Breaking the Ice for Polar ScienceBreaking the Ice for Polar Science
Freelance writer Brandon Reynolds chronicles his Antarctic journey aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star.
Hope for Supporting Polar Science Brightens at the Bottom of the World
How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks)
Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker?
Whales, Penguins and a Few Loose Screws on An Epic Antarctic Voyage
Polar Missions on Thin Ice With Aging Equipment
Antarctica: Getting There is Half the Fun
Dispatches From a Polar Icebreaker -- And What's at Stake for Science
Sponsored
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It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone must inevitably deal, at some point, with “the break-up.” It wears different disguises in different places — the surprise invitation, the unexpected pregnancy, the phone call late in the night — but you know it simply as that which changes your direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In McMurdo Sound the break-up is what happens to the \u003ca href=\"https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glossary/term/fast-ice\">fast ice\u003c/a> that stretches from \u003ca href=\"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/mount-erebus/judson-text\">volcanic Mt. Erebus\u003c/a> on the east all the way west to the edge of the continent. Just about every year the ice around McMurdo breaks up late in the season. Wind force, melting caused by seawater and the actions of a certain plucky icebreaker destabilize the whole giant ice sheet where once we ran around with penguins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498653\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498653 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg\" alt=\"The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thursday afternoon the captain mentioned that a crack had formed across the whole channel. By midnight a 147-square-mile section of the fast ice had broken off and begun floating away north. In a few hours, weeks of work spent grooming the channel all just blew away. Once, there was a path through ice. Now there’s open water. Imagine building a bridge every year, and every year it gets washed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent three days at \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which is a little like a mining town, or a moon colony. It feels very far from the rest of the world. The people are an interesting bunch, scientists and contractors, exactly the kind of people who wish to live very far from the rest of the world. There is pizza 24/7. Just down the road is New Zealand’s \u003ca href=\"http://antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base\">Scott Base\u003c/a>, which is smaller and uniformly painted a delightful shade of pea green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498647\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lts. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the midst of McMurdo’s annual resupply. The freighter \u003ca href=\"http://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Ocean-Giant-9437335.html\">Ocean Giant\u003c/a> is docked, offloading a year’s worth of supplies and collecting a year’s worth of trash and freeze-dried poop, or so I hear. We’ll escort the Giant out, meet up with the fuel ship, bring it in. Once it’s offloaded its fuel, McMurdo will be supplied for the next year. Through McMurdo, the rest of the continent will be, too, because, as Capt. Matt Walker points out, “McMurdo is the major port in Antarctica, so all of Antarctica feeds off of McMurdo for its supplies and logistics.” It’s no exaggeration to say that the survival of the continent, meaning other U.S. bases but also many of the bases belonging to other nations, relies on McMurdo. It’s run by the National Science Foundation, which means, in a way, that NSF runs the continent. And NSF relies on Polar Star carving its thin lifeline in the ice, which nature, presently, will erase.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica.’\u003ccite>Capt. Matt Walker\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Soon we’ll get the hell out of here and the people at McMurdo will get the hell out of here, too, piling into ski-equipped C-130 turboprops and flying to Christchurch and points north. Then winter arrives to turn endless day into endless night, to blot out the sky with 200 mile-per-hour winds, and to replace the sheet of ice in McMurdo Sound as though none of us were ever here. Whatever memory this place has is carried deeper than the few meters of frozen water the ship plows through every year. We will be remembered by no one save a few photobombed penguins and the odd startled seal. Leave no trace, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498643\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498643 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg\" alt=\"Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in the world, with a nudge from President Obama, the Coast Guard this month put out the call for \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coastguard-icebreaker-idUSKCN0UR25R20160114\">two new icebreakers\u003c/a>, saying it plans to award a contract in late 2018 or ’19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the forces in play are going in the right direction,” says Walker, “and now that the public is aware of [the icebreaker mission] more so than it ever has been before, we might get some of the funding required.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of this mission, a good chunk of the Engineering department, which holds a lot of the institutional memory of the ship, will move on or retire. On next year’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Deep Freeze\u003c/a>, many new folks will receive surprise invitations from Polar Star herself, possibly in the middle of the night, to come on down and repair something that’s gone totally sideways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498646\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498646 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg\" alt=\"Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker is leaving, too, not just Polar Star, but the organization. This is his last sail for the Coast Guard. He’s retiring in 2017 after a year in Saudi Arabia. That’ll be 30 years in the Coast Guard, 21 of which he has spent at sea, which is a tremendous amount of time to be underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not a gray flannel cubicle kind of guy,” he says. “I’m an adventurous kind of guy, I like to get out and see the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walker’s happy that his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/06/life-aboard-a-polar-roller-americas-last-heavy-icebreaker/\">last mission underway was Polar Star\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’ve achieved a lot of significant milestones in the last few years after we brought the Polar Star back to life,” he says. “Even though she is old and she breaks down a lot. We’ve proven to the world that we’re \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">the only vessel\u003c/a> really that can dependably break out McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ve figured out that means is that the icebreaker supports scientific experiments, but also the American experiment. The mission, says Walker, “is essential to mankind and distinguishes us from the animals in that search for science and knowledge. And why would we forfeit that?” On a strategic level, “it’s critical for us to be able to navigate all the waters of the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down here, science and politics and national priorities converge along with all the other lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498654\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg\" alt=\"View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross has been erected to the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross commemorates the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked in the distance. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everything about this place tells the average shivering, possibly dying human that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">we’re the unnatural element\u003c/a>. This has worked out remarkably well for the continent. “One of the most dramatic things about Antarctica is that there is no smog,” says Walker. “You see a mountain range that is 50 to 100 miles away, It’s crystal clear, not like anywhere where humans occupy. There’s pure air down here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That it’s unspoiled makes it desirable for scientists who want to get an unobstructed view of the history of the Earth by looking down and the universe by looking up. It also, of course, makes it desirable for many nations, who see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/29/world/countries-rush-for-upper-hand-antarctica.html?_r=0\">opportunity in the possible wealth\u003c/a> of resources beneath the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in the laboratory of Antarctica, what’s revealed about \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">international cooperation\u003c/a> may be as important as any other discovery. None of this will be readily apparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the young kids, when we sail, they’re down there sweeping the decks, cleaning dishes in the scullery — they don’t get to see the big picture,” Walker says. “It’s very similar to the deck hands on Magellan’s crew or Columbus’ crew: They were just steaming along doing their daily job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498642\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498642 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg\" alt=\"In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But breaking out McMurdo — we might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica,” ventures Walker. “We might not know it today or tomorrow, but maybe, in 10 years, 20 years from now, we might be able to say, ‘Hey, I participated in that, I contributed to that, by washing dishes on the Polar Star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe someday they will realize how they’re participating in this experiment for the future of Earth, or whatever’s beyond Earth. Maybe they’ll turn on the holographic TV we’ve all had genetically wired into our brains, and watch the first Earthlings plant a future flag on a distant planet, and they’ll connect themselves to that moment, from alien soils back through cold space, from space down through the aurora at the bottom of the world, and across a peaceful continent, and through the ice, to where they were once underway, making a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s a whole other story, but that’s for later. For now, there’s a continent to save for one more year and, a world away, the world we want to hurry up and return to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American. On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"With a push from the president, prospects may be improving for updating the worn-out tools that support Antarctic research.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704930705,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":26,"wordCount":1682},"headData":{"title":"Hope for Supporting Polar Science Brightens at the Bottom of the World | KQED","description":"With a push from the president, prospects may be improving for updating the worn-out tools that support Antarctic research.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Hope for Supporting Polar Science Brightens at the Bottom of the World","datePublished":"2016-01-30T00:46:02.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:51:45.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Brandon R. Reynolds\u003c/strong>","path":"/science/498561/hope-for-supporting-polar-science-brightens-at-the-bottom-of-the-world","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The seventh and concluding post in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone must inevitably deal, at some point, with “the break-up.” It wears different disguises in different places — the surprise invitation, the unexpected pregnancy, the phone call late in the night — but you know it simply as that which changes your direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In McMurdo Sound the break-up is what happens to the \u003ca href=\"https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glossary/term/fast-ice\">fast ice\u003c/a> that stretches from \u003ca href=\"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/mount-erebus/judson-text\">volcanic Mt. Erebus\u003c/a> on the east all the way west to the edge of the continent. Just about every year the ice around McMurdo breaks up late in the season. Wind force, melting caused by seawater and the actions of a certain plucky icebreaker destabilize the whole giant ice sheet where once we ran around with penguins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498653\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498653 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg\" alt=\"The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thursday afternoon the captain mentioned that a crack had formed across the whole channel. By midnight a 147-square-mile section of the fast ice had broken off and begun floating away north. In a few hours, weeks of work spent grooming the channel all just blew away. Once, there was a path through ice. Now there’s open water. Imagine building a bridge every year, and every year it gets washed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent three days at \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which is a little like a mining town, or a moon colony. It feels very far from the rest of the world. The people are an interesting bunch, scientists and contractors, exactly the kind of people who wish to live very far from the rest of the world. There is pizza 24/7. Just down the road is New Zealand’s \u003ca href=\"http://antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base\">Scott Base\u003c/a>, which is smaller and uniformly painted a delightful shade of pea green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498647\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lts. