We had roasted and deep fried turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a green bean salad, and a vegetable salad. A group of volunteer wine stewards made sure that everyone had plenty of wine and/or water. For desert we had our choices of pie: pumpkin, pecan, or chocolate silk. These had been prepared the night before by another group of volunteers. They did a pretty good job as far as I could tell.
I was in the first seating, and before long we had to wind down so the next group could get started. The party moved to other parts of the station. The louges filled up, summer camp got rocking, and eventually the galley was converted to a dance hall.
For my part, early on I took a trip out to the old dome which will be torn down in the next couple of weeks. This was the the station which was finished in 1974. The dome acted as a cover for what were essentially a group of cargo containers that comprised the old station. The original design life was 15 years, so it's done pretty well.
Afterwards, I joined the festivities, at least for a little while. For me that meant talking with a few of the folks around the station. It's interesting hearing about some of the different holiday traditions around different parts of the world. By and large, they seem similar. Most of the variations are around the type of food and timing. In many countries, meals are served at much later times, and the celebration dates may be shifted by a few days. But it all seems to follow the same basic theme - good food, good company.
Can't go wrong with that, I guess.
The people
This is actually one of the tougher posts to write. The people here are really great. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have diverse skill sets and interests. I feel privileged to work with such a group so I'd hate to write something that might be taken the wrong way.
It's a very interesting crew at the south pole. Being married with children puts me very much in the minority. I think I can count us on one hand. The rest are mostly single, divorced, married without kids, or married with older children. That's not really too surprising. Most are down here for the entire summer season which starts at the end of October and ends in late February. That's a long time to be away from your family, especially if you have kids, and always over the holiday season.
The ultimate purpose of the station is to support polar science (and, a few cynics note, to maintain a claim in the event the Antarctic Treaty lapses). A large part of that is simply maintaining the station and science buildings in a pretty harsh environment. Maintaining buildings is a very expensive proposition so the science experiments get packed in as tightly as possible. Even so, a few experiments come along that won't fit into existing facilities. IceCube is one such experiment, the South Pole Telescope is another. These groups have dedicated buildings which must be heated, powered, and connected to networks.
So in many ways, the pole is a construction zone during the summer. There are a lot of people who are good with their hands, and good problem solvers. A lot of things that are small problems back home are more difficult here because you can't pop over to the hardware store and pick up a $10 part. There's a machine shop complete with machinist, so in a lot of cases parts can be built, if needed. It's a place where a little ingenuity and a lot of elbow grease go a long way.
There's lots of heavy equipment moving snow, grooming roads or the skiway, moving materials around the camp and supporting construction activity. Along with that comes the operators and mechanics to keep them moving. This can involve some difficult work in brutal conditions. Changing a starter on a D8 Cat in 40 below temps does not sound like a good time, but somehow they do it.
In addition, there is a sizeable support staff working in the galley, as janitors, technical support, communications, logistics, you name it. It's really a small town where everybody tries to do their part to keep things moving along. During the summer season, there's a professional firefighting crew on station as well as a couple doctors and medical staff to keep us moving.
A very large number of the people return regularly. It seems as though you either love it here, or hate it. The people who love it just keep coming back. Many work as contractors for the summer season, and look for other work in the off-season until it's time to return. This is definitely not a group that works nine to five jobs. Many work at other seasonal jobs during the winter season (construction, trail crews at national parks, part-time jobs).
The population is mostly US, but there are sizeable chunks from other parts of the world as well. Most are very well traveled. Many take the opportunity to tour India or various Asian countries on their return trips home. It makes for some very interesting stories and some interesting perspectives on life.
Of course, like any small community, there are disagreements and spats, cliques, and all of the usual human behaviors. There's a pretty good rumor mill, and the general approach is "don't believe everything you hear, but be sure to pass it on." Despite those things, people generally seem to get along pretty well.
It's a good bunch to work with.
It's a very interesting crew at the south pole. Being married with children puts me very much in the minority. I think I can count us on one hand. The rest are mostly single, divorced, married without kids, or married with older children. That's not really too surprising. Most are down here for the entire summer season which starts at the end of October and ends in late February. That's a long time to be away from your family, especially if you have kids, and always over the holiday season.
The ultimate purpose of the station is to support polar science (and, a few cynics note, to maintain a claim in the event the Antarctic Treaty lapses). A large part of that is simply maintaining the station and science buildings in a pretty harsh environment. Maintaining buildings is a very expensive proposition so the science experiments get packed in as tightly as possible. Even so, a few experiments come along that won't fit into existing facilities. IceCube is one such experiment, the South Pole Telescope is another. These groups have dedicated buildings which must be heated, powered, and connected to networks.
