october-08

At the end of October the first aircraft at the South Pole Since February 14th:
a ski-equipped Basler DC-3 (C-47) lands at the geographic South Pole

A sad sight: The now dormant dome and a cold skylab are now being quickly buried
in snow awaiting an eventual disassembly and shipment back to the States. I spent
three years of my life in these iconic facilities

Speaking of the past, I walked over to my old SETI telescope tower and service building that have been decommissioned. It was sad to see the now empty telescope tower and the drifted in service building where I spent many hours during two winters operating, troubleshooting and repairing this extra-solar planet finding optical telescope. AASTO-SETI tower and building

The new elevated station, commissioned in January, 2008 after its first official winter

I wintered in the new station this year. It is quite luxurious compared to living in the dome, but the dome brings plenty of nostalgia for us who were lucky enough to spend several winter under it.
the elevated station, the geographic South Pole and a Scott-tent where many of us spend the night during the dark winter when temperatures are as low as -100 degrees F

under the elevated station where winds during the winter are accelerated, thus keeping the snow from accumulating

the geographic South pole marker and Scott tent

a sign on the new station winterovers put on for the returning summer staff arrival for sale

the new station hallway where the past 51 years of winterover photographs are displayed

Dave, the science machinist, left early on the first flight so we took some photos. dave and I with SPT in the background frosty in the middle of nowhere nowhere-part 2 snow accumulation on the dark sector lab where I work and the station a mile away

This month I had to troubleshoot a problem with one of our pulse tube helium compressors. It would not start. Once I increased the ultra-high-purity helium in the compressor it started, but I still had to assemble the compressor with the pulse tube, the pulse tube motor and the long 66 ft helium lines to give it a full check out run. Pumping and purging all helium lines and subsystems is critical to maintaining an extremely high purity of helium in the components. Any contamination of gases other than helium, such as oxygen or nitrogen in the system will result in degradation of cooling performance because these contaminant gases will freeze out on the cold head at these low temperatures of 2 to 4 degrees C above absolute zero. holding helium pulse tube connecting vacuum turbo pump assembling pulse tube system assembling pulse tube system-2 connecting helium lines to helium compressor pulse tube getting cold

The Federal Aviation Administration made a flight over the Pole this month. FAA flight over the Pole FAA jet and South Pole Telescope

On a final note, Martin Pomerantz, the father of South Pole Astronomy just passed away. The Martin A Pomerantz Observatory (MAPO) in the dark sector was named in his honor some years ago. He wrote a book, Astronomy on Ice - Observing the Universe from the South Pole, which is published by The American Polar Society (http://www.ampolarsociety.org/index.html) He was director of the Bartol Research Institute, now at the University of Delaware.
Martin A. Pomerantz, December 17, 1916 to October 25, 2008.
For more information see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Pomerantz