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the midst of McMurdo’s annual resupply. The freighter \u003ca href=\"http://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Ocean-Giant-9437335.html\">Ocean Giant\u003c/a> is docked, offloading a year’s worth of supplies and collecting a year’s worth of trash and freeze-dried poop, or so I hear. We’ll escort the Giant out, meet up with the fuel ship, bring it in. Once it’s offloaded its fuel, McMurdo will be supplied for the next year. Through McMurdo, the rest of the continent will be, too, because, as Capt. Matt Walker points out, “McMurdo is the major port in Antarctica, so all of Antarctica feeds off of McMurdo for its supplies and logistics.” It’s no exaggeration to say that the survival of the continent, meaning other U.S. bases but also many of the bases belonging to other nations, relies on McMurdo. It’s run by the National Science Foundation, which means, in a way, that NSF runs the continent. And NSF relies on Polar Star carving its thin lifeline in the ice, which nature, presently, will erase.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica.’\u003ccite>Capt. Matt Walker\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Soon we’ll get the hell out of here and the people at McMurdo will get the hell out of here, too, piling into ski-equipped C-130 turboprops and flying to Christchurch and points north. Then winter arrives to turn endless day into endless night, to blot out the sky with 200 mile-per-hour winds, and to replace the sheet of ice in McMurdo Sound as though none of us were ever here. Whatever memory this place has is carried deeper than the few meters of frozen water the ship plows through every year. We will be remembered by no one save a few photobombed penguins and the odd startled seal. Leave no trace, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498643\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498643 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg\" alt=\"Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in the world, with a nudge from President Obama, the Coast Guard this month put out the call for \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coastguard-icebreaker-idUSKCN0UR25R20160114\">two new icebreakers\u003c/a>, saying it plans to award a contract in late 2018 or ’19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the forces in play are going in the right direction,” says Walker, “and now that the public is aware of [the icebreaker mission] more so than it ever has been before, we might get some of the funding required.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of this mission, a good chunk of the Engineering department, which holds a lot of the institutional memory of the ship, will move on or retire. On next year’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Deep Freeze\u003c/a>, many new folks will receive surprise invitations from Polar Star herself, possibly in the middle of the night, to come on down and repair something that’s gone totally sideways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498646\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498646 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg\" alt=\"Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker is leaving, too, not just Polar Star, but the organization. This is his last sail for the Coast Guard. He’s retiring in 2017 after a year in Saudi Arabia. That’ll be 30 years in the Coast Guard, 21 of which he has spent at sea, which is a tremendous amount of time to be underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not a gray flannel cubicle kind of guy,” he says. “I’m an adventurous kind of guy, I like to get out and see the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walker’s happy that his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/06/life-aboard-a-polar-roller-americas-last-heavy-icebreaker/\">last mission underway was Polar Star\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’ve achieved a lot of significant milestones in the last few years after we brought the Polar Star back to life,” he says. “Even though she is old and she breaks down a lot. We’ve proven to the world that we’re \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">the only vessel\u003c/a> really that can dependably break out McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ve figured out that means is that the icebreaker supports scientific experiments, but also the American experiment. The mission, says Walker, “is essential to mankind and distinguishes us from the animals in that search for science and knowledge. And why would we forfeit that?” On a strategic level, “it’s critical for us to be able to navigate all the waters of the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down here, science and politics and national priorities converge along with all the other lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498654\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg\" alt=\"View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross has been erected to the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross commemorates the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked in the distance. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everything about this place tells the average shivering, possibly dying human that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">we’re the unnatural element\u003c/a>. This has worked out remarkably well for the continent. “One of the most dramatic things about Antarctica is that there is no smog,” says Walker. “You see a mountain range that is 50 to 100 miles away, It’s crystal clear, not like anywhere where humans occupy. There’s pure air down here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That it’s unspoiled makes it desirable for scientists who want to get an unobstructed view of the history of the Earth by looking down and the universe by looking up. It also, of course, makes it desirable for many nations, who see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/29/world/countries-rush-for-upper-hand-antarctica.html?_r=0\">opportunity in the possible wealth\u003c/a> of resources beneath the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in the laboratory of Antarctica, what’s revealed about \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">international cooperation\u003c/a> may be as important as any other discovery. None of this will be readily apparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the young kids, when we sail, they’re down there sweeping the decks, cleaning dishes in the scullery — they don’t get to see the big picture,” Walker says. “It’s very similar to the deck hands on Magellan’s crew or Columbus’ crew: They were just steaming along doing their daily job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498642\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498642 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg\" alt=\"In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But breaking out McMurdo — we might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica,” ventures Walker. “We might not know it today or tomorrow, but maybe, in 10 years, 20 years from now, we might be able to say, ‘Hey, I participated in that, I contributed to that, by washing dishes on the Polar Star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe someday they will realize how they’re participating in this experiment for the future of Earth, or whatever’s beyond Earth. Maybe they’ll turn on the holographic TV we’ve all had genetically wired into our brains, and watch the first Earthlings plant a future flag on a distant planet, and they’ll connect themselves to that moment, from alien soils back through cold space, from space down through the aurora at the bottom of the world, and across a peaceful continent, and through the ice, to where they were once underway, making a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s a whole other story, but that’s for later. For now, there’s a continent to save for one more year and, a world away, the world we want to hurry up and return to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American. On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/498561/hope-for-supporting-polar-science-brightens-at-the-bottom-of-the-world","authors":["byline_science_498561"],"series":["science_2827"],"categories":["science_31","science_89","science_35","science_40"],"tags":["science_2818"],"featImg":"science_498645","label":"science_2827"},"science_493068":{"type":"posts","id":"science_493068","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"493068","score":null,"sort":[1453906825000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"how-drones-could-advance-polar-science-and-navigation-once-they-work-out-the-kinks","title":"How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks)","publishDate":1453906825,"format":"standard","headTitle":"How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks) | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":2827,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"One thing we know: the Antarctic is a very different animal than the Arctic when it comes to interpreting ice patterns.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704930724,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":20,"wordCount":1431},"headData":{"title":"How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks) | KQED","description":"One thing we know: the Antarctic is a very different animal than the Arctic when it comes to interpreting ice patterns.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks)","datePublished":"2016-01-27T15:00:25.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:52:04.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Brandon R. Reynolds\u003c/strong>","path":"/science/493068/how-drones-could-advance-polar-science-and-navigation-once-they-work-out-the-kinks","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/493068/how-drones-could-advance-polar-science-and-navigation-once-they-work-out-the-kinks","authors":["byline_science_493068"],"series":["science_2827"],"categories":["science_31","science_89","science_35","science_40"],"tags":["science_386","science_2088","science_2818"],"featImg":"science_493522","label":"science_2827"},"science_484822":{"type":"posts","id":"science_484822","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"484822","score":null,"sort":[1453512665000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"ice-v-ship-just-how-cool-is-a-heavy-duty-icebreaker","title":"Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker?","publishDate":1453512665,"format":"image","headTitle":"Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker? | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":2827,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>The fifth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was this: groom the channel; spend a few days at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>; escort a supply ship and a fuel tanker in; go north to Marble Point to refuel a National Science Foundation depot; wander across the arc of the continent and then dart north across the chaotic Southern Ocean and up the coast of South America to Valparaiso and points north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this ship, it’s that plans are suggestions and suggestions are dreams and dreams here are more familiar than reality. Things change at a moment’s notice. Mostly by breaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are arcane equations that affect the ship, dealing with power output, weight distribution, atmospheric behavior, celestial navigation, on and on. There is only one that really means anything to the average dim-but-curious writer, and that’s the relationship between cutting a channel through the ice and the damage it causes; in other words, the ratio of breaking-in to breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ice is, in scientific terms, absolute hell on the ship. Polar Star breaks in a variety of ways, and that delays the grooming of the channel, the only way that supply ships can get in. So when we’re back underway we speed along to the next breakdown. Are these critical breakdowns? They’re serious enough. Most of them are, strictly speaking, mission-enders — for a few hours. Then we’re on our way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485300\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485300 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg\" alt=\"MK3 Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What’s happening here that keeps the engineering department busy with repairs is a living example of the paradox of the implacable force against the immovable object. Polar Star is the last working heavy icebreaker in the U.S. fleet, and with 75,000 horsepower, it’s billed as the “most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the world.” The bow is nearly two inches thick, made of a special steel alloy that’s resistant to the cold and — more than 40 years after the keel was laid — no longer made in the United States. For durability, the frames (the ship’s “ribs”) are about six inches closer together than normal. The football-shaped bow allows the ship to slide (or grind, as it were) up onto the ice like an aggressive leopard seal and break through it. That takes a lot of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460989\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-460989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-400x568.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-800x1136.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-768x1091.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-960x1363.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, Polar Star runs on six Alco 251 diesel-electric generators. These are train locomotive engines, but they’re also used for icebreakers and nuclear power plant backups. They even make a satisfying chugga-chug chugga-chug, which is quite soothing when we’re out at sea. (During what qualifies as night during the austral summer, I lie in my “rack” and listen to the sound of distant trains along with the foamy hiss of the waves against the bow, a real surf ’n’ turf for the senses.