STELLAR AXIS DIARY

Stellar Axis from the Antarctic Sky.

Saturday, 12.16.06 Posted at 7:51 pm

Perhaps the most challenging day so far. After our “breakfast” at 5:30 p.m. we head out to the site once more, Jean and Lionel in the Pisten Bully, Simon, Sophie and I on the skidoos. This time it is our last time skidding over the sea ice. The ice is starting to melt and it is getting too dangerous, we have to change our route to the other side through Willie Field, Snow Mass, and Scott Base.

I am enjoying this last ride, where the sensation of flying across the sea encircled by mountains is inebriating. As soon as we get to our camp, Simon realizes he has forgotten his GPS, bad news, since we were plotting the fourteen 24” spheres this morning, and again, for safety measure, two skidoos at a time must go, I volunteer, to get once more that blast of speed across the sea. This time coming in, that gasping sensation is seeing McMurdo Station nestled in the Volcanic rock, it is here looking at what seems like a coal mining town with cardboard buildings, that my heart is warmed by what is giving me life at this moment, this engine of a place, where we are fed and kept warm. It is on this icy surface of the sea, that I become aware of our dependency of this place, and I move toward it as a young born toward its mother.

As soon as Simon comes back out with his GPS, we go out once more to our site, where Sophie has already unpacked all the 24” and 19” spheres, assembled them and already to go out. We spend the rest of the evening, laboriously bringing the spheres one by one to their exact position. Then three at a time on a sled, first Simon plots the exact positioning of each star, then we drill the hole, then we put in the pole, then we manage to wrangle the bottom half of the sphere onto the pole then very laboriously turn the other half upside down and turn it maybe 30, 40 times as it wobbles on this very thin thread, while someone else holds the dead man strings so that the entire sphere does not spin out of control off of its rod.

I can hear Jean singing, “Come on, let’s twist again…” in the background. We then have to dead man every single sphere in two places, we run out of string, can only do one, then have problems with three of the rods, need rethreading, walking through the very soft sugary snow, sometimes sinking in over one foot deep is laborious and difficult, but we are in good spirits. Around 1:00 a.m. we need a break, I had bought a bottle of Merlot in the galley, and Lionel, Frenchman that he is, and wine-maker at that! Brought our card table out in the snow with four plastic cups and the bottle he opened ceremoniously and we waited in the cold until Jean finished his master shot, looking for food, but accepting that we only had nuts and chocolate, I start getting cold, in fact freezing, and start flipping out how cold my fingers are, Jean tells me to go into the Pisten Bully to get warm, I get in there, cover myself with all types of clothes I could find in my bag, and when I look up again, it is 5:00 a.m. and my team had been working for four hours on their knees in the icy surface, dead manning the fourteen 19” spheres while I had already had a half night’s rest! Needless to say it was a moment.

12.15.06 – 12.16.06

24 Spheres

We have had so many changes in our schedule. Last night was the first night that we had a complete night shift; it is when we put in the star Sirius. By the time we came back to the Crary Lab and finished with our emails we went to bed at 5:00. A.m. I awoke at 11:15 a.m. got up at Noon, and after doing my laundry for the first time (clean woolen socks is the best of luxuries) I was able to spend from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. finally doing some writing and straightening out the diaries.

I went and wrote in the Library. There is a panoramic view of all the mountain ranges over the sea ice and today the Royal Societies Mountain Range appeared from under the clouds for the first time, the beauty makes you want to cry, and also the history: I am sitting in the Library full of original manuscripts and rare books on Science and the Antarctic.

I feel like I am in a light house with a panoramic window looking straight South, at the gateway to the South, which lures me and has lured me since the day in 1978, when I was in the Tunisian desert going toward the Sahara, and here I am, almost twenty years later, almost reaching the uttermost Southern point on the planet.

To get to the South Pole we have to be extremely political. We were told we were a very popular group with the community, all this thanks to Simon and his charm, finesse and diplomacy. We need those good marks with the NSF, cross our fingers it will happen, Simon is working on it.

12.15.06 – 12.16.06 5:00 P.M. TO 5:00 A.M.

