19DEC08

by Marco Flagg

 

 

This I was told in the galley hallway by a GA is the proud slogan of their crew.  And it’s also a good opportunity to talk about the ordinary work that is necessarily a part of this extraordinary place.  In this respect, our and other science teams are truly the lucky ones:  We travel into the field, experiencing raw Antarctica beyond the confines of McMurdo.  Yet, for each science team member, there are ten support people:  galley staff and carpenters, fireman, fuel people, hazardous waste disposal and the GA, the normally first-year general assistants.  They all have traveled to the end of the world, and most every single one of them is driven by a spirit of adventure. But, they may simply find themselves ‘cleaning bathrooms below the 70^th parallel’. Still, they are remarkably cheerful and I have yet to hear an outright gripe. Here at our science team ‘Bravo One Seven Four’ we make an effort to involve the support staff, request their assistance so they can also participate in the research. 

 

Just last evening I worked with a young GA one the ice, testing radio propagation distance for our new ‘Southstar’ acoustic navigation system.   David ran further and further across the flat sea ice, stopping in intervals and pointing his antenna at the Jamesway hut were I sat at our base station, taking signal readings.  We weren’t done until around 11 p.m., with the sun still up.  David looked happy but exhausted.  ‘I need to go to bed’ were his simple words as he quickly stepped out of the lab.

 

But, for us engineers not all is excitement either.  The work of discovery and invention has famously been called 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.  Today was tank test day, an opportunity to fly and test SCINI and its components in an indoor tank.  It’s a well controlled environment, and it’s easy to keep the electronics running for hours.  As is usually the case at this stage, a few bugs and flaws manifested themselves and we either documented or we fixed them.  By the end of the day, confidence in SCINI performance had risen. It appeared that the next day might see SCINI slip under the ice for the first time this season…