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These six engines generate power which is fed to three motors which turn the three shafts attached to the three propellers that make us go. Then, when it’s time to break ice, they fire up the jet engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the diesel-electrics, Polar Star also carries three Pratt & Whitney FT4 gas turbines, the kind once used in Boeing 707s. Each turbine is in its own chamber, and when they get turned on and you stand next to them, even with earplugs, it’s the kind of sound and force that you have to keep yourself from instinctively running away from, a terrible thrill like I imagine swimming with sharks would be. The turbines are each cranked down to a manageable RPM by a reduction gear and connected to a shaft, and when they’re all three going strong, they produce up to 75,000 hp. Power at that level is hard to imagine. I’ve seen what it can do, though. Plow through miles and miles of ice as thick as I am tall, tossing up fragments the size of Volkswagens into a channel cut to the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_484971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's giant twin propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo's Mare Island shipyard in 2014.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"933\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s three giant propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo’s Mare Island shipyard in 2014. The prop on the right has been removed for refurbishing. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s well-designed, this ship. But still, stuff breaks all the time. Sometimes the turbines won’t start up, sometimes the diesels crap out, sometimes—a lot of times, lately—the vibrations through the ship from the bow smashing the ice and the propellers “milling” the ice, breaks anything connected to the shaft. Even for a ship built for this, it is an enormous amount of stress. There’s plenty of power. But there’s always more ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few days ago, a crack was found in the reduction gear, a part of the ship’s propulsion system. It seemed like just another in a series of breakdowns, but this was one that gave Capt. Matt Walker cause to abandon the \u003ca href=\"https://popantarctica.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/marble-point-air-facility/\">Marble Point\u003c/a> mission. The ice would be thicker there, he said, and he didn’t believe the ship was up to the task of breaking through. “I made a decision to forego Marble Point because Marble Point is a nice mission but it’s not an essential mission,” he said. She’d done it two years before, so I took this as evidence of age wearing Polar Star down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485301\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485301 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg\" alt=\"Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew I’ve talked to is of two minds about breakage. One attitude is that breakage is inevitable, that it’s the natural order of things around here, so they fix the damage and get on with it. They’re an industrious bunch. Fixes have included welding and replacing, but also, in a couple of cases, Super Glue and a surfboard repair kit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other perspective sees the law of diminishing returns at work. As Polar Star (now in her 40s) gets older, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/12/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment/\">she breaks more\u003c/a> — both more often and more seriously. More breakage not only imperils or at least alters the mission, as it did with Marble Point, but it also means more time in dry-dock, where repairs have to be hurriedly accomplished so that she can head out again for the next trip south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485147\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-485147\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg\" alt=\"This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-400x274.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-1180x808.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-960x658.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice. \u003ccite>(Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between Deep Freeze and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">dry-dock in Vallejo\u003c/a>, Polar Star was out of home port something like 320 days. The day may well be at hand when Polar Star will only oscillate between going south and being fixed after going south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next Time: The End of the World!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"It takes major muscle to do battle with Antarctic ice fields -- but is the world's most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker losing its mojo?","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704930739,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":18,"wordCount":1304},"headData":{"title":"Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker? | KQED","description":"It takes major muscle to do battle with Antarctic ice fields -- but is the world's most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker losing its mojo?","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Ice vs. Ship: Just How Cool Is a Heavy-Duty Icebreaker?","datePublished":"2016-01-23T01:31:05.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:52:19.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Brandon R. Reynolds\u003c/strong>","path":"/science/484822/ice-v-ship-just-how-cool-is-a-heavy-duty-icebreaker","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The fifth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan was this: groom the channel; spend a few days at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>; escort a supply ship and a fuel tanker in; go north to Marble Point to refuel a National Science Foundation depot; wander across the arc of the continent and then dart north across the chaotic Southern Ocean and up the coast of South America to Valparaiso and points north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this ship, it’s that plans are suggestions and suggestions are dreams and dreams here are more familiar than reality. Things change at a moment’s notice. Mostly by breaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are arcane equations that affect the ship, dealing with power output, weight distribution, atmospheric behavior, celestial navigation, on and on. There is only one that really means anything to the average dim-but-curious writer, and that’s the relationship between cutting a channel through the ice and the damage it causes; in other words, the ratio of breaking-in to breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ice is, in scientific terms, absolute hell on the ship. Polar Star breaks in a variety of ways, and that delays the grooming of the channel, the only way that supply ships can get in. So when we’re back underway we speed along to the next breakdown. Are these critical breakdowns? They’re serious enough. Most of them are, strictly speaking, mission-enders — for a few hours. Then we’re on our way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485300\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485300 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg\" alt=\"MK3 Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC03365-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Chynna Loe talks on the very old-school but still-functional sound-powered phone while on rounds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What’s happening here that keeps the engineering department busy with repairs is a living example of the paradox of the implacable force against the immovable object. Polar Star is the last working heavy icebreaker in the U.S. fleet, and with 75,000 horsepower, it’s billed as the “most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the world.” The bow is nearly two inches thick, made of a special steel alloy that’s resistant to the cold and — more than 40 years after the keel was laid — no longer made in the United States. For durability, the frames (the ship’s “ribs”) are about six inches closer together than normal. The football-shaped bow allows the ship to slide (or grind, as it were) up onto the ice like an aggressive leopard seal and break through it. That takes a lot of power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460989\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-460989\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-400x568.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-800x1136.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-768x1091.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Polar-Star-2016-with-ship-960x1363.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the time, Polar Star runs on six Alco 251 diesel-electric generators. These are train locomotive engines, but they’re also used for icebreakers and nuclear power plant backups. They even make a satisfying chugga-chug chugga-chug, which is quite soothing when we’re out at sea. (During what qualifies as night during the austral summer, I lie in my “rack” and listen to the sound of distant trains along with the foamy hiss of the waves against the bow, a real surf ’n’ turf for the senses.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These six engines generate power which is fed to three motors which turn the three shafts attached to the three propellers that make us go. Then, when it’s time to break ice, they fire up the jet engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the diesel-electrics, Polar Star also carries three Pratt & Whitney FT4 gas turbines, the kind once used in Boeing 707s. Each turbine is in its own chamber, and when they get turned on and you stand next to them, even with earplugs, it’s the kind of sound and force that you have to keep yourself from instinctively running away from, a terrible thrill like I imagine swimming with sharks would be. The turbines are each cranked down to a manageable RPM by a reduction gear and connected to a shaft, and when they’re all three going strong, they produce up to 75,000 hp. Power at that level is hard to imagine. I’ve seen what it can do, though. Plow through miles and miles of ice as thick as I am tall, tossing up fragments the size of Volkswagens into a channel cut to the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_484971\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484971\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's giant twin propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo's Mare Island shipyard in 2014.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"933\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12577_JV0A9246-qut-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s three giant propellers, each 18 feet across, await installation at Vallejo’s Mare Island shipyard in 2014. The prop on the right has been removed for refurbishing. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s well-designed, this ship. But still, stuff breaks all the time. Sometimes the turbines won’t start up, sometimes the diesels crap out, sometimes—a lot of times, lately—the vibrations through the ship from the bow smashing the ice and the propellers “milling” the ice, breaks anything connected to the shaft. Even for a ship built for this, it is an enormous amount of stress. There’s plenty of power. But there’s always more ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few days ago, a crack was found in the reduction gear, a part of the ship’s propulsion system. It seemed like just another in a series of breakdowns, but this was one that gave Capt. Matt Walker cause to abandon the \u003ca href=\"https://popantarctica.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/marble-point-air-facility/\">Marble Point\u003c/a> mission. The ice would be thicker there, he said, and he didn’t believe the ship was up to the task of breaking through. “I made a decision to forego Marble Point because Marble Point is a nice mission but it’s not an essential mission,” he said. She’d done it two years before, so I took this as evidence of age wearing Polar Star down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485301\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485301 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg\" alt=\"Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02774-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chief Keith Hoeffer and Petty Officer Keith Bryan work on repairs to the propulsion system. Breakdowns are a way of life in the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The crew I’ve talked to is of two minds about breakage. One attitude is that breakage is inevitable, that it’s the natural order of things around here, so they fix the damage and get on with it. They’re an industrious bunch. Fixes have included welding and replacing, but also, in a couple of cases, Super Glue and a surfboard repair kit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other perspective sees the law of diminishing returns at work. As Polar Star (now in her 40s) gets older, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/12/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment/\">she breaks more\u003c/a> — both more often and more seriously. More breakage not only imperils or at least alters the mission, as it did with Marble Point, but it also means more time in dry-dock, where repairs have to be hurriedly accomplished so that she can head out again for the next trip south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485147\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-485147\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg\" alt=\"This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-400x274.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-800x548.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-768x526.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-1180x808.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/RS12569_JV0A9031-qut-960x658.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This view of Polar Star in dry-dock reveals the specially-shaped keel for riding up onto heavy ice. \u003ccite>(Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Between Deep Freeze and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">dry-dock in Vallejo\u003c/a>, Polar Star was out of home port something like 320 days. The day may well be at hand when Polar Star will only oscillate between going south and being fixed after going south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next Time: The End of the World!