After dinner, the pisten bully is ready, loaded with Lionel and Jean and all the camera equipment. The three skidoos driven by Simon, I am in back of Sophie and two volunteers, Bill Josla and Julie go out to the site over the sea ice once more.

The road over the sea ice always makes my heart sing, I feel so free in this icy scape with the mountains encircling us, going full speed in the freezing weather to our site. The sea ice condition changes from moment to moment, and navigating the skidoo through the new condition is always a challenge and a triumph. Then there is the thrill of the flagged road straight ahead of me until the bend in the road and I gasp as Mt. Erebus suddenly appears.

Being in the middle of the circle of the horizon of the earth as we are at our site, everything changes as we move, the mountains move in back of certain landmarks, it is easy to get disoriented, and one always is. We arrive at our site around 8:00 p.m. and the magic of the light starts happening. I am anxiously anticipating seeing the star “Sirius” for the first time, since it feels like we gave birth to it the night before, it was so difficult putting it in, and like a new mother, I jump off the skidoo to look over my newborn only to discover that some huge tractor had laid deep tracks straight across our site. We had been so careful with footprints, now the snow was deeply scarred. We decide to move the center of the installation over to be away from this mark, which meant to remove Sirius, no easy task.

Jean forgot his tripod and we had to skidoo back to McMurdo to pick it up. We can only travel in two skidoos for safety, so I went back with him, enjoying every moment of this speed across the ice. The rest of the evening is spent putting in the next two sizes of spheres: the three 38”, and the four 30” each one a little cumbersome, but we have figured out a way of working as a team in an assembly line.

THURSDAY DECEMBER 14, 2006 5:00 P.M. - 8:00 P.M.

Today is a momentous day, we have been here one week exactly, and tonight we put up the first sphere:  the largest one, four feet in diameter,  the one aligned to the star SIRIUS.  We have started our night shift, the first full one.  After a three hour nap, we have "breakfast" (dinner for everyone else, curry soup, bread, salad)  around 5:30 p.m. then head out once more straight toward our site.   Simon, Jean and I on our skidoos, Lionel and Sophie in the Pisten Bully carrying our gear.  The road straight onward toward Pegasus road,  over the sea ice and in the speed of the skidoos is once more, and always,  exhilarating.  I stop to get my camera out even with the speed and the cutting wind, I have got to show what this experience is like, the vast expanse of the white, the straight lined flagged route with red flags, the exhilaration of driving in the middle of what seems to be a volcanic lake, in the middle of the sea ice, surrounded by white mountain ranges, as if we are in the middle of the earth, little insects speeding along the white expanse, black marks from the air, black marks after a little distance really, and the sense of scale gets obfuscated by our own senses, what seems to be common sense and what we are experiencing, we lose each other quickly in the expanse, then speed up of course, and catch up with one another.  In the distance is our camp: the bright orange/yellow tent we had put up the night before and the large sled with all six of our cardboard crates in the middle of the landscape.  Somehow the slow Pisten Bully has arrived before us, and Lionel and Sophie are waiting behind their film cameras to shoot us as we drive in.  They too, are small marks on the landscape until we make the wide turn onto our site. 

8:00 P.M. - 1:00 A.M.

The light at this time of "night" is exquisite and ever changing.  At one point Erebus reveals itself behind a cloud and we are overwhelmed at its beauty.  It is quiet ,very quiet, except for the crunch of our footsteps in the sugary powder snow.  The first order of things is for Simon and I to find the "center" of the site around which the entire map will be created.  We walk for awhile until I "feel" the right spot. " You are spot-on" Simon tells me in his clipped Cockney accent, as  the 500 feet away from the edge I intuited is what as we had calculated was going to be correct.  I love those mathematical precisions that come intuitively. 

