Greetings from the Antarctic Passenger Terminal in Christchurch, New Zealand! We're currently ~45 minutes out from boarding the buses to head to the Christchurch Airport tarmac, where we will board a US Air Force C-17 cargo jet for the ~6 hour flight down to Antarctica. The Antarctic Passenger Terminal is the one-stop-shop for all things Antarctica while in Christchurch. We spent a good portion of yesterday in the Passenger Terminal gathering gear and our cold weather clothing, repacking our bags for loading onto the plane, and making any other necessary last-minute preparations. I also had to receive a flu shot (a requirement for heading to Antarctica) and we all had to have our temperatures recorded to ensure that nobody is bringing down any infectious disease. The "Antarctic crud" is common in McMurdo Station - equivalent to a pretty significant head/chest cold - and so every effort to prevent any worse sickness is of critical importance. Here's a picture of the four of us (from left to right: Lee, Schuyler, Sarah, and me) standing in front of the US Antarctic Program and National Science Foundation flag at the Passenger Terminal: Here's a picture of Schuyler hauling all of her cold weather gear around the Passenger Terminal. After trying everything on and requesting any modifications to our standard issue gear, we left everything at the Passenger Terminal and headed back into town for one last evening of food, beverages, humidity, greenery, and natural smells! We left our hotels bright and early this morning (5:45am), arrived at the Passenger Terminal around 6:15am, changed into our extreme cold weather gear, and are now waiting to board our buses. Our flight was slightly delayed and we got swapped to a different aircraft, but we're still scheduled to take off around 11:00am Tuesday morning (that would be 3:00pm on Monday afternoon in Flagstaff). After a ~6 hour flight, we'll touch down at the Phoenix Airfield outside of McMurdo Station, where we'll board a specialized vehicle to take us from the airfield to the main base. Then, after receiving an inbrief from the NSF and receiving our boarding assignments, we'll hopefully have some time to grab dinner at the galley! While we're close to our final destination of Antarctica, there's always the risk of "boomeranging" before reaching the ice. Because the weather in Antarctica and at the airfield is unpredictable, the planes in Christchurch will take off and head towards Antarctica before having a final weather clearance. Once we are an hour or two away from landing, the air crew will receive the final weather briefing and determine whether we are cleared for landing. If so, we'll continue the trip to Antarctica, but if not, we'll turn around (or "boomerang") and head back to Christchurch to try again another day. Boomeranging is fairly common - I'd predict that it's somewhere between 25% and 50% of all flights to Antarctica are cancelled or boomerang before making it down. Let's keep our fingers crossed that we won't boomerang today!
Our next post will be from McMurdo Station after we get settled in. The internet is fairly patchy in McMurdo, so we'll do our best to keep you updated as much as possible before we head into the field ~1 week from today. Stay tuned for more updates, and thanks for reading!
1 Comment
12/10/2020 05:20:12 pm
I am so excited to read about what you discover after your trip. I know that it will take some time before we change history, but believe me, it will all be worth it. I have been reading all of the research papers that you wrote, and I am excited to see what is going to happen. I just wish that I can there for you. It will take a while to make things happen, but it is what it is.
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About the Author(S)The contributors to this blog are the students, faculty, and other researchers in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Northern Arizona University. If you have any suggestions, or would like to contribute to this blog, please email mark.salvatore@nau.edu for more information. Archives
January 2019
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