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/484822/ice-v-ship-just-how-cool-is-a-heavy-duty-icebreaker","authors":["byline_science_484822"],"series":["science_2827"],"categories":["science_31","science_89","science_35","science_40"],"tags":["science_2818","science_1998"],"featImg":"science_485307","label":"science_2827"},"science_474134":{"type":"posts","id":"science_474134","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"474134","score":null,"sort":[1452902981000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"whales-penguins-and-a-few-lose-screws-on-epic-antarctic-voyage","title":"Whales, Penguins and a Few Loose Screws on An Epic Antarctic Voyage","publishDate":1452902981,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Whales, Penguins and a Few Loose Screws on An Epic Antarctic Voyage | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":2827,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>The fourth \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about a week, we encounter ice. Like a Popsicle on a hot day, my feelings about it changed fast and were never quite the same after. Here is a full and true account of my relationship with ice:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 9 – Miles of Ice to Get Through\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhat Polar Star really is, is the world’s greatest toy. She’s a big red boat that smashes up ice and makes a terrific sound as she’s doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474305\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474305\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This spirit of playfulness infects the first days of icebreaking. We’ve reached the ice coming off Ross Island, which is home to Mt. Byrd, Mt. Terror and Mt. Erebus–an active volcano. And somewhere up there, on the other side of the island is McMurdo Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We celebrate with a day off the ship, playing around on the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop off with the crew and soon orcas and minke whales pop up in the open water at the stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People smoke cigars on the ice and play football and walk around to nowhere in particular. I spot a group of people standing around a couple of toddlers running around flailing their arms. What in the screaming heck is that? Penguins. They’ve found us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may be the strangest and most amazing place in the world. Penguins, whales, a volcano, a big sheet of ice, us and a boat are near the coldest and driest place on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pod of orcas shows up in the pool behind the ship, spy-hopping like great big Whack-a-Moles. One of them, before disappearing back into the dark waters, winks at me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474308\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 10 – Carving Our Way to McMurdo Research Station\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe ice is one big sheet connected to Ross Island and we’re going to jigsaw it apart with this ship. We’ll cut a straight line through all that gleaming whiteness for the next few days and then carve a turning basin somewhere up ahead for the supply ships to maneuver near McMurdo, then head back out, then come back, and on and on, “turning big ice into little ice,” as they say around here. Sounds like a real hoot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 12 – Land Ahoy!\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Amid all the ship’s shaking, I finally see McMurdo Station! It looks like a moon base or a mining town or a mining town on the moon, perched as it is on the barren black rock of Ross Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 13 – Chattering Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIce mostly comes in white and blue. When I get tired of looking at it, I can go below and feel it as though I’m sensing the world in Braille.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living on a ship as it breaks through five to eight feet of ice is exactly what you’d imagine. You’re living through a controlled earthquake during the day and at night it’s like sleeping through a car crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets. You’re troubled by how quickly you come awake when they start smashing ice at 0800 and then you’re troubled a few days later by how easily you sleep through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and here comes McMurdo again, still just sitting there, not in the ice, not vibrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 14 – Things Break\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474311\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 353px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-474311\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \" width=\"353\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench.jpg 853w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun game to play:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Build a state-of-the-art icebreaking vessel 44 years ago.\u003cbr>\n2. Send it all around the world. Let it age.\u003cbr>\n3. Retire it for a couple of years. Unretire it.\u003cbr>\n4. Send it to Antarctica.\u003cbr>\n5. Watch how many things break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vibrations are hell on this ship. Screws unscrew. Things break. And the mechanics who repair this ship on a (no kidding) daily basis do not seem ruffled when bolts shear off or alarm bells wail. They climb down into the guts of the thing, repair it, and we’re back underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 15 – We May Be Crazy\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nI’m going to tell you something: There’s a lot of goddamn ice in the world. And the real aim of Operation Deep Freeze is apparently to run over all of it. The ice in your freezer? Polar Star makes every single cube. You know who doesn’t think about this? The people over at McMurdo who are probably laughing at us right now as we mow their lawn. And come to think of it, you’re probably laughing at us too: you with your liquid water up there, laughing as we make our way through a great big diaper of ice on the world’s chilly bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"The fourth in a series of dispatches, this piece describes Brandon Reynolds' experiences aboard Polar Star, an aging US Coast Guard ship. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704930774,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":24,"wordCount":984},"headData":{"title":"Whales, Penguins and a Few Loose Screws on An Epic Antarctic Voyage | KQED","description":"The fourth in a series of dispatches, this piece describes Brandon Reynolds' experiences aboard Polar Star, an aging US Coast Guard ship. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Whales, Penguins and a Few Loose Screws on An Epic Antarctic Voyage","datePublished":"2016-01-16T00:09:41.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:52:54.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Brandon R. Reynolds\u003c/strong>","path":"/science/474134/whales-penguins-and-a-few-lose-screws-on-epic-antarctic-voyage","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The fourth \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about a week, we encounter ice. Like a Popsicle on a hot day, my feelings about it changed fast and were never quite the same after. Here is a full and true account of my relationship with ice:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 9 – Miles of Ice to Get Through\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhat Polar Star really is, is the world’s greatest toy. She’s a big red boat that smashes up ice and makes a terrific sound as she’s doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474305\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474305\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Polar Star's movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship-breaking-through-the-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polar Star’s movement is difficult because the cut ice has nowhere to go. Subsequent maneuvers put huge cracks called leads between the ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This spirit of playfulness infects the first days of icebreaking. We’ve reached the ice coming off Ross Island, which is home to Mt. Byrd, Mt. Terror and Mt. Erebus–an active volcano. And somewhere up there, on the other side of the island is McMurdo Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We celebrate with a day off the ship, playing around on the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop off with the crew and soon orcas and minke whales pop up in the open water at the stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People smoke cigars on the ice and play football and walk around to nowhere in particular. I spot a group of people standing around a couple of toddlers running around flailing their arms. What in the screaming heck is that? Penguins. They’ve found us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may be the strangest and most amazing place in the world. Penguins, whales, a volcano, a big sheet of ice, us and a boat are near the coldest and driest place on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pod of orcas shows up in the pool behind the ship, spy-hopping like great big Whack-a-Moles. One of them, before disappearing back into the dark waters, winks at me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-474308\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Seals-on-ice.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crabeater seals lounge on the ice in front of the Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 10 – Carving Our Way to McMurdo Research Station\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe ice is one big sheet connected to Ross Island and we’re going to jigsaw it apart with this ship. We’ll cut a straight line through all that gleaming whiteness for the next few days and then carve a turning basin somewhere up ahead for the supply ships to maneuver near McMurdo, then head back out, then come back, and on and on, “turning big ice into little ice,” as they say around here. Sounds like a real hoot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 12 – Land Ahoy!\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Amid all the ship’s shaking, I finally see McMurdo Station! It looks like a moon base or a mining town or a mining town on the moon, perched as it is on the barren black rock of Ross Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 13 – Chattering Teeth \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIce mostly comes in white and blue. When I get tired of looking at it, I can go below and feel it as though I’m sensing the world in Braille.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living on a ship as it breaks through five to eight feet of ice is exactly what you’d imagine. You’re living through a controlled earthquake during the day and at night it’s like sleeping through a car crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything rattles on its hinges, except your teeth, which rattle in their sockets. You’re troubled by how quickly you come awake when they start smashing ice at 0800 and then you’re troubled a few days later by how easily you sleep through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and here comes McMurdo again, still just sitting there, not in the ice, not vibrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 14 – Things Break\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474311\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 353px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-474311\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \" width=\"353\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Mechanic-with-wrench.jpg 853w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 353px) 100vw, 353px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Machinery technician Ryan Copeland replaces an eye-screw that holds an important part of the shaft hydraulics in place. The shaft vibrations stripped this part and the ship stopped for several hours while it was replaced. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun game to play:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Build a state-of-the-art icebreaking vessel 44 years ago.\u003cbr>\n2. Send it all around the world. Let it age.\u003cbr>\n3. Retire it for a couple of years. Unretire it.\u003cbr>\n4. Send it to Antarctica.