Halfway There.

Well, more than half geographically and less than half psychologically. We have arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand and are scheduled to fly to McMurdo Station tomorrow, then on to the Pole the next day.

But first, a bit of background:

The "we" referred to in the first paragraph consists of:

• Me (Tom Crawford, postdoc at University of Chicago)
• Jeff McMahon (postdoc at University of Chicago)
• Ryan Keisler (grad student at University of Chicago)
• Joaquin Vieira (grad student at University of Chicago)

We are the "reflector assembly team," which means that our main task at the Pole will be to put together the primary mirror for the telescope. The mirror needs assembling because it is not a single piece of reflective metal; rather, it consists of 218 separate pieces, roughly 2 feet on a side. These pieces (which we refer to as the mirror panels) get attached to the mirror back-up structure (BUS) that itself is made of 12 pie-shaped segments of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP). The panels get attached to the BUS segments using 8 variable-length struts, five that control the height of the panels off the BUS, three that control the horizontal position of the panels. These adjusters are critical, because the mirror will not work properly unless the panels are in their correct positions to within about one one-thousandth of an inch. Remember that thi is a 10-meter (or 37-foot) diameter mirror, so this is no easy task. You'll hear much much more about the details of this operation (likely more than you really want to) as
the job progresses.

As you might imagine, this is only one small part of the construction and operation of the South Pole Telescope, and there are many other team members going to Pole (or already there) with different and equally challenging tasks. The big boss men --- Principal Investigator John Carlstrom and Project Manager Steve Padin --- are already down at the Pole making sure thing are ready to go, as are the guys that bolt together and wire up the massive telescope infrastructure --- these are specialists from Vertex, the telescope manufacturer and Raytheon, the company that manages the Antarctic program. A team of scientists (professors, postdocs, grad students) from University of California at Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University, and McGill University are headed down in early January to install the receiver, just about the same time that reinforcements from Chicago arrive for tasks like software and telescope pointing tests. My official Pole deployment has an "option" to extend my stay to help with these tasks once the mirror is done --- "option" in quotes here because there's no way it won't be exercised.

It promises to be an exciting and busy couple of months, but right now the four of us are enjoying some of the more leisurely days we've had in quite some time. I personally was in a state of near-constant panic for the last several weeks before leaving: I was responsible for two crucial tests of the cryostat that houses the secondary mirror, and the combination of trying to get those tests done before I and all the equipment shipped out *and* make sure I was packed and prepared to go to the Pole just about did me in. But between the most pleasant trans-oceanic flight I've ever experienced (Yay Qantas! Yay expensive Sony headphones!) and a day spent wandering Christchurch with the fellas, dipping in strange shops, alternating coffee with beer, has effected a rapid rejuvenation.

Jeff is snapping pictures like a madman, and we'll post a bunch when he gets them downloaded. I've got to go try on gear now, but I'll post again soon.