December 31, 2006 Photos by Steve Martaindale / The Antarctic Sun The first pallet of food slips from a C-17 airplane near the South Pole in the series of photos above, then drifts down in the photo below. Airdrop a success at Pole By Steve Martaindale degrees Fahrenheit to witness the trial airdrop. Sun staff Around 9:45 p.m., one group of about 80 It is not a question of whether there will people who had gathered in an area overlooking be another emergency necessitating a winter the drop zone watched as a C-17 Globemaster airdrop at the South Pole. The questions are III airplane flew from left to right. After making when will there be such an emergency and its initial pass, it banked left and returned in the whether the responding agencies will be direction from which it came, continuing until it prepared to answer the call. faded from sight. An affirmative answer to the readi- The crowd continued waiting. ness question was underlined recently In a matter of minutes, the four-engine aircraft when a new aircraft proved it could handle again appeared. This second approach seemed the task. lower and slower. Before reaching the drop zone, Special More than half of the occupants at Amundsen- the first parachute was seen snaking out of the Scott South Pole Station turned out on the evening rear ramp, soon pulling the first pallet from the Deliveryof Dec. 20 in temperatures of about minus 25 See CROWD on page 14 IGY research still bearing fruit collaborating peacefully in a Cold War era that Behrendt continues had fractured the planet into halves, both sides bristling with hostility and suspicion. But in 50 years of Ice work Antarctica, the world’s scientists found a com- mon ground and goal – scientific discovery. By Peter Rejcek Behrendt not only stood witness to this Sun staff watershed period but also played a role in its Fifty years ago, John Behrendt was a tall and creation. He has remained active in Antarctic skinny 24-year-old scientist cruising through the geology and geophysics for half a century. Weddell Sea on a U.S. Navy ship en route to the These days he’s still actively writing scientific Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf. papers, publishing his memoirs, and keeping The young geophysicist was headed to an indirect hand in the upcoming International the world’s last great frontier as part of the Polar Year (IPY). International Geophysical Year (IGY), an 18- “To be the very first to see things and do things month period of intense, global scientific inves- [during the IGY] was remarkable. We were at the tigation. The IGY involved scores of nations See SCIENTIST on page 13 John Behrendt INSIDE Quote of the Week Stellar art Antarctic Photo Cold fish “Can we have heaters on stage?” Contest winners feel the heat — Musician mulling outdoor Page 3 Page 7 Page 12 concert temperatures AntarcticSun.usap.gov 2 • The Antarctic Sun December 31, 2006 Break on Through Cold, hard facts International Geophysical Year Period of IGY: July 1957 to December 1958 Number of countries involved: 67 Number of U.S. stations constructed for IGY: 7 Person credited with suggesting the IGY: Lloyd Berkner Event that IGY was timed around: Charlie Kaminski / Special to The Antarctic Sun The high point of the 11-year Oden at a glance sunspot activity. Oden is one of seven icebreakers The Swedish icebreaker Oden churns operated by the Swedish Maritime through the sea ice in McMurdo Sound to IGY rocket and satellite research: Administration. clear a channel to McMurdo Station. The Led to the development of the Overall length: 345 feet channel will be used later this season by U.S. space program. the cargo re-supply and fuel vessels. The Number of berths: 80 U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea is Icebreaking capability: 6 feet of Years covered in the IGY archives of also en route to McMurdo Sound and will reports, letters, photographs and level ice at 3 knots arrive next week to help break and main- Speed in open water: 16 knots tain the channel connecting open water other documents : 1953-1962 Endurance: 30,000 nautical miles to the station. in open sea at 13 knots or 100 Number of linear feet spanned by the days archive: 152 Source: The National Academy of Science Level 1 Comix Matt Davidson The Antarctic Sun is funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the United States Antarctic Program (OPP-000373). Its primary audience is U.S. Antarctic Program participants, their families, and their friends. NSF reviews and approves material before publication, but opinions and conclusions expressed in The Sun are not necessarily those of the Foundation. Use: Reproduction is encouraged with acknowledgment of source and author. Senior Editor: Peter Rejcek Editors: Steven Profaizer, Steve Martaindale Copy Editors: Ben Bachelder, Jesse Hastings, Rob Jones, Traci Macnamara, Cori Manka, Erin Popelka, Travis Senor Publisher: Valerie Carroll, Communications manager, RPSC Contributions are welcome. Contact The Sun at [email protected]. In McMurdo, visit our office in Building 155 or dial 2407. Web address: AntarcticSun.usap.gov Subscribe: Click on the link on the right side of the homepage and follow the directions. December 31, 2006 The Antarctic Sun • 3 Jean de Pomereu / Special to The Antarctic Sun Bill Jirsa / Special to The Antarctic Sun A helicopter hovers over Lita Albuquerque’s one-day art installation, Stellar Axis: Antarctica, Lita Albuquerque has created art installa- an interactive exhibition that represents the sky over McMurdo Station on the summer solstice. tions around the world, including at Abu More than 50 McMurdo residents participated in the earth art performance. Simbel in Egypt. Albuquerque creates stellar art on ice shelf By Bill Jirsa Mount Discovery. “But they are there.” photography, an art book, a documentary Special to the Sun At sporadic intervals, he stops to bore a film and an art film intended for gallery few days before the summer solstice hole with a one-meter long, gasoline-pow- exhibitions. Tonight they are busy match- in Antarctica, Lita Albuquerque ered ice drill. Such holes will serve as the ing up the pieces and carrying them to their A stands upon the expansive surface starter holes for the aluminum posts that homes for the duration of the temporary of the Ross Ice Shelf, a glacial ice sheet anchor each sphere on the 400-foot-wide exhibit. roughly the size of France that is near plot that lies between the two ice shelf run- While she remained vague early in the perfect in its flatness. A colorful woolly ways, Williams Field Skiway and Pegasus week about exactly what would happen scarf coils about her neck, and her long, White Ice Runway. on the solstice, Albuquerque was eager to dark hair cascades over her big red U.S. Balm looks the part of the group’s explain how the concept of a star align- Antarctic Program parka. It is about 11 astronomer, compact and bespectacled, ment at either pole creates a metaphor of p.m. and cold, but the skies are clear and with a trim beard. It’s difficult to resist his our connection to the cosmos: calm. enthusiasm about science and the heavens, “If we look at it in terms of the motion Behind her, several blue spheres are and it’s not hard to imagine him standing of the stars, which is in concentric spiral- scattered in apparent haphazard fashion before classrooms of undergraduates at ing counter-clockwise circles at the North on the hard, wind-blown snow. From this Santa Monica College, where he teaches Pole and clockwise at the South Pole, and vantage, the scale is hard to gauge. The astronomy. if you extend that motion from the north to spheres may be as tall as a man or they After a first night of work, Sirius, the the center of the earth and from the south to may be mere basketballs. They are uniform Dog Star, the largest sphere at 48 inches, the center of the earth, you get the double in their deep ultramarine color, brilliant in has been anchored. Albuquerque selected helix strand of DNA.” the mid-evening sun of the Antarctic sum- the spot for the installation based on aes- While logistical considerations have mer. They are resting on the surface of the thetics, the combination of the “expansive forced some compromises in the origi- snow; however, at times, they appear to field of white” with the surrounding moun- nal concept – the star alignment is being hover just above it. tains marbled with snow. Once the site installed near McMurdo instead of at the “The energy is great,” Albuquerque says was chosen, she selected the center of the South Pole, and Albuquerque will not as she surveys the first few elements of her installation, Sirius, using a slightly more attempt to construct the North Pole axis project coming together on the ice shelf intuitive approach. simultaneously – the interactive goal of her outside McMurdo Station. “I love it.” “I feel the right spot,” Albuquerque artwork remains the same, she says. “Stellar Axis: Antarctica,” the largest says. “It’s a physical relationship that aligns earth art installation in Antarctica, repre- Using Sirius as a reference, Balm is the body to the stars above and in doing sents the McMurdo sky on the summer now mapping the coordinates for the rest that it aligns the body to the earth and the solstice. The blue spheres, ranging in size of the stars using GPS. cosmos.” from four feet in diameter to 10 inches, “Ninety-six,” he calls out, indicating the will mimic the configuration of constella- number of the sphere that belongs in the Art of the Earth tions across the flat white of a snow can- location he has just marked.