\u003cbr>\n5. Watch how many things break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vibrations are hell on this ship. Screws unscrew. Things break. And the mechanics who repair this ship on a (no kidding) daily basis do not seem ruffled when bolts shear off or alarm bells wail. They climb down into the guts of the thing, repair it, and we’re back underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAY 15 – We May Be Crazy\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nI’m going to tell you something: There’s a lot of goddamn ice in the world. And the real aim of Operation Deep Freeze is apparently to run over all of it. The ice in your freezer? Polar Star makes every single cube. You know who doesn’t think about this? The people over at McMurdo who are probably laughing at us right now as we mow their lawn. And come to think of it, you’re probably laughing at us too: you with your liquid water up there, laughing as we make our way through a great big diaper of ice on the world’s chilly bottom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/474134/whales-penguins-and-a-few-lose-screws-on-epic-antarctic-voyage","authors":["byline_science_474134"],"series":["science_2827"],"categories":["science_31","science_35","science_40"],"tags":["science_2818","science_1998"],"featImg":"science_474304","label":"science_2827"},"science_466603":{"type":"posts","id":"science_466603","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"466603","score":null,"sort":[1452610808000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment","title":"Polar Missions on Thin Ice With Aging Equipment","publishDate":1452610808,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Polar Missions on Thin Ice With Aging Equipment | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":2827,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>The third \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star. The ship entered the Antarctic Circle on January 3, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We sailed through the Southern Ocean as night ran out on us. Then it was endless day, and that’s when we began seeing ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It started with a mountain that sailed by, one of the tabular icebergs that Operations Officer Lt. Joel Wright described in a briefing with officers who’d be driving the ship through the ice as “big-time Chiclets.” Some of the bigger tabular icebergs are numbered and tracked across the ocean and are the size of cities. This one was about a quarter-mile long and stood 193 feet out of the water, according to somebody deft with a sextant. So, going by the rule of thumb, it extended nine times that distance beneath the surface. That’s not even worth naming, size-wise, but it drew sailors to the bow to snap photos as the thing crept by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of what I know about ice came from that briefing from Wright. The big takeaway, at least as far as piloting the ship, is that though Polar Star is classed as an icebreaker, it’s really an icedodger until it absolutely has to go through it. That’s how you keep a 40-year-old ship viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s the easiest way through ice?” Wright asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Around it,” said somebody. Correct answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the meeting, spirits were high: some of these officers would be piloting through ice for the first time. Imagine the power to push a 399-foot ship through six feet of ice. Imagine having 75,000 horsepower vibrating under your hands. Even I was seduced, and I wasn’t driving. American power!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466974\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-466974\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg\" alt=\"Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left.\" width=\"800\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-400x254.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-960x609.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready.jpg 989w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then the lights went out. Everything was quiet, and then everything was loud. Sailors ran to emergency stations. “The last time this happened,” Wright said before rushing out, “we blew our switchboard.” He was smiling, but it was the smile of someone trying not to worry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, right as Polar Star was about to pull in to Valparaiso, one of the main switchboards blew out. That switchboard controlled ventilation, lighting, and refrigeration to parts of the ship. For a few days after, electricity usage was restricted. I asked Master Chief Tom Stone, a 30-year veteran of the Coast Guard and resident ship-whisperer, who was also onboard last year, how long it took them to decide what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We pretty much knew immediately,” he said. “Whenever you have a switchboard fire like that they’re gonna send you home.” After some rerouting, Polar Star limped straight back to Seattle, forgoing Valparaiso and other port calls. What everyone was worried about this time was another mission-ending crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466698\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466698\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg\" alt=\"Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship's three service diesel generators, which provide "hotel" services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship’s three service diesel generators, which provide “hotel” services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Time was, there were many icebreakers in the American fleet. The Navy used to handle the icebreaker program, sending half a dozen ships to the poles and places like Greenland. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Operation Deep Freeze\u003c/a> started in the 1950s to support the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">research at McMurdo\u003c/a>, and that continued to be the mission when the Navy handed over the icebreaker program to the Coast Guard in 1965. Since then the supply of ships has dwindled as old ones have been retired and new ones have \u003ca href=\"http://news.usni.org/2015/02/25/coast-guard-analysis-says-u-s-needs-3-heavy-and-3-medium-icebreakers-path-to-ships-unclear\">languished on the drawing board\u003c/a>. Polar Star was commissioned in 1976, her sister ship \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcpolarsea/\">Polar Sea in 1979\u003c/a>. For a long time they’d cover the poles and other places. Then they were taking turns going south. They’ve had things blowing up and breaking down since they were commissioned. (Polar Star ran aground two days after it was launched.) It’s in the nature of the ships, and the nature of the mission. Stay up after midnight and you’ll hear the ghosts of alarms past yowling in the corridors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally they’d carry scientists, though the polar-class icebreakers have always been intended for operational support. This is Cold War thinking: make sure we have a little red tub of Ameri-can vigor ready to go to the farthest reaches. Still, science was such a standard that on the old-timey plaques above the doors here (there’s one reading “Soda Fountain” over the door of what is now the “Polar Starbucks” (not affiliated with the Seattle-based coffee corporation) you’ll see more than a few labeled “Scientist Stateroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1999, \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcHealy/\">the Healy\u003c/a> was commissioned, a medium-duty icebreaker that goes north to the Arctic and carries scientists on a variety of missions. In the last decade things get hairy. The Polars continue to be costly to maintain. Engineering problems in 2006 forced Polar Star into what’s called a “\u003ca href=\"http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/958353-129/the-coast-guards-woeful-icebreakers\">caretaker” status\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, for funding reasons that have remained vague and that I hope this trip will shed some light on, both the Polar Sea and the Healy went north while the National Science Foundation, which funds part of the Deep Freeze missions, instead leased icebreakers from Sweden and Russia to sweep up the channel in front of the Antarctic station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010 Polar Sea, after extensive renovations, broke. Polar Star had a $57 million rejuvenation and, now, this is the fourth trip since Polar Star was reactivated in 2012. In (American) summer 2013 she went to the Arctic to see how she fared; the winter of 2013-14 was the first time she’d gone south in nearly a decade. This, then, is her \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">third trip to Antarctica since reactivation\u003c/a>. For those who were around since she was fired up again, this is the first time since 2012 that things are (more or less) running smoothly. The mission, like the icebreaker fleet, has been scaled down. There are a few scientists running around onboard, but the one and only goal of Polar Star now is to break into McMurdo. After that she goes almost straightaway in for repairs, having no relief. Last year she was away from home 320 days, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">much of that in a Vallejo dry dock\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466788\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg\" alt=\"Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. In the back-ground is a life-sized ice sculpture of Monument Valley.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Congressional priorities shift and icebreaking looms less in the public consciousness than more local concerns, the icebreaker well has dried up. Now there’s just Polar Star out here. (Healy made the trip south a few years back and didn’t handle it well.) So if she breaks, there are no more. And if she breaks out here, no one’s coming for us. This gets into territory covered by what’s called the wintering-over bill, a document that details spending a year on the ship, in the ice, in the event of a catastrophic casualty. It looms in the minds of these sailors somewhere between Lord of the Flies and a probably-very-compelling reality show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’ll loom a little more in their minds, and mine, as we get closer to Marble Point, 42 miles from McMurdo. We’re going there to resupply a fuel depot after leaving McMurdo. The ice there is older and thicker. There may be a big-time Chiclet in the way. That’s when the wintering-over bill may seem most relevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, though, it wasn’t a mission-ending casualty. Everyone tucked away their dreams of beards and penguin-hunting parties for another day. A diesel generator overheated and blew a transformer, shifting the load to another generator which was having absolutely none of it, so it too shut off. The emergency generator kicked in, there was some rerouting, and after a few hours, we were back up and running. I hear tell that there may be a new transformer waiting for us at McMurdo. This ship is powered by rumor as much as diesel, though, so we shall see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any event, it has become clear to me that alarm bells and breakages are not only common but constant. In a ship with this many moving parts, under these conditions, at any given time, something, or someone, is quietly planning to go sideways. There are as many possible mishaps as there are kinds of ice in these variable seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Ice Liberty\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Into the Antarctic ice pack on a 40-year-old icebreaker -- and more than ice is breaking. What now?","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704930800,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":23,"wordCount":1539},"headData":{"title":"Polar Missions on Thin Ice With Aging Equipment | KQED","description":"Into the Antarctic ice pack on a 40-year-old icebreaker -- and more than ice is breaking. What now?","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Polar Missions on Thin Ice With Aging Equipment","datePublished":"2016-01-12T15:00:08.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:53:20.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Brandon R. Reynolds\u003c/strong>","path":"/science/466603/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The third \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star. The ship entered the Antarctic Circle on January 3, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We sailed through the Southern Ocean as night ran out on us. Then it was endless day, and that’s when we began seeing ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It started with a mountain that sailed by, one of the tabular icebergs that Operations Officer Lt. Joel Wright described in a briefing with officers who’d be driving the ship through the ice as “big-time Chiclets.” Some of the bigger tabular icebergs are numbered and tracked across the ocean and are the size of cities. This one was about a quarter-mile long and stood 193 feet out of the water, according to somebody deft with a sextant. So, going by the rule of thumb, it extended nine times that distance beneath the surface. That’s not even worth naming, size-wise, but it drew sailors to the bow to snap photos as the thing crept by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of what I know about ice came from that briefing from Wright. The big takeaway, at least as far as piloting the ship, is that though Polar Star is classed as an icebreaker, it’s really an icedodger until it absolutely has to go through it. That’s how you keep a 40-year-old ship viable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s the easiest way through ice?” Wright asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Around it,” said somebody. Correct answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the meeting, spirits were high: some of these officers would be piloting through ice for the first time. Imagine the power to push a 399-foot ship through six feet of ice. Imagine having 75,000 horsepower vibrating under your hands. Even I was seduced, and I wasn’t driving. American power!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466974\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-466974\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg\" alt=\"Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left.\" width=\"800\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-400x254.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready-960x609.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Ship_fire_ready.jpg 989w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Officers on the bridge wear fire-resistant flash gear after the power goes out. Capt. Matt Walker is at far left. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then the lights went out. Everything was quiet, and then everything was loud. Sailors ran to emergency stations. “The last time this happened,” Wright said before rushing out, “we blew our switchboard.” He was smiling, but it was the smile of someone trying not to worry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, right as Polar Star was about to pull in to Valparaiso, one of the main switchboards blew out. That switchboard controlled ventilation, lighting, and refrigeration to parts of the ship. For a few days after, electricity usage was restricted. I asked Master Chief Tom Stone, a 30-year veteran of the Coast Guard and resident ship-whisperer, who was also onboard last year, how long it took them to decide what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We pretty much knew immediately,” he said. “Whenever you have a switchboard fire like that they’re gonna send you home.” After some rerouting, Polar Star limped straight back to Seattle, forgoing Valparaiso and other port calls. What everyone was worried about this time was another mission-ending crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466698\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466698\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg\" alt=\"Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship's three service diesel generators, which provide "hotel" services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC02612-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Master Chief Tom Stone inspects one of the ship’s three service diesel generators, which provide “hotel” services like light and ventilation, as opposed to the six propulsion generators. