NEWS25 October...lots of news, first from Pole! The station received two Twin Otters on 5 October transiting from Rothera to...not McMurdo, but an Australian station for a medevac. And in addition to freshies (the Clementines were a big hit) they also brought pax! They returned to Pole with the patient on 8 October, en route to McMurdo...and this provided a unique opportunity for the winterover photo! Note that no information has been released publicly about the medevac patient or station involved. SAHPR continues to be a significant NSF issue, recent details of which cannot be discussed here. On 15 October, NSF issued this Reminder...for 2024-24 Antarctic summer Season. That announcement may have been an attempt to respond to this 10 October letter from the House Science Committee to the NSF director regarding the issue. AARGH! Another issue in the mix for the long-delayed issuance of the RFP for the next Antarctic support contract.
Main body flights began on about 24 September. 4 September...an old ~1969 NYC radio commercial I remember is "Money Talks, Nobody Walks" (that was for Dennison Clothes in Denison NJ)...but "money talks" seems to be the phrase of the moment for USAP...after all, no one can walk to Antarctica. After long delays, the preliminary Request for Proposal (RFP) for the next Antarctic support contract was issued on 26 July. No updates as of now (4 September). But the long delay required that an extension be issued to the current support contractor Leidos. For 18 months through 30 September 2026! That was also issued on 26 July. Leidos had previously expressed reluctance to accept a contract extension, and that they would not be bidding on the next contract. 28 August (sorry, was awhile...blame music festivals)...WINFLY is complete! The last of 4 flights arrived on Monday 26 August after a 5 delay. The earlier flights were more timely...first one was on 16 August...just before the first McM sunrise on the 18th. Something that came out on 17 May but I was only reminded of it recently...the updated "United States Policy on the Antarctic Region." It was originally issued on the White House website--at the September Antarctic Treaty meeting in Kochi, India it was issued as this PDF, along with this fact sheet. Nothing really new at least for those of us following the US Antarctic Program, but it replaces a 1994 document. Back to the "money talks" stuff. NSF is facing another significant fiscal 2025 budget cut. Old news, but nothing has happened recently as Congress is in recess until 9 September. Per this 26 June AAAS/Science article, NSF's budget might rise 2% to $9.26 billion, which is less than President Biden's request and well below what NSF got in 2023. And on the Senate side, NSF would get a 5% increase to $9.55 billion, less than half of what Biden requested. (26 July Science article). And of course the funding shrinkage means that research vessels are going away. The Laurence M. Gould's contract has been terminated as of June 2024 its story. And another research vessel, the drill ship JOIDES Explorer, has also lost its NSF funding and is being mothballed (26 August 2024 New York Times article, the JOIDES Resolution website, and an open access 23 July EarthDate article. The vessel has worked in the Southern Ocean.
Space news! My second ice friend after Christina Hammock Koch (whom I wintered with in 2005--she's heading back to the Moon next year)...Australian polar guide friend Eric Philips is heading to space as part of a 4-person crew on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule...on the unique FRAM2 polar-orbiting mission to study the polar regions. The 4-person crew also includes filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen (Svalbard), Rabea Rogge (Norway), and Chun Wang (Malta/Svalbard). This all started when bitcoin billionaire Chun Wang joined one of Eric's Svalbard ski trips! The team has been at SpaceX headquarters this month for training. ExplorersWeb article as well as this 13 August Space.com article shared by Eric. Out on 13 May...a new draft Master Plan for South Pole Station. Lots of history, general alternatives and discussion, but no specific plans for the next (?) station. They were looking for comments before 13 June. Here's the link for access. I must note that that page title and the URL referring to the "ARCTIC (!) Research Policy Committee Draft Arctic Research Plan" is inaccurate, but the actual referenced document is the correct one. Thanks to McM winter site manager Erin Heard for the heads-up! Lots of information...much more detailed than the South Pole Master Plan prepared by Metcalf &Eddy in the late 80s (which promoted the reuse of the Dome...or even building another one)...but just as vague as for actual plans. Way too much bad news about USAP has come out in the past week or two...so I'll start with something positive: a couple of great Antarctica podcasts out there. First, there's a brand new one out there, "Antarctica Did That For Me" hosted by Keri Nelson and Cassa Grant, who have a total of 9 seasons on the ice, at all 3 stations. Very upbeat...episodes released in the past month include discussions of the recent solar eclipse visible in the US, Taylor Swift, "Antarctica Sucks,"...well, you get the idea. And now...more of the strange and bad news that has come out in the past week. NSF reminded everyone on 29 April that the Laurence M. Gould would be going off charter on 16 July 2024 due to shifting science priorities and budget constraints. At left, a 11 April photo by Rachel Cook of the last departure of the vessel from Palmer Station. The draft RFP for the forthcoming Antarctic Support contract, promised by the end of March, still has not been issued. The contract expires on 31 March 2025, it's way too late for a new contract to be awarded and effective