Ch-Ch-Chatting With the South Pole's IT Manager

Have you ever thought about working at a place where the main worry is keeping the equipment from getting too cold? An excellent detailed interview with the IT manager of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Getting service is a little tough. They try to maintain at least a year's worth of spare parts. Includes an interesting set of photos.

Other Antarcitc Resource

[cthulu_mt]

This site (www.bigdeadplace.com/) is dedicated to the stories of what really goes on at McMurdo. It's a very funny read; I haven't gotten around to buying the book yet.

Re:Geosynchronous satellite dish at that lattitude

[MightyYar]

If you <ahem> RTFA, you will find that they only have connectivity for about 12 hours a day using at least 3 different satellites. The article is pretty interesting, go ahead and indulge.

Denver

[necro81]

The reason the guy keeps referring to his people back in Denver is because logistics and support for the South Pole station (and McMurdo, too, I think) are run by Raytheon Polar Services [raytheon.com], which is based in Colorado. The Antarctic program [usap.gov] is run out of Washington by the National Science Foundation, but they contract out the actual infrastructure, operations, and other support.

Re:Why they cannot get supplies/parts during Winte

[necro81]

It's sort of the weather. It's cold and windy during the winter, sure. But, it's also dark - completely and utterly dark for months at a time during the dead of winter. There aren't any lights on the runway, or air traffic radar either, so there's a good chance the plane will smack onto the snow rather than land. It's very difficult to compact and maintain the snow/ice runway during the winter. If a plane were to land, they would have to keep the engines revved up and the plane moving - if they were to stop and shutdown the skis would freeze to the runway and the engines would refuse to restart.

also bear in mind that any plane they sent up there would almost certainly have to go through McMurdo. They generally use modified C-130s for their heavy transport, and they don't have tremendous range on one tank of gas. So, you'd need to get a plane first to McMurdo, which has its own difficulties of winter flying, and then head to the South Pole.

None of this is to say that they can't fly in during the winter. If the station were to blow up, for instance, they'd get some daring pilots to head in for a rescue. A few years back there was someone on the over-winter crew that needed treatment for breast cancer (it was the doctor, ironically enough), and they did some dicey flights for that (to send supplies, then for an early extraction). It's mostly that they prefer to not have to, because it's logistically difficult and mighty risky.

Re:While you're keeping an eye on IT...

[Pojut]

It's from John Carpenter's 1982 version of The Thing...rent it, horror/sci-fi classic. Great great stuff. Even by today's standards, the special effects are decent. Also notable for not having a single female in the entire movie (unless you count the voice of the chess computer early on in the movie)

Re:South Poles

[Zenaku]

Because Antarctica is covered by a giant ice sheet, and the ice sheet moves. As the ice sheet moves, the entire station and the marker pole drift away from the true geographic south pole. They have to stick a new pole into the ice every year, at the spot that is over the geographic south pole at that moment.

So in the pictures, one of the marker poles is probably from a previous year.

Re:The one bright side to such an environment

[myvirtualid]

...they have attempted to do like they do in surgery tent in Iraq and create a positive air flow?

I don't know, but it might not be a good idea. According to http://healthandenergy.com/suggested_indoor_air_pressure.htm [healthandenergy.com],

Moisture condensation and damage can occur below the roofs and within outer walls of heated buildings if indoor air pressure is significantly greater than outdoor air pressure.

Of course, the next section of this page appears to contradict this....

http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/vol31_2/index.asp#control [trane.com] has more on this. Summary: It's complicated, man.

I asked about maintaining a positive pressure differential when we had an ERV installed (for reasons similar to those suggested by the PP); the technician indicated that while a nice theory, it could cause the ERV to ice up. They had been instructed to create a slightly negative pressure differential for this reason.

So my modern, plastic sealed house has slightly negative pressure relative to the outside. Several years and counting, and no negative side effects as far as I can tell.

Oh, and that's in Ottawa: Summer highs in the 40s, and very humid, winter lows in the -30s, and very dry. Nothing too extreme....

Re:Sounds awesome

[jotok]

McMurdo Station is always hiring. [usap.gov]

Ask yourself what kind of stuff you want to tell your grandkids when you're old. Then sign up :P
I'm dying to winter down there--just to say I've done it--heck, I'd apply for the janitor job if that's all that was available. They don't seem to have much need for security consultants :\

Re:The one bright side to such an environment

[DerekLyons]

Fire is a huge problem in general, because in the winter they have no choice but to fight and extinguish. Relocation isn't an option. Very interesting article.

Which is why, back when the DoD provided uniformed support personell (they contract out to civilians mostly now) - a high proportion of them were Navy, and a large fraction of those were submariners. (Sailors went mostly to the South Pole station, McMurdo was virtually an Army base.)
 
I wanted to go - but never applied because it was almost certain my application would be denied out-of-hand. My job was treated as 'critically undermanned', regardless of actual manning, by administrative fiat. (Except for re-enlistment bonuses of course!) As a result of this, applications to go do things outside of our normal jobs were routinely denied without review.
 
Though to be fair, my job field usually only had about 1000 people in it, including the 30-40 kids in the school at any given time, and it took about 1000 to man all our billets. If about 5-10 more guys got out in a given year than predicted, or 5-10 less than predicted per year made it through the school, it could and did cause problems. (Our school was second in difficulty (at the time) only to the nukes - routinely 30-40% of a class flunked out, with spikes much higher.)