Farewell To the South Pole Dome 77
Julie188 writes "After more than three decades of service to researchers and staff stationed at the bottom of the world, the dome at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station was deconstructed this austral summer. Designed and constructed by the Seabees — the construction battalions of the US Navy — in the early 1970s, the dome's geodesic design provided a unique solution to the challenges posed to engineers trying to build structures at the South Pole. The dome is being returned to southern California where it will be held in storage. It could possibly be trotted out as an exhibit in a new US Navy Seabees museum."
Bad idea. (Score:5, Funny)
Great, how do they know that in the past 28 years The Thing hasn't managed to figure out how to assimilate non-living matter and is now the dome? Just sitting there, waiting in the cold.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
How's that for tying two classics together?
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Ahhh, the Classic Songs of Dennis Leary.
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Whale skin hubcaps for the win!
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Big brown baby seal eyes for head lights.
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They might also be Krynoids. Very dangerous, and they always travel in pairs.
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But what about the Others? And Jacob? And Smokie?! (Score:1, Funny)
Oh wait, wrong 1970s scientific research group.
Dang Air Force cutbacks. (Score:5, Funny)
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Whaaa! The government spends too much money. It needs to cut funding.
Whaaa! The government cut the program which I liked, or which exists in my congressional district.
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Actually, for a backup system, LORAN-C was cheap. Estimated price to operate it for a decade was like $22 million. In the government of "a trillion here, a trillion there", $22 million is pocket change.
Re:Dang Air Force cutbacks. (Score:5, Informative)
Hey, this administration dismantled LORAN-C, the backup system in case of GPS satellite spoofing or jamming.....
President Obama is influential, but he isn't capable of time travel. President Bush scheduled the dismantling, President Obama continued that recommendation. Both the Coast Guard and the DHS said they didn't need LORAN-C, so why maintain it? It smells like pork.
This dismantling was already scheduled by the previous administration, according to the FA [popularmechanics.com].
The Department of Homeland Security last year started a painful upgrade to LORAN-C, adding modern electronics and solid-state transmitters, despite the fact that in 2008 President George W. Bush signed a law that scheduled the system's dissolution.
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/Loran/default.htm [uscg.gov]
The DHS and Coast Guard both said they didn't need LORAN-C. From http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/Loran/default.htm [uscg.gov] :
The Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010 allowed for termination of the LORAN-C signal on January 4, 2010, after certification from the Commandant of the Coast Guard that it was not needed for maritime navigation and from the Secretary of DHS that it is not needed as a backup for GPS.
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Then both the Bush and Obama administrations are guilty of stupidity on this one. Loran was relatively cheap, and what do you do if ASAT's from a hostile power start taking out GPS satellites? You're basically back to pre-1940's navigation methods. Hope your pilots are up on their starlight navigation skills. Hope your mariners haven't tossed their sextants.
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This is what I love about militaristic people. You always assume we're under imminent threat. You have more chances of being hit by a falling GPS satellite than someone taking one out.
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RADAR is not used for navigation. It's used for surveillance.
Aircraft are slowly becoming 100% dependent on GPS (unless they're large enough to have inertial navigation systems on board). The FAA has been slowly but surely decommissioning ground-based navigation transmitters of other types. (Example, the airport down the road just decommissioned its ILS Middle Marker beacon, and it's not coming back. The information it provided pilots of older aircraft without Instrument-rated GPS on board, is now gone
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The DHS and Coast Guard both said they didn't need LORAN-C
They still haven't identified the backup for GPS, though. The best reason to do away with it that I can think of, though, is that it was designed for civilian use and yet practically no civilians use it. Consequently almost nobody has a receiver.
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Here's an article that describes another reason for the cuts. There does seem to be alot of back and forth regarding this system.
http://www.insidegnss.com/node/1806 [insidegnss.com]
Although the Federal Register notice also indicates that a decision has not been made on the need for a GPS backup, the announcement apparently brings to a close a seemingly interminable process of preserving and upgrading the terrestrial radionavigation system to provide an enhanced Loran (eLoran) capability that could serve as a multimodal backup to failures or interference to the Global Positioning System.
That process spanned several years, two administrations, and the expenditure of $160 million over the last 10 years to partially modernize a network of Loran stations that now will be phased out. It also flies in the face of an independent assessment team’s unanimous recommendation to establish eLoran as a GPS backup, as well as the efforts of navigation counterparts in other nations, notably the United Kingdom, to implement eLoran.
offtopic? (Score:2)
This is what happens when you let just anyone moderate.
So the chair is no longer there. (Score:1, Funny)
So the chair is no longer there.
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Wrong pole chief, that episode was in Alaska which is closer to the North Pole than the South pole mentioned in the story.
Nice try to fit in a pop culture reference though.