by then, and as said previously, the current contractor Leidos has said they will not accept an extension. But...while checking regularly to see if the RFP is out yet...something else came to light...an RFI looking for a provider of "Transport Aircraft in support of NSF." The ski-equipped C-130s are getting old, and NSF is increasingly frustrated by their frequent maintenance issues and delays. And it's not just the NYANG...remember that the closure of McMurdo this year was delayed over a month by a broken USAF C-17. That RFI on its face would seem to be seeking a contractor to show up and provide a fleet of ski-equipped transport aircraft (think like the McM helicopter support contract). Everyone knows better of course. But who knows...some of the older LC-130s are owned by NSF. And someone suggested ALE which of course operates the tourist camp and Pole. They bring large wheeled transports into Union Glacier (some of which have been Russian operated) but do not presently have large ski-equipped transports. Yet another dismal report...this in an 8 May article by William Muntean II published by the Center for Strategic & International Studies. The title says it all: "U.S. Operational Retreat from Antarctica." I'll summarize it with that ancient WABC New York radio ad tagline I remember: "Money talks, nobody walks." Or flies or....does science. Speaking of science at Pole, a major project cancellation was announced: CMB-S4--which would have put various types of telescopes/detectors at Pole and the Atacama Desert in Chile to study cosmic microwave background radiation. The project would have been international involving many institutions. Here is the project website...and the 9 May Science magazine article "NSF halts South Pole megaproject to probe infant cosmos' growth spurt" which you should be able to access. 
Other older news from NSF...more clarification on the results of budget cuts. No new Antarctic research projects will be funded. What WASN'T news from NSF...the draft RFP for the new support contract that was supposed to be released by the end of March...wasn't. Otherwise at McMurdo...construction was suspended this past season for the IT&C building which is still a year away from completion...and more recently work was also suspended for the new VEOC (aka new garage/VMF) in order to concentrate on the new dorm...as lack of bed space has hindered science and support work at McMurdo. At right, a 12 April photo of the new dorm from Michael Christiansen...looks like it needs a couple more seasons to finish. Enough bad news...here's my coverage of winterover statistics updated for 2024! Oh...I've updated my coverage of previous Pole trekkings/skiing/ballooning/skydiving back to 1995, as well as info on who might be showing up to the tourist camp next summer here. It's dark at Pole...there was a successful sunset dinner. Things at McMurdo have been more interesting...the "end of summer" for some folks got postponed for over a month due to the usual suspects--the weather, and a broken airplane. The C-17 that was supposed to come down in March...didn't. And got broke. And mechanics that got sent down to fix it had...their baggage not show up in Christchurch. Eventually the RNZAF got called into service...for a medevac! Its wheeled C-130 showed up at the Phoenix Airfield on Monday 15 April...in addition to the medevaced person and medical support, 12 members of the New Zealand Defence Force and a few of the summer McM folks were flown north. The Herc made another trip later that week to bring more people north...and the C-17 finally showed up on 20 April to bring the rest of the summerovers home. Well, I WAS going to New Zealand in mid-January, but a case of pneumonia made me cancel that. Meanwhile, yes, Pole closed on 2 March--the latest closing date ever, leaving behind 41 souls for the winter. Other stuff still to be caught up on here...but breaking, the Coast Guard is planning to buy an icebreaker from a unit of Edison Chouest Offshore--yes, the folks who operate the Gould and the Palmer. Details!
Meanwhile, the nongovernmental ventures continued to plug away...or quit. They had to reach Pole by about 18 January per ALE...and their season is over. Updates!. 3 January 2024...Happy New Year! Blame bluegrass shows and festivals for the lack of updates, but they're done for a bit...until I fly to Christchurch (tourist only) on the 14th. Yes, the new Pole marker, fabricated by Cal Neske, was unveiled on New Years Day, I'll get to that with photos in a day or two. Meanwhile...there have been LOTS of nongovernmental ventures...finally tracked all of them down (I think) and my update is here. Several surprises, including a sudden late entry by Colin O'Brady, who showed up at Union Glacier on the 23rd, set out only to stumble into a crevasse after only 4 miles. As for the Antarctic support contract rebid...on 18 December an announcement was made, including an updated schedule and links to reading material...the draft Request for Procurement should be issued by the end of March 2024. 17 December...it's been awhile so there is lots of news! First...the shipping news. The Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star left Seattle on 15 November heading for the ice (16 November Coast Guard News release). It stopped in Honolulu for several days over Thanksgiving, departing on the 27th...crossed the Equator and the Date Line on 4 December, spent several days in Sydney on the 12th, and then headed for Hobart. As for the cargo vessel Ocean Gladiator, it was in Ensenada a week ago, next stop Port Hueneme. The NY Air National Guard got a bit of a late start, but as of 9 December there had been 9 LC-130 flights...and the first Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions (ALE) Basler carrying tourists also showed up that week.