The next few hours feels like what they call in childbirth "transition" the worst pain ever, where you wish you had never thought of this idea to begin with, where you curse every possible curse in the book as Simon, Jean, Sophie and I first try and put the four-foot sphere together, which halves kept falling into one-another, once that is overcome,  Simon, Jean and I, have to carry  this very heavy, very awkward shape five hundred feet over the sugary snow where our feet sink in sometimes a foot into the snow. When we get to the site, the entire sphere falls on top of Jean, and he lies there, Charles Atlas, the globe victorious over him.  Nothing prepares us for the next three hours.  drilling the hole is no problem, the snow is like butter, we think we have it licked, then comes the time to lift the awkward-god- knows- how-many-pounds sphere by its post and by our shoulder strength, we all crouch under it and lift it with our shoulders, then direct the post into the hole.  Well, it does not go in all the way.  No matter how many times we dig it, the snow is so fine it acts as sand, and keeps filling up the hole, every-time we have to lift it out and away, and back again.  We think we have finally found a method, by taking one of our posts and pounding it in and using it as a core drill, until Simon does such a good job, that we can not take it out again.  We have to go all the way back to the sled and pick up the straps and use all the man power we have to pull it out, it still does not work, and although I am ready to quit and leave it for the next day, thank god I am voted out, as everyone does it over and and over again ( at one point we dig too low, and it is buried slightly, we have to re do it ) but no one quits until it is correctly at the level of the snow. 

1:00A.M. - 2:00 A.M.

As we look at this perfect blue sphere in the middle of the whiteness with the light of the sun, at one o'clock in the morning, a sun which feels should come from another direction, the reason we had all come to the other end of the world to do this, becomes obvious right here in front of our eyes.  There is no way to describe it, except to say that in its opaqueness of blue, it draws into itself all the energy of the mountains around it, as if the blue takes in all the whiteness around it and transforms the icy blue into ultramarine.  In its blue opaqueness surrounded in white, with the sun behind us, our shadows are cast onto it, like in a mirror.  None of this makes sense, how opaqueness can be reflective, how one blue object in the middle of the white field can embody the entire field.  Perhaps it does indeed have to do with the alignment to the star Sirius, there is a resonance that occurs that is mysterious and indescribable, I feel that is all we need, this one object in the middle of space, as if it has always been there, and should always be there, as an anchor, anchoring us to the earth and to the stars.  As my entire body takes it in, I am moved by it, some deeply asleep part of me is moved and is slowly, very slowly stirring.  For Jean, it reminds him of  the monolith in Stanley Kubricks's 2001.  As I move back toward the truck to help Simon pack all our gear, I have engraved in my mind the image of  Lionel, Sophie and Jean in the distance, being mesmerized and drawn to the quality of light it is becoming, shooting the light changing all around it, in the light that envelops all of us at two o-clock in the morning of December 15, 2006. 

December 14th, Space Storm Headed for Stellar Axis

SOLAR SYSTEM COSMIC FLASH! NEW FORECAST: SEVERE SPACE STORM HEADED TO EARTH ... GLOBAL DEATH FOR MILLIONS OR A COSMIC HICCUP?!

ASTRONAUTS ON INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION FORCED TO TAKE SHELTER FROM VIOLENT SOLAR STORM IN SPACE! – By Robert Roy Britt, Staff Writer, Space.Com, Thursday, December 14, 2006

Space weather forecasters revised their predictions for storminess after a major flare erupted on the Sun overnight threatening damage to communication systems and power grids while offering up the wonder of Northern Lights.

"We're looking for very strong, severe geomagnetic storming" to begin probably around mid-day Thursday, Joe Kunches, Lead Forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center, told SPACE.com this afternoon.

The storm is expected to generate aurora or Northern Lights, as far south as the northern United States Thursday night. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are not expected to be put at additional risk, Kunches said.

Radio communications, satellites and power grids could face potential interruptions or damage, however. Solar flares send radiation to Earth within minutes. Some are also accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CME), clouds of charged particles that arrive in a day or two. This flare unleashed a strong CME that's aimed squarely at Earth.

"It's got all the right stuff," Kunches said. However, one crucial component to the storm is unknown: its magnetic orientation. If it lines up a certain way with Earth's magnetic field, then the storm essentially pours into our upper atmosphere. If the alignment is otherwise, the storm can pass by the planet with fewer consequences.

Kunches and his team are advising satellite operators and power grid managers to keep an eye on their systems. In the past, CMEs have knocked out satellites and tripped terrestrial power grids. Engineers have learned to limit switching at electricity transfer stations, and satellite operators sometimes reduce operations or make back-up plans in case a craft is damaged.

