Pole, Pole

[MATKATAMIBA]

There can be confusion here about Pole and McM because rules for the two stations are often different. I thought I would create this topic for people to post Pole-specific information.

I can start by posting a few Pole items:

• The tentative first-flight date for the Pole is October 15th with a Baseler flight
• The 2009/2010 station manager hired early in the year will not deploy and has been replaced at the last minute by Mel McMahon, previously of the A-GAP project
• The Pole winter-over Trauma and Firefighter Teams just finished two weeks of training, including five days at the Denver/Aurora Firefighter Training Center practicing search-and-rescue and firefighting skills.
• The first significant group of Polies leave Denver this week, with more to follow. They are expecting long, relaxing lay-overs in CHCH because of aircraft space and weather (since it is still -78F at the Pole, that may actually happen).
• As of last week the Pole still has no physician for winter, but does have one for summer.

[skua77]

M…
Ask your fellow Polies about Mancamp.

An extreme bit of torture endured by the 2008 Polies in the Hotel California bunkroom at the beginning of the 2007-08 summer waiting for those first flights. There are movies even.

Pack earplugs.

[m0loch]

@MATKATAMIBA wrote:

• As of last week the Pole still has no physician for winter, but does have one for summer.

Since I’m not sure what constitutes “competitive information” I won’t say too much….but there are some other pretty key positions that haven’t got names associated with them yet…summer or winter….

I had heard about the original WSM not going…hadn’t heard who would be filling that position. Rumor had it that Katie Hess had applied (in and through RPSC NZ???) I was hoping that she would get the job if she wanted it.

[MATKATAMIBA]

@skua77 wrote:

M…
Ask your fellow Polies about Mancamp. An extreme bit of torture endured by the 2008 Polies in the Hotel California bunkroom at the beginning of the 2007-08 summer waiting for those first flights. There are movies even.

I’m afraid to ask. I’m not leaving for Pole until February so there shouldn’t be much of a bunking crisis for me at the McM lay-over. I will pack earplugs, if only for the LC-130.

[Been There]

Sorry to pass on some bad news but there are two periods of the austral summer that McMurdo has the largest population. The first is late October/early November when the remote science groups are moving through and the Pole folks are enroute. The second period, when the population is at it’s highest of any time of the year at McMurdo, is late January into mid-February. Again you have all the remote science groups moving back through McMurdo, people leaving Pole. plus the large group of support personnel that are dealing with the cargo vessel off load and back load. So you will be transiting McMurdo during peak population 😕 . But the flights will likely not be delayed so your time in the big city will be short. Plan on one night or so in the bulk room!

BT

[MATKATAMIBA]

Doh! I didn’t even think about all those outgoing people! Funny.

[MightyAtlas]

I hope there’s still Pole Dancing, or did RPSC take that away, too?

[MATKATAMIBA]

I heard the Pole pole is still there. However the Pole flamethrower was dismantled and its components shipped off-site, which may have been a wise move on RPSC’s part.

[MATKATAMIBA]

First Basler Flight
The Basler flight to open the Pole that was scheduled for October 15th has been postponed for at least a day and possibly longer due to unsuitable Pole weather conditions: minus 70F, 21 mph wind and blowing snow.

TDRS-! Gone
NASA announced yesterday that the TDRS-1 communication satellite has finally failed and is useless to customers, including South Pole Station. This means that the Pole now has only about 5 hours of sat coverage daily from the GOES-3 satellite. The rumor is that plans are in the works to use military or other NASA satellites, and/or the private Iridium system to supplement Pole communications.

In the coming weeks NASA will be moving communication satellites around to take TDRS-1’s valuable spot in the geosynchronous belt, so how much TDRS/GOES sat coverage the Pole Station will end up with is unknown. According to the article below, TDRS-3 will be moved to TDRS-1’s spot but it will not be able to completely replace TDRS-1’s Pole communication duties because of its lower orbit.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0910/13tdrs/

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