Pictures and more info (Score:5, Informative)
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here's another station:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Elisabeth_Base [wikipedia.org]
http://www.antarcticstation.org/ [antarcticstation.org]
Re:Pictures and more info (Score:5, Informative)
Here [southpolestation.com] are deconstruction photos of the former dome station.
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For anyone interested here [nsf.gov] is the link on the NSF page showing the old site and the new facility.
I don't know about you but I really think they should change their URL to nsfw.gov
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Deconstructed? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
"Dismantled" would be a better choice.
Of course I may be wrong. Perhaps the Seabees really have been standing around considering the the dome's true meaning and searching for inconsistencies in its design.
Re:Deconstructed? (Score:4, Funny)
Was it mantled in the 70s?
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I think you mean ENmantled?
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Yes, you may be wrong.
Deconstruct:
tr.v. deconstructed, deconstructing, deconstructs
1. To break down into components; dismantle.
Re:Deconstructed? (Score:5, Funny)
Today's lesson: don't let philosophers dictate meaning.
Re:Better? (Score:2, Informative)
"Dismantled" would be a better choice.
I think "Superior" would be a superior choice.
It's not hard to suggest Synonyms and sound pompous.
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It's not hard to suggest Synonyms and sound pompous.
I think "sound like an asshat" would be a superior choice.
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Why are they removing it? It seems odd that they would remove one of the few structures on the continent.
Re:Deconstructed? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Deconstructed? Reason from TFA (Score:2)
The dome could no longer accommodate the demands of research activities taking place there, however, and each year the structure sunk deeper into the ice it was built on. Blowing snow that collected on top of it had to be removed and hauled away, burning up precious fuel and crew time during the short austral summer. The international treaty that governs human activities in Antarctica requires that buildings and equipment no longer in use be removed and the site remediated whenever possible, necessitating the dome's deconstruction and removal.
I can understand the last two points (snow covering it, and no littering in Antarctica), but did the structure stay there for 30 years and only now the sinking into the snow becomes a problem? Given the panels are so light, they could have dis- and reassembled them when needed. Maybe made up to soften the accountants sharp pencil of "too expensive!"
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Snow covering it is sinking into the snow. Same effect. Snow covers it each year but never melts. The next year, more snow covers it.
Meanwhile, the entire glacier is slowly squirting out at all sides towards the sea. The net effect is a glacier that's not necessarily getting any thicker, but items sitting on top of it effectively "sink" in the additional snowfall as any given layer moves down and out to the sea.
The new station can be jacked up on hydraulics up to two stories "higher" than its current po
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>Perhaps the Seabees really have been standing around considering the the dome's true meaning and searching for inconsistencies in its design.
No, no. Its not the design, man, its like the "idea" that "man" can "own" property and "things" in the south pole.
*hits bong*
Yeah.... its like the penguins are the indians and we are General Custer.
*hits bong*
Err...what were we talking about? Custard? Yeah, I'd like some custard.
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Muahahaha!!
nopics with noscript (Score:5, Informative)
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Also, some people like myself would be curious about inside of the dome.
Picture of the inside from Polar Phitalely website [polarphilately.com]
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Some people prefer to go to the original source when one is available.
The new building is really nice (Score:2, Funny)
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The new building is quite nice.
To be more accurate, though, underground (well, under-ice) parking is convenient next door in the Logistics and Maintenance Arches, it's just that it's a pain going up and down all those stairs to get from the subsurface arch to the elevated station.
The safety devices on the elevator don't work in those temperatures, so it can be used for supplies but not for people.
And here you thought you'd run off a one-liner and be done. Hah!
And Here is Why (Score:5, Informative)
Because TFS couldn't be bothered to give a hint as to why I will...
"The dome could no longer accommodate the demands of research activities taking place there, however, and each year the structure sunk deeper into the ice it was built on. Blowing snow that collected on top of it had to be removed and hauled away, burning up precious fuel and crew time during the short austral summer. The international treaty that governs human activities in Antarctica requires that buildings and equipment no longer in use be removed and the site remediated whenever possible, necessitating the dome's deconstruction and removal."
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[...] each year the structure sunk deeper into the ice it was built on.
Everyone said I was daft to build a dome on an ice sheet, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the ice. So I dismantled that one and built another. That sank into the ice. So I dismantled that one and built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the ice. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest dome in all of Antarctica!
(Sorry. It just came to me...)
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I thought the third one was taken back in time to serve as a base in an ancient war, and that the fourth was destroyed, with only the fifth (and last) being put to use.
There's No Place Like Dome (Score:1)
and soon no Dome either.
No Ruby (or Silver) Slippers required.
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one more SF southpole station (Score:2)
South Pole Crew (Score:5, Interesting)
They finally ended the embarassment (Score:2)
You Insensitive Clods (Score:2)
Arrogant Southist assholes. Allow me to refer you to a more correct map of the planet [flourish.org] (though I'd still prefer to see an equal-area projection used instead of Mercator's abomination.)