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Time was, there were many icebreakers in the American fleet. The Navy used to handle the icebreaker program, sending half a dozen ships to the poles and places like Greenland. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Operation Deep Freeze\u003c/a> started in the 1950s to support the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">research at McMurdo\u003c/a>, and that continued to be the mission when the Navy handed over the icebreaker program to the Coast Guard in 1965. Since then the supply of ships has dwindled as old ones have been retired and new ones have \u003ca href=\"http://news.usni.org/2015/02/25/coast-guard-analysis-says-u-s-needs-3-heavy-and-3-medium-icebreakers-path-to-ships-unclear\">languished on the drawing board\u003c/a>. Polar Star was commissioned in 1976, her sister ship \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcpolarsea/\">Polar Sea in 1979\u003c/a>. For a long time they’d cover the poles and other places. Then they were taking turns going south. They’ve had things blowing up and breaking down since they were commissioned. (Polar Star ran aground two days after it was launched.) It’s in the nature of the ships, and the nature of the mission. Stay up after midnight and you’ll hear the ghosts of alarms past yowling in the corridors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally they’d carry scientists, though the polar-class icebreakers have always been intended for operational support. This is Cold War thinking: make sure we have a little red tub of Ameri-can vigor ready to go to the farthest reaches. Still, science was such a standard that on the old-timey plaques above the doors here (there’s one reading “Soda Fountain” over the door of what is now the “Polar Starbucks” (not affiliated with the Seattle-based coffee corporation) you’ll see more than a few labeled “Scientist Stateroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1999, \u003ca href=\"http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcHealy/\">the Healy\u003c/a> was commissioned, a medium-duty icebreaker that goes north to the Arctic and carries scientists on a variety of missions. In the last decade things get hairy. The Polars continue to be costly to maintain. Engineering problems in 2006 forced Polar Star into what’s called a “\u003ca href=\"http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/958353-129/the-coast-guards-woeful-icebreakers\">caretaker” status\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, for funding reasons that have remained vague and that I hope this trip will shed some light on, both the Polar Sea and the Healy went north while the National Science Foundation, which funds part of the Deep Freeze missions, instead leased icebreakers from Sweden and Russia to sweep up the channel in front of the Antarctic station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010 Polar Sea, after extensive renovations, broke. Polar Star had a $57 million rejuvenation and, now, this is the fourth trip since Polar Star was reactivated in 2012. In (American) summer 2013 she went to the Arctic to see how she fared; the winter of 2013-14 was the first time she’d gone south in nearly a decade. This, then, is her \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">third trip to Antarctica since reactivation\u003c/a>. For those who were around since she was fired up again, this is the first time since 2012 that things are (more or less) running smoothly. The mission, like the icebreaker fleet, has been scaled down. There are a few scientists running around onboard, but the one and only goal of Polar Star now is to break into McMurdo. After that she goes almost straightaway in for repairs, having no relief. Last year she was away from home 320 days, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">much of that in a Vallejo dry dock\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_466788\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-466788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg\" alt=\"Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. In the back-ground is a life-sized ice sculpture of Monument Valley.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322.jpeg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01322-960x640.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Small boat maneuvers in the days before we reach the fast ice and begin break-in. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Congressional priorities shift and icebreaking looms less in the public consciousness than more local concerns, the icebreaker well has dried up. Now there’s just Polar Star out here. (Healy made the trip south a few years back and didn’t handle it well.) So if she breaks, there are no more. And if she breaks out here, no one’s coming for us. This gets into territory covered by what’s called the wintering-over bill, a document that details spending a year on the ship, in the ice, in the event of a catastrophic casualty. It looms in the minds of these sailors somewhere between Lord of the Flies and a probably-very-compelling reality show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’ll loom a little more in their minds, and mine, as we get closer to Marble Point, 42 miles from McMurdo. We’re going there to resupply a fuel depot after leaving McMurdo. The ice there is older and thicker. There may be a big-time Chiclet in the way. That’s when the wintering-over bill may seem most relevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, though, it wasn’t a mission-ending casualty. Everyone tucked away their dreams of beards and penguin-hunting parties for another day. A diesel generator overheated and blew a transformer, shifting the load to another generator which was having absolutely none of it, so it too shut off. The emergency generator kicked in, there was some rerouting, and after a few hours, we were back up and running. I hear tell that there may be a new transformer waiting for us at McMurdo. This ship is powered by rumor as much as diesel, though, so we shall see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In any event, it has become clear to me that alarm bells and breakages are not only common but constant. In a ship with this many moving parts, under these conditions, at any given time, something, or someone, is quietly planning to go sideways. There are as many possible mishaps as there are kinds of ice in these variable seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Ice Liberty\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/466603/polar-missions-on-thin-ice-with-aging-equipment","authors":["byline_science_466603"],"series":["science_2827"],"categories":["science_31","science_89","science_35","science_40"],"tags":["science_2818","science_1998"],"featImg":"science_466695","label":"science_2827"},"science_460326":{"type":"posts","id":"science_460326","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"460326","score":null,"sort":[1452304271000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"antarctica-getting-there-is-half-the-fun","title":"Antarctica: Getting There is Half the Fun","publishDate":1452304271,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Antarctica: Getting There is Half the Fun | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":2827,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>The second \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mystery From the Sky\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by a shadowy figure at the door. I went out and up and onto the deck of the Polar Star, which was making its way south to Antarctica. Its mission was to break some of the ice there. Not all of it, but some.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside it was still dark, which was getting rarer by the day. Up above was the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, which are almost exactly like the better known Northern Lights, only upside-down. What they look like is space clouds curving in from somewhere distant and sifting down the way you think of fireworks sifting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?\u003ccite>Frankenstein\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These were more or less cloud-colored, but in the photos, most of which turned out pretty bad, the lights took on the green color you think of, if you think of that sort of thing at all. The lights are awesome in the original sense of that word, and seeing them entirely accidentally, I understood why they were a thing people journey to see: they touch a very old urge to go out and explore in hopes — not just of understanding — but of being mystified, of finding that place where the difference between nature and magic is irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re usually a winter phenomenon, the auroras, so these were out of season, but this was New Year’s Day, and these were our fireworks in a very lonely place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460407\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mission of United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is a straightforward one: sail from home port in Seattle to McMurdo Station on \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/18/rediscovering-ross-island-the-2012-expedition-to-understand-the-geologic-origin-of-ross-island-antarctica/\">Ross Island\u003c/a> off the coast of Antarctica. Once there, make a path for supply ships. Return home. It’s a trip that starts around Thanksgiving and ends around early April, barring any unforeseen complications such as icebound fishing boats or onboard fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm\">U.S. Antarctic Program base\u003c/a> from which scientists deploy across the continent to pursue research in everything from gravitational waves to climate change — the origins of the universe and the fates of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is in a sound which \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49600\">ices over every year\u003c/a>. Polar Star opens the channel so supply ships can get in during the short austral summer, outfit the station for the next year’s research, and take out the trash. McMurdo is run by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">National Science Foundation\u003c/a>, which works with the Coast Guard to make sure there’s a way into and out of McMurdo. All of which would be simple enough, but for the complicating factors of entropy and politics, which will embroil the modern empires of Ebay and Russia. About which more later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-470129\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg\" alt=\"PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-400x568.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-800x1136.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-768x1091.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-960x1363.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">For now, know this: Polar Star is designed to ride up onto the ice and let gravity do the rest. She can power through about 6 feet of ice pretty handily, or even more if she backs up and rams the ice. Cutting a channel through a dozen miles of “fast ice” (ice connected to land, “made fast” to it) will take more than a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This process is called “grooming,” which has all kinds of other zoological and sartorial connotations that are delightful to think about in the context of this \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">big orange 14,000-ton jet-powered ship\u003c/a> lurching up onto thick ice like a beaching whale and splashing gleefully down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m told that, onboard, this feels like a series of minor earthquakes going on for a week. I sleep on a top bunk that someone appears to have forgotten to attach retaining rails to, so my childhood fear of falling out of a nice dream onto the hard, hard floor of a Cold War-era icebreaker may well come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once upon a time, there were two kinds of uncharted territory. There was the “Here There Be Dragons,” “Darkest Africa” kind of stuff, the lands of dangerous unknowns, and then there was the Shangri-La, El Dorado types, mythic places that lured men over the horizon in search of lands surpassing in beauty, fertility, and riches any we had known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460409\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg\" alt=\"Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered peoples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"749\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-400x374.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1440x1348.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1920x1797.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1180x1104.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-960x899.