So in many ways, the pole is a construction zone during the summer. There are a lot of people who are good with their hands, and good problem solvers. A lot of things that are small problems back home are more difficult here because you can't pop over to the hardware store and pick up a $10 part. There's a machine shop complete with machinist, so in a lot of cases parts can be built, if needed. It's a place where a little ingenuity and a lot of elbow grease go a long way.
There's lots of heavy equipment moving snow, grooming roads or the skiway, moving materials around the camp and supporting construction activity. Along with that comes the operators and mechanics to keep them moving. This can involve some difficult work in brutal conditions. Changing a starter on a D8 Cat in 40 below temps does not sound like a good time, but somehow they do it.
In addition, there is a sizeable support staff working in the galley, as janitors, technical support, communications, logistics, you name it. It's really a small town where everybody tries to do their part to keep things moving along. During the summer season, there's a professional firefighting crew on station as well as a couple doctors and medical staff to keep us moving.
A very large number of the people return regularly. It seems as though you either love it here, or hate it. The people who love it just keep coming back. Many work as contractors for the summer season, and look for other work in the off-season until it's time to return. This is definitely not a group that works nine to five jobs. Many work at other seasonal jobs during the winter season (construction, trail crews at national parks, part-time jobs).
The population is mostly US, but there are sizeable chunks from other parts of the world as well. Most are very well traveled. Many take the opportunity to tour India or various Asian countries on their return trips home. It makes for some very interesting stories and some interesting perspectives on life.
Of course, like any small community, there are disagreements and spats, cliques, and all of the usual human behaviors. There's a pretty good rumor mill, and the general approach is "don't believe everything you hear, but be sure to pass it on." Despite those things, people generally seem to get along pretty well.
It's a good bunch to work with.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
A day in the life
It doesn't take long for life at the station to fall into a routine. There are four meals a day: breakfast(5:30am-8:00am), lunch(11:30-1:00), dinner(5:30-7:00), and midnight rartions "mid-rats" (12:00-1:30). There are crews working 24/7, hence the extra meal. For me, these form sort of a clock given that the daylight is constant.
I wake up at about 6:30 for breakfast. Breakfast is a "tyipcal" American breakfast: eggs, bacon/sausage, pancake/waffle/french toast, etc. I'm usually moving slow until the first pot of coffee, so I wander in around 7:00. It's not uncommon to run into some of the swing shift folks who are enjoying eggs for dinner yet again. It's a good chance to hear about how things are going in drill camp.
After breakfast, there's a meeting at 8:00 every day. This is where we go over "the plan" to see how we're doing and make sure that we have people where we need them. The drilling part of the operation is pretty self sufficient. Most of them have done this in previous years, so they have a pretty good idea of what they should be doing. But there's a lot of other stuff that needs to be done. Some of it is highly specialized work that only a few people know how to do, and this is where the flight delays can be a real hassle. When that sort of thing happens, we find a way to get things set up and ready as much as possible so that when they arrive things are mostly ready to go. That means that the plan is sometimes shifted and you end up working on things you aren't terribly familiar with.
After that, the day begins. The snowmobiles leave for drill camp at 8:45, so you usually have about 15 minutes to get into your gear if you're heading in that direction. The drill camp is about a mile from the station, so even if you miss the sled, it's not a bad walk. I don't have a lot to do at drill camp. Usually, I'll end up stopping where the computers are which is along the way to drill camp. To date, we're still waiting on some cargo, so some of my work is sliding. I've been fighting with some annoying disk systems that we've been moving around for no good reason (it's a long story that I'd rather forget) which actually keeps me at the station quite a bit. For the most part, it's like a normal day of work.
It's different for the folks who are outside all the time. You're lugging around heavy gear, and many times trying to do some fairly precise work with gloves on. You do get used to the temperatures after a while. It is summer, so it's getting warmer, but it's still cold (-35F is typical for the last few days). Even so, at this point as long as the wind isn't blowing, it's no longer necessary to keep your face fully covered, and if you're not going far, you might not need much more than your jacket and some light boots. Still, you do need to be a little careful as frostbite can sneak up on you, and if you're going to be out for an hour or more, you'll still want your gear.
When you're not working, there's plenty to do. Each berthing wing has a set of bathrooms. It is the responsibility of the residents of that wing to clean the bathrooms. This is called House Mouse, and you are assigned a day of the week based on your room number. I've got Mondays. There are usually a number of people to help out, so it doesn't take long. You can also volunteer for station duty (dishes, hauling food, folding T-shirts for the store). Otherwise, there are many recreational opportunities.