The ozone hole this year is described as "modest" in this 20 November Colorado Sun article which features an interview with scientist Stephen Montzka of the NOAA Global Monitoring Lab in Boulder, CO. As for contracts...the helicopter contract award got announced on 1 November to Pathfinder Aviation, based at Merrill Field in Anchorage. It's a series of one-year extendable contract periods. The outgoing contractor Air Center Helicopters did NOT take all of their helicopters home yet, contrary to what I'd heard. But, still no word on bidding for the next Antarctic support contract as of 16 December. 31 October (happy Halloween!)...Pole winter is over! The first Kenn Borek mobilization flight stopped on 24 October on the way from Rothera to McMurdo...bringing freshies from Punta Arenas of course...and the first official summer flight showed up on the 28th! It brought more than a dozen new folks, and a few of the winterovers headed north. Although there's at least one C-130 in Christchurch, I hear they won't show up at Pole until mid-November.
14 October...the first mobilization flight may pass through Pole around the 19th, with the official opening flight around the 26th. Speaking of aircraft, McMurdo's first main body flight happened on 7 October, but as the Airbus full of toasty winterovers rolled for take off for Christchurch, it aborted. Mechanical issues. Everyone got off and went back to town. The aircraft and the winterovers got to head north 2 days later. The dire NSF warnings of budget cuts and subsequent science project cancellations/delays discussed below have translated into terminations for 24 Antarctic Support Contract employees on 6 October. ***Some older items of interest (other old news is in the archive): WIRED magazine has a feature article on Jerry Marty, Carlton Walker, and the station construction in the July 2002 issue. Read about the settlement problems...why the place wasn't considered fit for occupancy for the 2002 winter.
Another new science project...in 2002 a 10-meter submillimeter telescope (up from 8 meters!) that will search for new galaxy clusters and study dark energy. Plans were to attach it to the DSL (dark sector lab) University of Chicago press release. It was originally scheduled to have a ground shield that is larger than the Dome (built by Temcor, the same company that built the dome...). The telescope was completed in 2006-07, and the huge ground shield was eventually cancelled. On 8/13/02 NSF had a meeting with potential contractors and suppliers for a possible fiber optic cable to Dome C. Yes, you read that right (news article). Since Pole is way below the horizon for the commercial geosynchronous satellites, one option is to run a cable about 1050 miles to the newly constructed French/Italian Concordia Station at Dome C. (This station is scheduled for full-time occupancy next winter.) The project calls for several years of studies and trials, with the actual stuff involving traverses to get the cable to Pole and Dome C as well as along the route. Back in mid March 2002 two other iceberg events happened. First, there was another piece of the Thwaites Ice Tongue (75°S-108°W) about 2100 square miles (Guardian article and archived NOAA press release) which got designated B22. And then there was the collapse of another hunk of the Larsen ice shelf east of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Larsen Ice Shelf B disintegrated within the past couple of months, as evidenced by archived photos and animations from the NSIDC in Boulder, which also has links to other coverage. The BBC has an excellent article about both events. The venerable New South Polar Times mailing list moved to a home on Yahoo, thanks to 2001 w/o science tech Andrea Grant. There have been no posts in the past few years, but the archived posts are here. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) had a major feature on the Pole construction in their December 2000 magazine, including articles by Frank Brier and Jerry Marty. That section is no longer online, although I did archive the original article by Dennis Berry and Forrest Braun (BBFM Engineers, Anchorage) which features the details of foundation design and the jacking systems. Here is the link to my 1999 Doc Jerri medevac coverage. The spectacular April 2001 medevac flight to Pole is covered here. And my archive of other news, links to press releases, and older media coverage is here. Other Antarctic news sites...Explorersweb and its newer offshoot Pythom have been covering exploration news ever since the early 2000's. The sites were originally created by Tom and Tina Sjogren, the "Wearable" expedition folks that trekked to Pole in 2001-02. During the past year the sites have been relaunched...at present (July 2018) it appears that the Pythom.com site is covering primarily space and science news, while Explorers Web continues to cover climbing, water, and polar expeditions, although one needs to use the search bar to locate specific coverage. The Sjogrens are still involved with the site. Brendon Grunewald's old 70 South news site later evolved into the Polar Conservation Organisation , but that site also seems to have disappeared. The Antarctic Sun is extremely prolific of late. The editor through July 2015 was friend