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered races of people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People believed this about the Arctic, for whatever reason and against all available evidence (see: giant ice fields and polar bears). Explorers of the Victorian era thought that maybe somewhere in there was a paradise. Even Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story is framed around an expedition to the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shelley was making a point about the human need to discover, and the need to cut ourselves to ribbons on that dangerously sharp edge between the known and the unknown. The Arctic held great appeal to people of Shelley’s era, the promise of a land better than any other land. But in fact, there’s no land there at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the big difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic: the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land; Antarctica is a frozen land surrounded by sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the Arctic has historically been in finding ways across it, shortcuts from one empire to the next. Those shortcuts have been elusive; the search for them has led to disappointment and death by freezing and starvation. Now that it’s melting, though, some of those fabled passages are appearing, and countries with an interest in controlling the north are trying to find ways to send container ships — even cruise ships — across it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Antarctic has been largely insulated from this, in part because of its supreme isolation from anywhere anyone wanted to go, and partly because of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\">Antarctic Treaty of 1959\u003c/a>, which protects the continent from mining and commercial exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while 53 countries have signed on and many have planted flags and opened bases and dug around in the snow, no one’s been able to use it to turn a profit, or expand an empire. It’s been all about the science. Discovery, in other words. An unspoiled land ruled by ideals and penguins. Everyone was looking north for Shangri-La when they should’ve been looking south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460489\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460489\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all stands to get screwed up, too, of course, as we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star carries some of the motley DNA of Frankenstein’s monster. She breaks down a little here, a lot there. She’s repaired from a dwindling pool of parts. She carries a lot of new stuff to talk to her old stuff (she’s mostly old stuff). \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Her keel was laid in 1972\u003c/a>. She was commissioned in 1976. Think about a 44-year-old machine. Think about how drastically technology has changed since then. Think about the friction caused by forcing this ship to stay in the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s all we’ve got, to do this one straightforward thing in this one lonely place. That’s only really a problem when she breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which she did the very next day after the Southern Lights went away and took the night entirely with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Thar She Breaks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Southern Lights and struggling into a Gumby suit are just the beginning. The ice still lies ahead.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704930810,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":27,"wordCount":1360},"headData":{"title":"Antarctica: Getting There is Half the Fun | KQED","description":"Southern Lights and struggling into a Gumby suit are just the beginning. The ice still lies ahead.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Antarctica: Getting There is Half the Fun","datePublished":"2016-01-09T01:51:11.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:53:30.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Brandon R. Reynolds\u003c/strong>","path":"/science/460326/antarctica-getting-there-is-half-the-fun","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The second \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mystery From the Sky\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by a shadowy figure at the door. I went out and up and onto the deck of the Polar Star, which was making its way south to Antarctica. Its mission was to break some of the ice there. Not all of it, but some.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside it was still dark, which was getting rarer by the day. Up above was the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, which are almost exactly like the better known Northern Lights, only upside-down. What they look like is space clouds curving in from somewhere distant and sifting down the way you think of fireworks sifting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?\u003ccite>Frankenstein\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These were more or less cloud-colored, but in the photos, most of which turned out pretty bad, the lights took on the green color you think of, if you think of that sort of thing at all. The lights are awesome in the original sense of that word, and seeing them entirely accidentally, I understood why they were a thing people journey to see: they touch a very old urge to go out and explore in hopes — not just of understanding — but of being mystified, of finding that place where the difference between nature and magic is irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re usually a winter phenomenon, the auroras, so these were out of season, but this was New Year’s Day, and these were our fireworks in a very lonely place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460407\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mission of United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is a straightforward one: sail from home port in Seattle to McMurdo Station on \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/18/rediscovering-ross-island-the-2012-expedition-to-understand-the-geologic-origin-of-ross-island-antarctica/\">Ross Island\u003c/a> off the coast of Antarctica. Once there, make a path for supply ships. Return home. It’s a trip that starts around Thanksgiving and ends around early April, barring any unforeseen complications such as icebound fishing boats or onboard fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm\">U.S. Antarctic Program base\u003c/a> from which scientists deploy across the continent to pursue research in everything from gravitational waves to climate change — the origins of the universe and the fates of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is in a sound which \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49600\">ices over every year\u003c/a>. Polar Star opens the channel so supply ships can get in during the short austral summer, outfit the station for the next year’s research, and take out the trash. McMurdo is run by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">National Science Foundation\u003c/a>, which works with the Coast Guard to make sure there’s a way into and out of McMurdo. All of which would be simple enough, but for the complicating factors of entropy and politics, which will embroil the modern empires of Ebay and Russia. About which more later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-470129\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg\" alt=\"PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-400x568.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-800x1136.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-768x1091.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-960x1363.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">For now, know this: Polar Star is designed to ride up onto the ice and let gravity do the rest. She can power through about 6 feet of ice pretty handily, or even more if she backs up and rams the ice. Cutting a channel through a dozen miles of “fast ice” (ice connected to land, “made fast” to it) will take more than a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This process is called “grooming,” which has all kinds of other zoological and sartorial connotations that are delightful to think about in the context of this \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">big orange 14,000-ton jet-powered ship\u003c/a> lurching up onto thick ice like a beaching whale and splashing gleefully down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m told that, onboard, this feels like a series of minor earthquakes going on for a week. I sleep on a top bunk that someone appears to have forgotten to attach retaining rails to, so my childhood fear of falling out of a nice dream onto the hard, hard floor of a Cold War-era icebreaker may well come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once upon a time, there were two kinds of uncharted territory. There was the “Here There Be Dragons,” “Darkest Africa” kind of stuff, the lands of dangerous unknowns, and then there was the Shangri-La, El Dorado types, mythic places that lured men over the horizon in search of lands surpassing in beauty, fertility, and riches any we had known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460409\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg\" alt=\"Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered peoples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"749\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-400x374.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1440x1348.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1920x1797.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1180x1104.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-960x899.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered races of people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People believed this about the Arctic, for whatever reason and against all available evidence (see: giant ice fields and polar bears). Explorers of the Victorian era thought that maybe somewhere in there was a paradise. Even Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story is framed around an expedition to the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shelley was making a point about the human need to discover, and the need to cut ourselves to ribbons on that dangerously sharp edge between the known and the unknown. The Arctic held great appeal to people of Shelley’s era, the promise of a land better than any other land. But in fact, there’s no land there at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the big difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic: the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land; Antarctica is a frozen land surrounded by sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the Arctic has historically been in finding ways across it, shortcuts from one empire to the next. Those shortcuts have been elusive; the search for them has led to disappointment and death by freezing and starvation. Now that it’s melting, though, some of those fabled passages are appearing, and countries with an interest in controlling the north are trying to find ways to send container ships — even cruise ships — across it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Antarctic has been largely insulated from this, in part because of its supreme isolation from anywhere anyone wanted to go, and partly because of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\">Antarctic Treaty of 1959\u003c/a>, which protects the continent from mining and commercial exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while 53 countries have signed on and many have planted flags and opened bases and dug around in the snow, no one’s been able to use it to turn a profit, or expand an empire. It’s been all about the science. Discovery, in other words. An unspoiled land ruled by ideals and penguins. Everyone was looking north for Shangri-La when they should’ve been looking south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460489\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460489\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all stands to get screwed up, too, of course, as we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star carries some of the motley DNA of Frankenstein’s monster. She breaks down a little here, a lot there. She’s repaired from a dwindling pool of parts. She carries a lot of new stuff to talk to her old stuff (she’s mostly old stuff). \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Her keel was laid in 1972\u003c/a>. She was commissioned in 1976. Think about a 44-year-old machine. Think about how drastically technology has changed since then. Think about the friction caused by forcing this ship to stay in the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s all we’ve got, to do this one straightforward thing in this one lonely place. That’s only really a problem when she breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which she did the very next day after the Southern Lights went away and took the night entirely with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Thar She Breaks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/460326/antarctica-getting-there-is-half-the-fun","authors":["byline_science_460326"],"series":["science_2827"],"categories":["science_28","science_31","science_89","science_35","science_40"],"featImg":"science_460408","label":"science_2827"},"science_452669":{"type":"posts","id":"science_452669","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"452669","score":null,"sort":[1452092450000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science","title":"Dispatches From a Polar Icebreaker -- And What's at Stake for Science","publishDate":1452092450,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Dispatches From a Polar Icebreaker — And What’s at Stake for Science | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":2827,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>The first \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star. The ship entered the Antarctic Circle on January 3, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aboard the Disoriented Express\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s New Year’s Eve, I’m pretty sure. Since I left the United States, I’ve leapt forward a day, landed in Hobart, Tasmania, ate wallaby tacos at a food festival beside the harbor, and set sail on a ship called Polar Star, heading south to Antarctica, but because the world is round, we’re also heading east, toward South America. See for yourself. Don’t look on a map, maps lie. Look on a globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyway, soon after departure came an announcement that we were leaping another two hours forward, time zones be damned, to catch up to where we’re heading. It’s the law of the sea, I suppose. Somewhere out there is ice, which will look, I imagine, like nothing so much as nothing at all — like the ocean doesn’t end so much as is erased past a certain point. Which is what the ship is here to correct, to restore ocean to the nothingness. It’s an icebreaker. On the other side of all that ice is Antarctica, where the clocks are set two hours ahead to McMurdo Standard Time, as, now, are ours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think it’s New Year’s Eve. Scheduled for later, I hear is a party out on the helipad, or the fantail, whatever the back end of the ship is. Fake champagne will be served and everyone will be caught wearing the exact same thing and no one will be scandalized by this. We’re 21 hours ahead of the West Coast, so we’re practically the first people in the world who will celebrate the new year, and so this, the uniforms and the pretending-at-booze, this is the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_452752\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-452752 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg\" alt=\"The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation's only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1920x1281.