Another aspect of a CME involves protons that get pushed along by the shock wave. Sometimes these protons break through Earth's protective magnetic field and flood the outer reaches of the atmosphere -- where the space station orbits -- with radiation. The science of it all is a gray area, Kunches said. But the best guess now is that there will only be a slight increase in proton activity. That's good news for the astronauts.

"When the shock goes by, we don't expect significant radiation issues," he said.

The astronauts were ordered to a protective area of the space station as a precaution last night. Now that sunspot number 930 has flared so significantly -- after several days of being quiet -- the forecast calls for a "reasonble chance" of more major flares in coming days, Kunches said.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006 5:48 PM

ROADBLOCK

Another roadblock. Simon and I just got back from an interview with Bill Josla from the Antarctic Sun, lasted over an hour. We are at our Crary Lab and received a scribbled message from Lionel relaying a message from Keith from Science Cargo telling us that they had moved our crates from where we had left them to the other side of the road! Great. Now they are saying the crates have to be at least 100 yards from the road, which means it will move the edge of our site 200 yards from the road, and the outer edge, 400 yards, which complicates things since we are only allowed to have it 100 yards from the road. This is a typical bureaucratic nightmare where one department has a request, which contradicts another department's request. Hope this does not delay us any further. It means I am going to have to go out there this afternoon and have them set them in the position I want them in so they do not get in the way of cameras.

To be at the Crary Lab at this hour is a luxury, this was our down day, but I will have to go out there this afternoon as well as tonight where will set out after dinner and hopefully set the largest sphere down, Sirius. We decided to wait to set up our tent until after then, as we are all very anxious to see one sphere up. There are also some people who are leaving tomorrow who want to see it. We will take them on a midnight ride out through the sea ice on skidoos.

LATE BREAKING NEWS FLASH! POSTED: 8:14 p.m. EST December 13, 2006 / UPDATED: 9:38 p.m. EST December 13, 2006

A violent solar explosion sent a dangerous wave of radiation through space late Tuesday, prompting NASA to order the crews of Discovery and the International Space Station to take shelter overnight, according to Local 6 News partner Florida Today.

The solar flare erupted around 9:40 p.m., unleashing enough radiation to disrupt radio communications on Earth and in orbit while endangering astronauts circling 220 miles above the planet.

NASA flight surgeons and agency radiation experts determined that the burst of highly energetic particles approached a limit that made preventative action prudent, Florida Today reported.

Station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and shuttle skipper Mark Polansky were told to move their crews to the most shielded areas in either spacecraft. They include the middeck of the shuttle's crew compartment and temporary sleeping quarters in the station's U.S. Destiny science laboratory.

The back ends of the American lab and a Russian command control center at the outpost also were options, the report said.

Our installation site, just South of the Pegasus Road approximately half way between the Pegasus cut-across and the Pegasus sea-ice shortcut. The sled containing our crates is approximately a 100 ft from the road (this distance was requested by Fleet Ops so as not to cause drift on the roadway) and the center of our installation is approximately 500 ft from the trailer. The WGS84 coordinates for the center of our installation are lat 77.90816 S, long 166.79973 E. We have an “Arctic Oven” tent setup just behind the trailer and we have placed a flag line (at 15 ft intervals) from the roadway to the trailer.

On the way to picking up the Skidoos.

Skidoos on the sea ice.

Jean checking to see if it's the right Skidoo.

just straight on over the sea ice!

Love that road!

Out the window.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 7:50 pm

STELLAR LOGISTICS

"What are you people up to?"

First day to take out the crates to our site. With the equipment we have we can only take one crate out at a time. It takes two to three hours per trip at 10 miles an hour, and we have a total of six crates. We have to hitch a trailer to the Piston Bully, then forklift each crate weighing anywhere from 300 to 600 lbs, onto the trailer, then driving out through the sea ice via the short cut to Pegasus road. Lionel and Simon take the first load, Sophie, Jean and I are supposed to leave at the same time on our skidoos which should take us less than 30 minutes, but we got delayed trying to figure out how to work the skidoos, our lesson was not hands on, and this is taking awhile. By the time we get there, Lionel and Simon had been there way before us, but we had fun speeding on the ice, driving these things in the middle of the sea covered in ice is, to say the least, a great thrill.

