Homeward Bound

This post comes to you from an internet cafe in Christchurch, NZ. Yes, it's true: After 2+ months at the very bottom of the world, I have returned to the mid-latitudes. The temperature is in the 70's, the sun is shining warmly (but it was dark outside last night when I arrived!), and I took a very long shower this morning.

Despite some subtle and good-natured --- but very real --- pressure from John C. to stay a bit longer, I made the decision to leave the Pole on my originally scheduled departure date of January 29. Many factors contributed to this decision: We (the reflector assembly team) had successfully completed the task we were sent down to do weeks ago; there were more than enough competent people around to work on the receiver (it was actually quite difficult for several of us to carve out some small niche of receiver work, and for some of us it just never happened); with some late nights last week, I managed to finish the software tasks that I had taken on in lieu of receiver work; and finally, THE BEARS ARE IN THE SUPER BOWL. If that were not the case, I probably would have stayed on at least a few more days, finding odd jobs to help out with, because Cathryn is currently in New Orleans and hadn't planned to be back in Chicago for at least two weeks, leaving me plenty of time to do more work at Pole and see some of New Zealand before I came home. But the inability of the New Orleans Saints to properly grasp the football changed all that, and now I'm on the express route back to Chi-town, and Cathryn has booked a two-day-turnaround round-trip flight back from the Big Easy. We'll have a brief, euphoric reunion involving friends, family, and (I hope) a Bears Super Bowl victory, and then Cathryn will jet back off to N.O., and I will loll around the house for a day or two then go back to work. Don't worry, we'll manage a vacation soon (probably early March), but I'm remarkably non-burnt-out for having spent months working in Polar conditions, and the prospect of getting back to my semi-normal Chicago routine (including lots and lots of singing, which I've desperately missed) is quite attractive.

This is potentially the last post on this blog, so I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for reading, commenting, e-mailing, watching the webcasts, and generally supporting me through this most excellent adventure. I can't wait to see you all in person again.

Finally, I will leave you with the result of a pact Joaquin and I made in Texas.

Inspired by the truly awesome mustache borne by a patron of the godawful bar we frequented in Longview, we decided that when it was time for the Polar beards to come off, we would do it in stages and spend at least a few days with mustaches of our own. I went first, Joaquin a few hours later, and without any help on our part the trend spread to nearly everyone else in the collaboration, culminating in this picture outside the weekly ironworker "safety meeting." Some of the most extreme examples were Kathryn M. (front left in the picture) --- who got into the club using double-sticky tape and trimmings off her own head --- and Eric the ironworker crew chief, who submitted to being climbed onto and shaved by Joaquin despite the fact that he outweighed, outranked, and generally out-everythinged Joaquin by at least a factor of two. Ahh, good times.

Fun with facial hair

Time Flies

Amazing to think that I have now been at the South Pole for exactly two months. On one hand, that sounds like an incredibly long time; on the other hand, I can hardly remember what it feels like to not be at the Pole. My official re-deployment (i.e., leaving) date is the 29th of January, or one week from today. John C. has, however, made it very clear that anyone who wishes to stay a bit longer is more than welcome. I'm of two minds on this. It would be nice to see the receiver installed in the telescope and possibly witness first light, but I'd also love to see the night sky, some trees, maybe a body of water, then get home and see the people that I've been missing. Then there's the wild card in all of this: The Bears. Yes, we find out tonight whether the Monsters of the Midway earn a berth in Super Bowl XLI. If they do, I just might be able to careen my way out of here and be back in Chicago in time to watch it with my long-suffering Bear fan compatriots --- most notably my wife, who at the time of the last Bears Super Bowl twenty-one years ago hadn't quite figured out yet that she should be watching every game with me.

In the meantime, work continues apace. The receiver is getting set to mate with the cryostat that contains the secondary mirror, and if that cooldown goes well, both of them will be lifted up into the receiver cabin at prime focus of the telescope. At that point, the SPT will officially be in business, and there will be much rejoicing indeed.

And before I forget --- because I did forget last post --- I want to give a shout out to my two Crawford nephews, Mac (or Robert, as they call him in his fancy school) and Billy, and to their whole 3rd- and 1st-grade classes: Sra. Soler & Mrs. Goodwin's, and Sra. Stromberg & Mrs. Raducha's at DiLoreto Magnet School in New Britain, CT.