Peter Rejcek, a 2004 Polie winterover.. He's currently a traveling freelancer; some of his work can be found on singularityhub. The current editor, also a friend, is Michael Lucibella. Sun archives run back to 1996-97, the final year when the McMurdo newspaper was a Navy publication, the Antarctic Sun Times. Before then in the old days it went by other names....here is that story. NZ Antarctic Philately pages by Steven McLachlan . The news page features many current events through 2006, including many pictures from the various private expeditions at Pole. He also has information on the 99-00 cruises of the Polar Duke south of NZ in support of German and Italian science projects, 98-99 construction of the new base at Dome C... The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) published biweekly newsletters on NGA (private) expeditions, cruises and tourist events. Unfortunately this was discontinued in May 2003, and the archives are no longer available. But they do feature a separate news page for the official Australian program. The NSF Polar Programs (PLR) page contains links and a search engine. Most recent press releases are also here, scroll to the bottom. The rest of the story... can now be read online or offline in the newsletter of the Antarctican Society. Highly recommended. Here is the latest contact info as well as the historical background about the group. [top] | [home]Weather information... has been moved to a separate page. About the satellites...has also been moved to a separate page. [top] | [home]SPORTS (?!)The 2019 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM XLII) was held in Prague, Czech Republic, between 1-11 July. Once again I saw absolutely NO American media coverage...but that was not the case in Australia. This is because the Chinese delegation proposed a "code of conduct" for their Kunlun Station at Dome A...in the midst of Australia's claim. It was rejected, as was a 2014 effort to create an ASMA there. Here's the ABC News (Australia) article) about this, the discussion report about the Chinese request, China's proposed code of conduct text, and a map of the proposed area, which interestingly resembled the Pole ASMA in both size and nomenclature. Of course, Kunlun (unlike Pole) doesn't get any NGO visitors--skiers, trekkers, tourists, pilots, etc. I always look for a Russian report about the Lake Vostok drilling project, but there have been no reports in recent years, although Russia did propose the construction of new winterover station facilities. The 2020 meeting was to be held 25 May-4 June in Helsinki, Finland, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused it to be canceled. The 2021 meeting is still scheduled to be held in Paris on 14-24 June 2021, pandemic permitting. Here is the official Treaty home page. From there you can navigate to the final reports, or you can search the various meeting papers by selecting the "Meeting From/To" and/or the submitting nations/delegations. Nowadays there are a number of commercial marathon/ultramarathon ventures in the Antarctic...most commonly sought out by people who want to complete a marathon on all seven continents. I've updated these listings in July 2022.
As for nongovernmental visitors to Pole, the 2011-12 season was the biggest ever for Pole, as it had been the centennial year of Amundsen's and Scott's arrival at what has been called an "awful place." But folks continue to show up. There are two principal tourist operators--flights from Punta Arenas to Union Glacier and beyond are operated by Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions (ALE) (which has now fully assimilated Adventure Network International/ANI). ALE continues to be actively booking tourists. The other operation is based out of the airstrip at Novo (Novolazarevskaya), a Russian base which is served by flights from Cape Town. It has been operated by Antarctic Logistics Centre International (ALCI), which did not in itself offer tour services, but rather worked with other tour agencies such as White Desert, which has established a tourist destination "Whichaway Camp" near Novo (no, nowhere near the Whichaway Nunataks) with penguin colonies and mountains nearby. TAC also operates its "Oasis" guesthouse--the only hard-roofed commercial base on the Antarctic continent, about 10 miles from Novo at Schirmacher Oasis. TAC does not do bookings directly...one option for a stay at the Oasis Guesthouse is offered by Icetrek...€30,000 ex Cape Town. Novo is a 3000m blue ice runway originally built by ANI near the Russian Novolazarevskaya base, in the past it was known as Blue One, and on some maps you may see it designated as "White Desert." Perhaps the most serious travel agent booking Pole trips is the Chicago-based company Polar Explorers...they are booking trips to Pole via PA/Union Glacier starting at around US$51,250 ex PA. My updated records of the nongovernmental expeditions (skiers/hikers/kiters/drivers/sledders etc...) back to 2000 is here. Remember, this website is the only one that has been continuously covering them since 1999 so I have all the archived links. For now, go here for the 1999-2000 ventures. Note that the 1999-2000 Russian "Millennium Expedition" (skydiving/ballooning) is covered on a separate page. [top] |