There's a small gym (big enough for a volleyball court), a weight and circuit room, a reading room, a craft room, a music room, a movie room, and a game room. There's a library of books which are mostly books that were brought down and left behind. There are regularly scheduled events if you like to be social. The only one I usually participate in is Friday night football. A certain number of NFL games are recorded (with permission) and the best is played in the movie room on Friday nights.
We work six days a week (Mon-Sat). That's not too bad, really. After all, they flew me here and keep me alive at great expese, so some extra work doesn't seem like a bad deal. Saturday night is party night. This is usually out in summer camp (some temporary shelters with semi-permanent buildings adjoining them) and goes until all hours of the night. Sunday morning is brunch with omellets made to order. The rest of the day is yours to burn. Calling home is common, as is laundry. It's usually pretty mellow.
Kinda reminds me of college.
I wake up at about 6:30 for breakfast. Breakfast is a "tyipcal" American breakfast: eggs, bacon/sausage, pancake/waffle/french toast, etc. I'm usually moving slow until the first pot of coffee, so I wander in around 7:00. It's not uncommon to run into some of the swing shift folks who are enjoying eggs for dinner yet again. It's a good chance to hear about how things are going in drill camp.
After breakfast, there's a meeting at 8:00 every day. This is where we go over "the plan" to see how we're doing and make sure that we have people where we need them. The drilling part of the operation is pretty self sufficient. Most of them have done this in previous years, so they have a pretty good idea of what they should be doing. But there's a lot of other stuff that needs to be done. Some of it is highly specialized work that only a few people know how to do, and this is where the flight delays can be a real hassle. When that sort of thing happens, we find a way to get things set up and ready as much as possible so that when they arrive things are mostly ready to go. That means that the plan is sometimes shifted and you end up working on things you aren't terribly familiar with.
After that, the day begins. The snowmobiles leave for drill camp at 8:45, so you usually have about 15 minutes to get into your gear if you're heading in that direction. The drill camp is about a mile from the station, so even if you miss the sled, it's not a bad walk. I don't have a lot to do at drill camp. Usually, I'll end up stopping where the computers are which is along the way to drill camp. To date, we're still waiting on some cargo, so some of my work is sliding. I've been fighting with some annoying disk systems that we've been moving around for no good reason (it's a long story that I'd rather forget) which actually keeps me at the station quite a bit. For the most part, it's like a normal day of work.
It's different for the folks who are outside all the time. You're lugging around heavy gear, and many times trying to do some fairly precise work with gloves on. You do get used to the temperatures after a while. It is summer, so it's getting warmer, but it's still cold (-35F is typical for the last few days). Even so, at this point as long as the wind isn't blowing, it's no longer necessary to keep your face fully covered, and if you're not going far, you might not need much more than your jacket and some light boots. Still, you do need to be a little careful as frostbite can sneak up on you, and if you're going to be out for an hour or more, you'll still want your gear.
When you're not working, there's plenty to do. Each berthing wing has a set of bathrooms. It is the responsibility of the residents of that wing to clean the bathrooms. This is called House Mouse, and you are assigned a day of the week based on your room number. I've got Mondays. There are usually a number of people to help out, so it doesn't take long. You can also volunteer for station duty (dishes, hauling food, folding T-shirts for the store). Otherwise, there are many recreational opportunities.
There's a small gym (big enough for a volleyball court), a weight and circuit room, a reading room, a craft room, a music room, a movie room, and a game room. There's a library of books which are mostly books that were brought down and left behind. There are regularly scheduled events if you like to be social. The only one I usually participate in is Friday night football. A certain number of NFL games are recorded (with permission) and the best is played in the movie room on Friday nights.
We work six days a week (Mon-Sat). That's not too bad, really. After all, they flew me here and keep me alive at great expese, so some extra work doesn't seem like a bad deal. Saturday night is party night. This is usually out in summer camp (some temporary shelters with semi-permanent buildings adjoining them) and goes until all hours of the night. Sunday morning is brunch with omellets made to order. The rest of the day is yours to burn. Calling home is common, as is laundry. It's usually pretty mellow.
Kinda reminds me of college.
Friday, November 20, 2009
About IceCube
It's been a little over a week and the routines are settling in somewhat. So what do we do? Well, we are here to build a neutrino detector. Neutrinos are subatmic particles that almost never interact with normal matter. The most natural question at this point is: "why do we care?" One of the more interesting applications is as a telescope. Visible light is easily blocked by inconveniently placed dust clouds or other objects in the universe. In addition, strong electromagnetic fields distort the paths of many particles making it difficult or impossible to determine the location of the source.