The Receiver Has Arrived

As has its minions. Legions of them. Bill and Adrian and Brad and Martin and Tom and Zak. Steve Meyer too. And John Carlstrom is back. And Ken and Kathryn and Erik are here to work on software. And Matt is showing up tomorrow. And Clem will be down soon to work on a different experiment but lend his expertise this way as well. Less than a week ago, it was five scientists working on the reflector, outnumbered by the telescope ironworkers and Vertex engineers, but now we are a Beaker Army.

The new arrivals wasted no time making the Reflector Assembly Team look like a bunch of hot-tub-sitting, bon-bon-eating slackers. The most extreme case was Brad, who on his second full day at the Pole worked for 22 hours getting the receiver cryostat closed up and on the pump, but all of the receiver guys put in at least half again as much time out at the lab than those reflector slobs are accustomed to. (Of course, we work outside so its harder. And we spend those 10-12 hours really efficiently, so it's like we're working twice as much. And . . . oh never mind.)

At any rate, we are now in the final stage of getting this impressive beast looking at the sky. Check out the main SPT blog for pictures of the receiver and its contents.

In the Life at the Pole vein, I promised last time that I would tell tales of the New Year's Eve party. As the satellite is about to go down (effectively ending this post one way or another), I will simply post some pictures that Jeff took of the party, mainly while the band that I happen to be in was playing. It was a blast, and people seemed to really enjoy it.











Finally, make sure to catch the fifth and final South Pole webcast this Saturday (January 13) at noon Central time at www.exploratorium.edu/poles/telescope.php.

Happy New Year!

...and sorry for the delay in posting! Lots of stuff to report since the last post. First and most importantly, the telescope is looking great. Tomorrow is a big, big day, as the mirror gets lifted on and attached to the telescope. The blessing has been given to go ahead with this step, mainly based on photogrammetry measurements indicating that the mirror surface is good to about a tenth of a millimeter. Our requirements for the surface are just a little bit below this, and all indications are that we should be easily able to achieve this with a bit of tweaking once the mirror is up on the telescope. In some sense, you could make the argument that the job of the reflector assembly team is done. (And successfully, at that!)

Of course, none of us is leaving on the first plane out, as there's always plenty more to do. We'll probably keep measuring and tweaking the mirror surface until about the end of the season, because every little bit helps. But lots of us will move on to helping out with the receiver, which shows up (along with an absolute horde of newly arrived scientists) later this week.

There was, as you also may have noticed, a holiday or two in the interim. Christmas is always a bit tough when you're away from family and friends, but once again the cooks and planners and decorators came up big and made things as enjoyable as they possibly can be. We on the night shift were a bit apprehensive at the prospect of waking up at what felt like 5 or 6 in the morning to eat a huge meal and drink loads of wine, but some vocal night-shifters on the Ice Cube project managed to convince the powers that be to schedule a special dinner seating for us. This was great in a few different ways: not only were we eating our Beef Wellington at what felt like a normal hour, we also had a much more intimate setting to enjoy -- only about 30 of us, and we all knew each other fairly well from being night shift outcasts together.

Night shift Xmas


One slightly odd consequence of this specially scheduled meal was that the Race Around the World took place just as we were polishing off our dessert and having that last glass of brandy (or whatever passes for brandy around here). The Race is a South Pole Christmas Day tradition -- and although technically you could cover 360 degrees of longitude just by swinging once around the Pole at arm's length, the Race actually covers 2 miles (or 3 miles or something like that) and 3 trips around a track that circles the Pole at a significantly larger radius. For even the most seasoned athelete, running any kind of distance in -30 degree temperatures at an altitude of 10,000 feet immediately after consuming large quantities of meat, pie, wine, and who knows what else presents a serious challenge. And I am not the most seasoned athelete. But they give you this really cool t-shirt if you finish, and besides, how often do you get the chance to say: "I ran around the world. And didn't vomit." Lots of people run the race normally, but others do it on skies, or stilts, or a bike, or a float of some sort -- one of which this year included a working shower with people inside. Below is a mini-photo gallery of the race (courtesy of Jeff & Ryan), including my sprint to the finish which earned me the moniker "The Cheetah" in the official race results (the scorers didn't realize that I walked at least 1/3 of the course and turned on the jets only when the cameras were in sight).

Race Around the World: And They're Off!

Race Around the World: The "Hour Shower"

Race Around the World: The First Lap Leader (Jeff) Finishes

Race Around the World: The Cheetah!


After reliving all this excitement, I think I'd better postpone tales of New Year's Eve until next post.

