'Ice Highway' To Open Earth's Last Frontier

JayBonci writes "CNN is carrying a story on an Ice Highway to make it easier to access the South Pole. The 1,020 mile "highway" may be completed as soon as 2006. Because of the nature of the ever-shifting ice, maintenance is going to be difficult to say the least, but it will provide greater access to the region for supplies and scientists."

Now all they need is a sign...

[zuikaku]

"Last gas 1,020 miles!"

Re:Now all they need is a sign...

[Tumbleweed]

Yo. Nerd. You're on Slashdot. That should be, "Last gas 1,024 miles!"

Or kilometers, depending on if you're non-American.

They should make a vehicle that runs on snow for down there. Some kind of "snowmobile." Yeah, that'd be good. Either that or penguin-powered. Too bad it's the wrong pole for polar bears - they'd be fun to ride. You know, except for the mauling and eating bit.

Re:Now all they need is a sign...

[MBCook]

Yeah, that may be true, but at least we all know there will be at least 20 McDonald's along a stretch that long.

All you need is a car that can run on french fries and your set!

Re:Now all they need is a sign...

[SmackCrackandPot]

Sorry for the inconvenience - the car wash is closed - we're waiting for it to be defrosted.

Re:Now all they need is a sign...

[Technician]

The sign would be wrong. I don't think you can buy gas in 1,020 miles. The sign should simply say LAST GAS. No gas ahead.

Re:Now all they need is a sign...

[sharkdba]

The sign should simply say LAST GAS. No gas ahead.

You're right. And they should also put "Dead end", or "No outlet" signs, since the only way out is by coming back the same road.

test link

[MajorG17]

test [neu.edu]

There goes the neighborhood

[ferralis]

We should run a pool on how long it will be before the first Starbucks pops up...

Next Headline in Yahoo

[georgewad]

Tourists Put Antarctic Ecosystem in Peril [yahoo.com]
How appropriate.

As the road shifts.

[ForestGrump]

Because the road is a definate scar across the surface of the ice, it would make it much easier to track movements and discontinuties in the ice; which would otherwise be unseen by the naked eye.

-Grump

The question is...

[Dr. GeneMachine]

... who wants to go there? Looks worse than Nebraska...

Re:The question is...

[Tumbleweed]

Still better than South Dakota!

So the next step is, what, condos? Sure, the commute to the Vally is a killer, but look at those prices! :)

Re:The question is...

[Dr. GeneMachine]

Well, and that from a guy named Tumbleweed... If there were weeds, it would be tumbleweed county, if nothing else...

Re:The question is...

[Cyno01]

Reminds me of this [improb.com].

how usable will this be?

[fireduck]

the idea, presumably, is to truck supplies overland in antarctica, rather than flying them in with cargo planes. how practical is that? truck needs gas to travel 2000+ miles and then you've got this "stretching road" problem to deal with ("From one summer to the next the crevasse field moved about 1,000 feet north and grew about 100 feet longer."). So, your road needs to be replowed every year to account for the fact that it's now 100 feet away from where you left it?

Re:how usable will this be?

[A55M0NKEY]

There's nothing preventing some people from opening a new People's Republic of the South Pole where Marijuana was legal. There could be vast greenhouses where food was grown to giant proportions during the 6 month growing season of 24 hour sunshine. Imagine the buds on a plant that grew for 6 months before flowering?

They could build the First City on an oil field and use that to run the lights to mine raw materials and to run the lights for the 6 months of darkness. ( I would recommend having their inde

Re:how usable will this be?

[barakn]

The Going To The Sun Highway in Glacier National Park is plowed out every spring. Somehow 600,000 vehicles a year manage to use it.

Re:how usable will this be?

[FlyingOrca]

Trucking is a lot cheaper than flying, considered on the basis of cost per kilo moved. That's why everything is expensive in the Arctic. Further south (by Arctic standards), parts of northern Manitoba are served by "winter roads" kind of like this. Once everything freezes up, it's a good way to move things.

Interestingly, global warming is one possible culprit contributing to a recent problem: the weather "window" for winter roads is becoming more narrow. Bummer for the folks who live in places without alte

Re:how usable will this be?

[RailRide]

History Channel's series Modern Marvels [historychannel.com] did an episode on Robinson Industries, a Canadian trucking firm that also builds/maintains ice highways during the winter months. The process is described here [www.rtl.ca]

Of interest is how the truckers must travel at a certain speed when traveling over lakes and rivers. Seems that the truck's presence deflects the ice in such a way that creates pressure waves in the water underneath, such that if the truck approaches the shore too quickly, the pressure wave can actually blo

Errrm. Antarctica last frontier of Earth?

[Ayanami Rei]

I don't know, we haven't terraformed the seabed very much. I thought deep water was the real last frontier of earth.

It's already Trashed

[jazman_777]

I read a book called "Mind Over Matter" about a couple of guys who crossed Antarctica on foot (a good read, BTW). It's not a walk--they started out with 450-lb sledges they could barely move. When they got to the South Pole, the author commented on how dirty and trashy it looked there. Scientists, tourists (making a quick hop down to the Pole, I reckon).

Re:It's already Trashed

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the book. The author is a complete primadonna jackass and hypocrite. A friend of mine was stationed in Antarctica when this fella came through. His book was all haughty and full of himself with statements like how disappointed he was to come over the crest and see the McMurdo station because of how it seemed to soil the pristine landscape. The truth is he took full advantage of the food and lodging of the bases down there. It wasn't quite the idealistic journey of an explorer as he likes to tell

Hm...

[Coppit]

Anyone else have the mental image of sliding down miles of ice in a toboggan?

Tux

[ByteSlicer]

Splut! What's that sound? Damn! Ran over another penguin crossing the road :(

Good news for that stranded pilot...

[thelenm]

That means that possibly as soon as 2006, that stranded Australian pilot [slashdot.org] can finally get home!

The best thing about this road

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

There's absolutely nothing in Antarctica for the cops to hide behind.

Re:The best thing about this road

[shfted!]

I hadn't thought about that. Too bad my winter tires are only rated for 100 mph.

Re:The best thing about this road

[Reneumann]

yeah but in the absence of any enforced speed limit, I'm picturing myself revving up to 90mph, losing traction on the ice, going into a spin and slamming through the guardrail into the freezing ocean :-( *cries, scary*

Dupe

[1u3hr]

South Pole to Get Highway [slashdot.org]
Posted by michael on Friday January 24, @10:21PM
from the south-pole-highway-patrol-now-hiring dept.
tetrad writes "The New Scientist magazine reports [newscientist.com] that the US is building a road to the South Pole. The "highway" would cross the Ross Ice Shelf and then pass through the Transantarctic Mountains (map here [southpolestation.com]). Convoys of tractors will be the only traffic on the road, bringing fuel and heavy equipment to the South Pole, as well as enabling the installation of a $250M fibre-optic communications cable [bbc.co.uk] (discussed previously [slashdot.org])."

If this TV show adds anything to the story above (which I rather doubt), apologies.

airplanes?

[qtothemax]

Isn't this why we have airplanes/helicopters? I'm sure its not easy to fly to the south pole, but it can't be any easier to drive there...

A question

[g0bshiTe]

Exactly who will pave the way so to speak for this highway? Who gets the bill, and who maintains it? Emporer Penguins?