I locate the exact site, and we unload the first crate onto the ice. Jean tells me that all I need to do is shoot the crate in the middle of Antarctica and I would get an instant exhibition in a museum. I have to admit, it's tempting...

On our way back I am so immersed in the experience of driving the skidoo at great speed on this flat icy surface that I miss the turn off and find myself almost all the way to the Pegasus runway! Jean is furious with me and is afraid we will run out of gas before we make it back to McMurdo. We make it back and manage to spill gasoline over the entire skidoo, "everything here is a learning curve"Jean mumbles. It is true that in our extreme weather gear and all the safety precautions we have to take it feels like we are moving in molasses.

Back at McMurdo I meet with Jane from recreation and work out an entire program for the Solstice. We work out the logistics of ninety nine people coming out in two shift from 6:30 p.m. to Midnight when they will start performing the movement of the stars slowly rotating clockwise in concentric spiraling concentric circles. This we will shoot from a helicopter.

I meet Jean and Lionel at dinner, while Simon and Sophie do the third run of the third crate for the day. After dinner Debra Zabarenko from Reuters interviews us at the Coffee House where we have lattes laced with Jameson’s. Simon has it set that we have to have four crates out by the end of the evening and he and Sophie take off for a late night run over the sea ice with the fourth crate. Jean, Lionel and I go back to crary lab and find an email from Jane saying our plan for December 22nd, is no good, as they will have to close the short cut to Pegasus road because of the sea ice deteriorating. This is now a roadblock in our plan. We continually have to respond to very complicated logistics. I stay in the lab way past midnight and on my way to find a midnight snack run into Debra who just came back from the Andrill site, and shows me the Library upstairs. Amazing views of all the mountains at the edge of the horizon where the sea ice is. Inside, special collection books on Antarctica, Antarctic research, astronomy, any science you can find. I find myself mesmerized by an Atlas of the galaxies published by NASA in 1988. I better go to sleep, even though it is bright light outside, just beautiful light, want to stay up and keep going.

DECEMBER 7, 2006 1:30 P.M. FIRST LANDING IN ANTARCTICA

What stands out on this plane is the fact that all the grantees are given EWG (extreme weather gear) including The Big Red (Parka) which gives a visual continuity and a visual rhythm to the greyness of the hull. Red is what unites us, red the color of passion and love and desire. Red that signals fire and heat, heat which is life itself.

So it is in the big red that we recognize each other, that we realize we are part of a coveted group, that we are all here because we have wanted to be here, because we love adventure and travel, but most of all because our passion has brought us to a distillation of our life’s work and curiosity.

And now as we land on the continent, the curiosity and passion rolls out of the plane as the door of the grey military plane opens onto the vastness of Antarctica, and one by one the big red starts populating the vastness of the white, one by one the red descends the stairs, into blinding white light, red into reflective white snow all around, peripheral vision all white except for the red that is already on the ice, white on the periphery, white horizontally below the feet, white circularly around the horizon, white up the mountain ranges that encircle us.

The red of us descending onto the white of the whiteness, for one moment, gasping. The whiteness of it all, the blinding light as if indeed we have landed on another planet, as if indeed we are weightless in our bunny boots and red parkas like the astronauts on the moon. And so it takes a minute or two to take it in, we are overwhelmed, we have lost our senses, we have another set of senses, maybe. We simply are in the white, and we surrender to the sensations that engulf us.

DECEMBER 7, 2006- THE C 17 GLOBE MASTER

I am writing from the hulled out C17 globe master military jet.  The engines are revving up and we are about to take off from Christchurch, New Zealand on our way to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. This morning has been one of the most exciting so far, all the National Science Foundation grantees gathering at 3:30 a.m. at our bed and breakfast in Christchurch to go to the International Antarctic Center to put on our cold weather gear, pack our carry on bag with one outfit for the city in case we "boomerang" and have to come back to Christchurch due to weather, and board the military plane that is taking us to Antarctica. The International Antarctic Center is full of photographs of the scientific research being done there. Simon, Sophie, Jean, Lionel and I are meeting all kinds of scientist working on some of the most cutting edge research being done on the planet. We are meeting a number of physicists, geologists, molecular biologists who will spend the whole year there, they are called “winter over” scientists. Once through the security, we are outside the center and there, on the runway, sits the C 17, the grey air force military jet that will take us there. We are taking off !