One final note: The fourth South Pole webcast took place this past Saturday, December 30. I apologize for not sending out a reminder, but the station was in Extreme Power Conservation mode, and I wasn't sure until the last minute that we would be able to use the equipment. But don't worry, you can see the archived version here, and you won't even know the difference. Furthermore, due to popular demand, a special fifth webcast has been added on January 13 at noon CDT, so don't miss that one.

A Milestone

As anyone who has checked the main SPT blog knows by now, we have finished assembling the reflector. But wait, you say, you guys are the Reflector Assembly Team; if the reflector is now assembled, why aren't you on a plane home? Ah, but there is so much more. Perhaps I should refer to us instead as the "Reflector Assembly, Tweaking, Measuring, Tweaking Again, Finally Giving Up When The Station Closes Team" - more accurate, but a far less catchy acronym (RATMTAFGUWTSTCT?). Furthermore, some of us will be switching over to working on the receiver when it arrives, so there's plenty to keep us busy from now until our originally scheduled departure date.

I do not, however, mean to downplay the significance of the achievement. The most tangible goal of our trip has now been met. If indications from early photogrammetry measurements are to be trusted, we really are just some tweaks away from a fully functional primary mirror (crosses himself, knocks on wood, throws salt behind right shoulder). Add to that the progress on the telescope itself, and we are potentially just a receiver away from a damned impressive scientific instrument.

Progress on the telescope:


And finally, just to dispel the (completely baseless) notion that all we do here is goof off, here's a link to some video documenting the healthy outdoor traditional lifestyle that we 10-meter workers embrace here at the Pole. (Warning: contains images that may be objectionable to certain viewers and images that are rotated by 90 degrees. And really bad Scottish accents.)

Pictures!

Many moons ago, I mentioned that Jeff had been snapping pictures like a madman, and that I'd post a bunch soon. Well, soon turned out to be the better part of a month, but I've finally organized some particularly good shots (most by Jeff, but some by Joaquin & Ryan as well) into a webpage. So click here for a visual overview of the trip so far.

South Pole, Friday 8 Dec 2006 - Wednesday 13 Dec 2006

It's early Thursday morning here (after work for us night shifters), and I'm beat. I've just barely summoned the energy to throw my laundry in the washer, grab a gin-and-tonic from Night Shift Happy Hour at the station store (actually, it was a gin-and-concentrated-lime-juice-and-soda, because all of the tonic was run over by a forklift in McMurdo), and write this brief post. We are in full reflector assembly mode now, no more hemming and hawing about the exact best way to do things. (Well, if you know this crowd, you know that's never really the case, but we're really trying.) The assembly procedure involves preparing an individual mirror panel by attaching 5 of its legs (in this case the adjustable-height metal rods that control the vertical position of the panel) and its heating pad (to melt any accumulation of snow or ice), placing the other three legs (the ones that control the x-y position) into inserts on the backup structure (BUS), placing the panel onto the BUS so that the 5 legs on the panel go into the BUS and the 3 legs on the BUS go into the panel, then adjusting the 8 various legs so that the panel is in the right place to ~1/1000 of an inch. As you might imagine, that last step is fairly time-consuming. We have many tools to aid us in that process, from the elaborate (a theodolite, which is a surveying tool that tells you the exact angular position of a point you sight with its crosshairs) to the mundane (my finger, which can detect a few thousandths of an inch variation in height between two panels), but we're trying to get about eight things perfect on every panel (the height of four corners and the position of four sides), and we have eight knobs to twiddle, and when you get one thing just right, you mess up the thing you just got right a second ago. Even better, the person doing the measuring and the person doing the adjusting are separated by large slabs of metal and plastic, so you have to shout to communicate, and if the ironworkers happen to be rolling by on a bulldozer or a crane, just forget about it. Oh, and did I mention we're outside this entire time, and you just can't feel the panel heights right with gloves on?

Despite all this bitching and moaning, we are managing to keep a pace up that should have us finished assembling by Christmas, which was the original target date. (Then comes testing and more tweaking, and more testing and more tweaking, until they ship us all out of here.) It's hard work, but I guess it'll keep us out of trouble (everyone except Joaquin, anyway).

In other news, I checked the post office (which is really just a pile of stuff in the hall) the other day, and I had not one, not two, but four packages. I am the envy of the group (if not the entire station), and though I would love to eat all the goodies I received myself while my compatriots looked on helplessly, there is simply no way I can put away two pounds of fudge and a tin of cookies without serious repercussions. Thanks to all the Crawford Santas.