Neutrinos, on the other hand, will pass through these cosmic obstacles and you can trace their origins by bascally reconstructing a straight line. This is very neat, but it presents certain practical difficulties. After all, if these things don't interact with normal matter very often how do you detect them. Well, in fact we never detect them directly; we detect a particle called a muon which is the result of a neutrino interacting with normal matter. But given that this seldom happens, you need to watch a lot of matter in order to see even a few of these interactions.
The IceCube detector, when completed, will effectively watch one cubic kilometer of ice. The ice at the south pole is very clear and very dark. This makes it ideal for detecting the light pulses given off when an interaction happens. So to detect this, we use very sensitive light detectors (photo multiplier tubes) attached to cables which are lowered into deep holes in the ice. The holes are drilled 2500 meters deep using hot water. When the hole is complete, the drill is pulled back to the surface and the cable with the light detectors is lowered into the hole. There they are left to freeze into the ice where they spend their useful lives reporting on tiny little flashes of light.
This requires a fairly large logistics operation. This year, we will move approximately 600,000 pounds of cargo to the south pole. To date we have moved approximately 3.8 million pounds of cargo to the pole. This obviously requires a lot of planning, but happily, we have quite a bit of time to do that. It's really only possible to get planes to the pole starting around late October and ending in early March. After that, the sun sets and getting in or out becomes basically impossible. So we spend the winter (our summer in the north) working out all of the logistics and planning everything as well as possible.
Then in late October, it's go time. The sun rises, and we're on the clock. The drilling won't start until the beginning of December. First, we have to dig out, get power and heating hooked back up, and get all of the equipment basically rebuilt after having been broken down and stored for the winter. This involes moving a large amount of snow, a number of buildings, and lots of odds and ends.
It also involves getting the people and new cargo in, and that can be a real problem. This year we have had many flight delays which have stranded people and cargo for days. This is built into the schedule somewhat, but we are using all of the wiggle room we have this year. We try to work the plan with the people we've got as best we can. That means you get to try new things all the time. In this case, perfection isn't the important thing, keeping things roughly on schedule is. In my case, it meant working on getting one of our testing facilities set up while our experts were stuck in Christchurch. There were a couple of us working on it, and at least one of the guys was roughly familiar with the setup, but we got a couple things wrong. Fortunately, nothing serious. And we're only a day behind now, which means we're OK.
Neutrinos, on the other hand, will pass through these cosmic obstacles and you can trace their origins by bascally reconstructing a straight line. This is very neat, but it presents certain practical difficulties. After all, if these things don't interact with normal matter very often how do you detect them. Well, in fact we never detect them directly; we detect a particle called a muon which is the result of a neutrino interacting with normal matter. But given that this seldom happens, you need to watch a lot of matter in order to see even a few of these interactions.
The IceCube detector, when completed, will effectively watch one cubic kilometer of ice. The ice at the south pole is very clear and very dark. This makes it ideal for detecting the light pulses given off when an interaction happens. So to detect this, we use very sensitive light detectors (photo multiplier tubes) attached to cables which are lowered into deep holes in the ice. The holes are drilled 2500 meters deep using hot water. When the hole is complete, the drill is pulled back to the surface and the cable with the light detectors is lowered into the hole. There they are left to freeze into the ice where they spend their useful lives reporting on tiny little flashes of light.
This requires a fairly large logistics operation. This year, we will move approximately 600,000 pounds of cargo to the south pole. To date we have moved approximately 3.8 million pounds of cargo to the pole. This obviously requires a lot of planning, but happily, we have quite a bit of time to do that. It's really only possible to get planes to the pole starting around late October and ending in early March. After that, the sun sets and getting in or out becomes basically impossible. So we spend the winter (our summer in the north) working out all of the logistics and planning everything as well as possible.
Then in late October, it's go time. The sun rises, and we're on the clock. The drilling won't start until the beginning of December. First, we have to dig out, get power and heating hooked back up, and get all of the equipment basically rebuilt after having been broken down and stored for the winter. This involes moving a large amount of snow, a number of buildings, and lots of odds and ends.
It also involves getting the people and new cargo in, and that can be a real problem. This year we have had many flight delays which have stranded people and cargo for days. This is built into the schedule somewhat, but we are using all of the wiggle room we have this year. We try to work the plan with the people we've got as best we can. That means you get to try new things all the time. In this case, perfection isn't the important thing, keeping things roughly on schedule is. In my case, it meant working on getting one of our testing facilities set up while our experts were stuck in Christchurch. There were a couple of us working on it, and at least one of the guys was roughly familiar with the setup, but we got a couple things wrong. Fortunately, nothing serious. And we're only a day behind now, which means we're OK.
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