Thanksgiving

The people living at the South Pole are predominantly American and pro-Thanksgiving. This past Saturday was the big Thanksgiving celebration, and it was quite the party; there were hors dourves, live music, a candlelight dinner and very attentive wine-servers. They even put heavy curtains on the windows to keep the blinding sun out and create a nicer ambience for us.

After a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, some youngins put on music and started dancing right there in the galley. Soon the older and more responsible contingent of the crowd went to bed, and we were left with a full-on Thanksgiving dance party. At some point the galley sound system went out, and it seemed that the party would soon end. Instead, someone initiated a drive to move the party to "The Smokers’ Lounge" , which is essentially just a bar in the Old South Pole Station. Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the path to the Smokers’ Lounge was through a frightening, non-heated industrial tower, the party was successfully brought back to life.

Anyway, Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. The next morning all of us SPT guys got up early to do a live webcast with the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco, which went just fine. The rest of the day was spent lounging around the station and hanging out in the sauna. You might get the impression that every weekend at the South Pole is so fun-filled and relaxing. More realistically, this was probably the last full day of rest I will have until Christmas or New Year's. The telescope has to be built!

Arrival

After only 6 days of travel, we've made it to the South Pole!

Our 3 hour flight from McMurdo to the Pole went off without a hitch and gave us some spectacular views of inland Antarctica (see photos). The plane landed, I stepped outside, and the inside of my noise instantly froze (it was -37 F when we landed, with the wind chill bringing it down to about -55 F). We were cheerily greeted by our PI John Carlstrom and Project Manager Steve Padin.

The South Pole sits on top of about 2 miles of packed ice and has an effective elevation of about 11,000 ft. This means that altitude sickness is a serious concern up here. So of course we've taken it really easy so far: no work, lots of water, lots of rest. Poor Jeff had a strange reaction to the anti-altitude sickness medication that we all took and has had legally-blind vision for the past 24 hours. His vision is slowly and steadily improving.

After lunch we did take a walk over to "The Dark Sector", the region of the polar base where electromagnetic noise is kept to a minimum for the sake of the telescopes which live there. This is where the South Pole Telescope (locally known as "10 Meter") will be built. Along the way we got to see a piece of CMB (cosmic microwave background) history, "DASI", an earlier and extremely successful telescope of John Carlstrom's. DASI was the first telescope to detect the polarization of the CMB light waves. Its current incarnation is a telescope known as QUAD, which is also studying the polarization of the CMB. (Sorry for all the science lingo without any explanation. If you'd like to learn more about this science, please check out these great introductory CMB pages by Wayne Hu).

So anyway, after months of anticipation, I am very glad to have finally made it to the South Pole!

CHC -> MCM

As is often the case when flying to Antarctica, our flight from Christchurch to McMurdo Station was delayed. First by 24 hours and then by 3 hours. So we had 27 hours to kill in Christchurch, which wasn't a bad deal at all. We basically just hung out at cafes and bars and went kayaking through the botanical gardens. I have photos to prove it.

Eventually our real flight time came and we found ourselves at a Kiwi airfield, shuffling through security lines (much like you would in a standard airport), but while dressed head to toe in our extreme weather clothing (which was stiflingly hot in Christchurch, but required of us anyway). An hour later we were strapping down our seat belts on a US military jet, preparing for takeoff. All in all it was a very comfortable ride. The aisles were huge. We were given enormous brown bag lunches. Surprisingly friendly US Air Force personnel let us get up and walk around and look out the window at the ice floes we were flying over.

Only 5 hours later we touched down at McMurdo Station. The aircraft door opened, the cold air poured in, and we all shuffled onto the snow tarmac. Spinning around several times to take in the gorgeous mountains around us, I was floored. I am standing on Antarctica! I am up-side-down! This is actually happening!

McMurdo Sound was much more beautiful and mountainous than I had thought it would be. It was also pretty warm (about 30 F, 0 C), allowing for a pleasant walk outside after dinner. Tom, Jeff and I walked over to an old hut constructed in 1902 by the British explorer R.P. Scott and his men. There is even a frozen seal on the ground outside the hut, presumably killed by Scott and his men but never eaten. Although quite disgusting to look at up close, the 104-year-old seal has been remarkably well preserved by the cold temperatures at McMurdo. Check out photos.

And that's it for my trip in McMurdo. Tomorrow morning we should be on a plane to the South Pole!

En Route

The trip to the South Pole is not a short thing. For me it began in Chicago about 2 days ago, on Thursday November 16, as I boarded a plane (with coworkers Tom and Jeff) headed to LA. There we met up with fellow graduate student Joaquin and took a 12-hour overnight flight to Auckland, New Zealand. In crossing the International Date Line during this flight I was completely robbed of the day Friday, November 17, 2006. Next up was a short flight to Christchurch, New Zealand, where I write this post.

Our time in Christchurch has been very nice so far. We've had a little time to walk around town and check out some cafes and restaurants (very impressive food so far), and last night we were even fortunate enough to experience the city's nightlife scene. Today Joaquin and I took a walk through the city's amazing botanical garden, the most beautiful one either of us has ever walked through (I'll post some photos when I have a better internet connection). The main purpose of our stay in Christchurch was taken care of this afternoon when we were assigned the 40-odd articles of extreme weather clothing which keep us warm and functional when we work outside at the South Pole.

Anyway, we have a few more hours to enjoy Christchurch before our "zero six hundred hours" appearance at the military airport tomorrow morning. Then we all pile into this noisy plane and fly to Antarctica. Should be fun.

Introduction

Hi everyone,

This is the blog of Ryan Keisler, a graduate student in physics at the University of Chicago, while he is working at the South Pole. I (Ryan) will be there for about 3 months during the 2006-2007 austral summer to help build a new radio telescope called the "South Pole Telescope". This 10-meter telescope will, among other things, help us to understand a force in our universe known as "dark energy". Dark energy is causing the expansion of our Universe to accelerate and is one of the most puzzling physical phenomena ever observed.

I'll be at the South Pole with a bunch of other people (about 10) that also work on the South Pole Telescope. We'll be working outside every day in -30F weather, trying to put together this giant telescope bolt by bolt. It should be tough but rewarding work.

I'll keep a record of my South Pole experience on this blog. There is also a blog which other members of the SPT team will contribute to. Check this blog out by clicking on its link on the side of this page (or just go directly to http://southpoletelescope.uchicago.edu/blog/ ).

Ok, thanks for visiting!

-Ryan