I don't know how long it has been, I have fallen asleep, Jean is lying down on the floor, Simon is on his computer, Sophie is shooting the video and Lionel is awake in his chair a little distance from us.  Being on this military jet is, like Sophie said, "enough right here".  Honestly.  We came in late so we missed the four rows of real seats, or any of the side seats with empty space in front of them, instead we are in the middle of the plane with tons of cargo no more than two feet right in front of us, we are staring at tons and tons of beer kegs, which makes Simon deliriously happy. A bunch of people are sleeping on the floor, others like us, are either reading or sleeping...

The moment is getting nearer and I am beginning to sense an extraordinary and profound experience about to happen.  The sense I get from the others who have been there is the feeling one gets being around expert explorers, feeling their confidence and their sense of well being and the feeling that they are deeply within themselves, that they have accomplished, and are living a life that is full of realized dreams and accomplishments, fit of mind, body and spirit, having lived extreme conditions.

A little while ago, before I fell asleep, a big, burly, guy, with long , grey hair whom I had seen earlier at the center, walked by me, ruminating, on his jacket was embroidered.... Swedish Antarctic Polar Research...

I realize that I have very little idea of what awaits me, and yet, it is beginning to dawn on me.... the true adventure and uniqueness of this.... and the privilege! That we are here on a grant from the National Science Foundation, and that everyone is also, no wonder the feeling is that this is not just an ordinary group of people going on vacation, these are all scientific grantees on a mission, doing important research, going to the most pristine environment in the world.  To be able to be part of this rarified world is intoxicating. Needless to say everyone feels it, and that is what is in the air on this hulled out military jet with the hundred of beer cans wrapped up in front of us.

I have started reading "The Ice" by Stephen J. Pyne very poetically written "it is a lustrous, magical and elegiac piece of writing. This is a book which has about it the structure of the Ice itself: it is a massive edifice, built up out of repeating units and variations in pressure...one of the greatest written on the cultural history of the earth ever"

I am pinching myself, there are only four tiny "hublot" (French word) tiny circular windows no more than 10" in diameter, I went to one out in the back of the plane, stepping over sleeping bodies, and looked out.... at first I was blinded by the intensity of the light, then it felt that I was looking at the clouds below me, then I started perceiving some shifts and through he clouds started to see an awesome sight, ice, ice expanding from horizon to underneath the plane, only perceivable by the breaks within it, huge sheets of ice, some small, like a cracked dry desert bed, but floating in a deep still sea.  Looking out the window, my nose pressed to the glass, standing on the tips of my rubber booted toes, I started dreaming, my body started to float, knowing it was seeing something it had never seen before, a wide expanse of white, just white, only my mind knew it was ice punctuated by a midnight blue between the cracks.  My peripheral vision captured a totality of an experience, engulfed me in what I was looking at, bathing my body with sensations that my eye was taking in as physical matter, as light, translating it into sensations, into an enveloping sense of well being.  I am being caressed by what I am seeing.

It is getting colder in the airplane, people are starting to mill around, stretching their legs, and we are wondering how much longer we have to fly.  Those who have already been there were very happy to see that we were not going in the Hercules which would have taken us over eight hours, they were also surprised that this was to take us four and a half hours, normally it is six, so it is a short flight.  The view out of the window has prepared me a little for what Simon keeps saying to me "I can't wait to see your face when you step off that airplane" I think I have just gotten a taste of it.  My heart leapt in complete surprise for a moment there when my eyes took me to the edges of the window and to what I could see below It is definitely a sense of something one has never seen before rather not experienced before, and that is what I am trying to get at, that the eye experiences, that we experience through the eye way beyond the sense of vision, in a place like this it is even more apparent.

I am dreaming again, floating again, I decided to look out the window again and this time we are over the continent!  Soft, soft powdered snow covering mountain range after mountain range, row upon row of mountain peaks pushing through the snow, looking like waves  cresting in an ocean of white. More extraordinary views out of the  window, but we are landing! we have to get off.