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1180x787.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation’s only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Into the Deep Freeze\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trip is called Operation Deep Freeze, this ship is called Polar Star. It belongs to the Coast Guard which means, essentially, it belongs to you, if you’re American. (This will be important to keep in mind as we consider the looming costs associated with the mission.) \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Polar Star is a heavy icebreaker\u003c/a>, as opposed to a light or medium icebreaker, which means it can go pretty much anywhere there’s ice. Its mission is to cut a channel in the ice off the Ross Ice Shelf, where is located \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, a launching point for research on the continent. Polar Star opens the channel and then “grooms” it for supply ships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star is going to be 40 next year. That’s old for a ship doing this kind of work. It was supposed to have been retired at 30, but the billion dollars to build a new one has not been forthcoming from Congress. Nor the hundred-plus million required to get Polar Sea, the Star’s sister ship, back up and running. Right now she’s in semi-permanent hibernation in a dry-dock somewhere in Portland. Polar Star cannibalizes Polar Sea for parts, like a twin devouring its mate in utero, which gosh is a lurid image, and I’m sorry. It’s the vulgarity of the sea, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460496\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460496\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1035\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-400x518.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-768x994.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1440x1864.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1920x2485.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1180x1527.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-960x1242.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound. \u003ccite>(David Pierce/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Right, so: what am I doing here. I’ll be sailing with Polar Star and its 160 souls for the next two months, from Hobart to McMurdo, from McMurdo to Valparaiso, Chile. Here come stories about small-town kids embroiled in adventure, about the various species of seasickness (everyone suffers differently, together), about how the ship is slowly but surely, a circuit board here, a screw there, becoming a different ship, and about a small community as far away as you can possibly be and still be on Earth. They’re going to a place whose importance in the future of the planet is a thing of some debate, climate-wise, and so the ship’s importance is also a thing worth considering. There will be stories about Antarctica, too, we all hope, which is its own strange world of strong personalities, scientific endeavor, and (I have to assume) beards, all built upon the immortal ruins of older attempts at discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What else. Getting these dispatches out is its own saga, involving orbital satellites and obscure communications companies and the preciousness of bandwidth. But hopefully there will be some delightful melange of word/photo/audio/video, in descending order of probability. We are very far away, I must stress that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Confession\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I fell asleep an hour before midnight because my head’s still ascramble and every day further south, night grows shorter until it’ll cease to be. I awoke to a shadowy sailor at the threshold, saying something about something I needed to see right away. What time is it, I asked, like that made any difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Mystery from the Sky!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"In which our hero takes on Antarctica by icebreaker, for an inside look at an aging ship, a shrinking fleet, and the risks those pose to the future of polar science.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704930830,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":16,"wordCount":959},"headData":{"title":"Dispatches From a Polar Icebreaker -- And What's at Stake for Science | KQED","description":"In which our hero takes on Antarctica by icebreaker, for an inside look at an aging ship, a shrinking fleet, and the risks those pose to the future of polar science.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Dispatches From a Polar Icebreaker -- And What's at Stake for Science","datePublished":"2016-01-06T15:00:50.000Z","dateModified":"2024-01-10T23:53:50.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003cstrong>Brandon R. Reynolds\u003c/strong>","path":"/science/452669/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The first \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star. The ship entered the Antarctic Circle on January 3, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aboard the Disoriented Express\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s New Year’s Eve, I’m pretty sure. Since I left the United States, I’ve leapt forward a day, landed in Hobart, Tasmania, ate wallaby tacos at a food festival beside the harbor, and set sail on a ship called Polar Star, heading south to Antarctica, but because the world is round, we’re also heading east, toward South America. See for yourself. Don’t look on a map, maps lie. Look on a globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyway, soon after departure came an announcement that we were leaping another two hours forward, time zones be damned, to catch up to where we’re heading. It’s the law of the sea, I suppose. Somewhere out there is ice, which will look, I imagine, like nothing so much as nothing at all — like the ocean doesn’t end so much as is erased past a certain point. Which is what the ship is here to correct, to restore ocean to the nothingness. It’s an icebreaker. On the other side of all that ice is Antarctica, where the clocks are set two hours ahead to McMurdo Standard Time, as, now, are ours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think it’s New Year’s Eve. Scheduled for later, I hear is a party out on the helipad, or the fantail, whatever the back end of the ship is. Fake champagne will be served and everyone will be caught wearing the exact same thing and no one will be scandalized by this. We’re 21 hours ahead of the West Coast, so we’re practically the first people in the world who will celebrate the new year, and so this, the uniforms and the pretending-at-booze, this is the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_452752\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-452752 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg\" alt=\"The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation's only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1920x1281.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-1180x787.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00039.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 40-year-old USCGC Polar Star is the nation’s only remaining operational heavy icebreaker. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Into the Deep Freeze\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This trip is called Operation Deep Freeze, this ship is called Polar Star. It belongs to the Coast Guard which means, essentially, it belongs to you, if you’re American. (This will be important to keep in mind as we consider the looming costs associated with the mission.) \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Polar Star is a heavy icebreaker\u003c/a>, as opposed to a light or medium icebreaker, which means it can go pretty much anywhere there’s ice. Its mission is to cut a channel in the ice off the Ross Ice Shelf, where is located \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, a launching point for research on the continent. Polar Star opens the channel and then “grooms” it for supply ships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star is going to be 40 next year. That’s old for a ship doing this kind of work. It was supposed to have been retired at 30, but the billion dollars to build a new one has not been forthcoming from Congress. Nor the hundred-plus million required to get Polar Sea, the Star’s sister ship, back up and running. Right now she’s in semi-permanent hibernation in a dry-dock somewhere in Portland. Polar Star cannibalizes Polar Sea for parts, like a twin devouring its mate in utero, which gosh is a lurid image, and I’m sorry. It’s the vulgarity of the sea, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460496\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460496\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg\" alt=\"About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1035\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-800x1035.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-400x518.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-768x994.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1440x1864.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1920x2485.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-1180x1527.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStarRt_1-2dates-960x1242.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About a week after sailing from Tasmania, the Polar Star entered the ice fields and began breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound. \u003ccite>(David Pierce/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Right, so: what am I doing here. I’ll be sailing with Polar Star and its 160 souls for the next two months, from Hobart to McMurdo, from McMurdo to Valparaiso, Chile. Here come stories about small-town kids embroiled in adventure, about the various species of seasickness (everyone suffers differently, together), about how the ship is slowly but surely, a circuit board here, a screw there, becoming a different ship, and about a small community as far away as you can possibly be and still be on Earth. They’re going to a place whose importance in the future of the planet is a thing of some debate, climate-wise, and so the ship’s importance is also a thing worth considering. There will be stories about Antarctica, too, we all hope, which is its own strange world of strong personalities, scientific endeavor, and (I have to assume) beards, all built upon the immortal ruins of older attempts at discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What else. Getting these dispatches out is its own saga, involving orbital satellites and obscure communications companies and the preciousness of bandwidth. But hopefully there will be some delightful melange of word/photo/audio/video, in descending order of probability. We are very far away, I must stress that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Confession\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I fell asleep an hour before midnight because my head’s still ascramble and every day further south, night grows shorter until it’ll cease to be. I awoke to a shadowy sailor at the threshold, saying something about something I needed to see right away. What time is it, I asked, like that made any difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Mystery from the Sky!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/452669/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science","authors":["byline_science_452669"],"series":["science_2827"],"categories":["science_31","science_89","science_35","science_40"],"tags":["science_2818","science_1998"],"featImg":"science_452751","label":"science_2827"}},"programsReducer":{"possible":{"id":"possible","title":"Possible","info":"Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.","airtime":"SUN 2pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.possible.fm/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"Possible"},"link":"/radio/program/possible","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/possible/id1677184070","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"}},"1a":{"id":"1a","title":"1A","info":"1A is home to the national conversation. 1A brings on great guests and frames the best debate in ways that make you think, share and engage.","airtime":"MON-THU 11pm-12am","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/1a.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://the1a.org/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/1a","subscribe":{"npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/RBrW","apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=1188724250&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/1A-p947376/","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510316/podcast.xml"}},"all-things-considered":{"id":"all-things-considered","title":"All Things Considered","info":"Every weekday, \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> hosts Robert Siegel, Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro, and Kelly McEvers present the program's trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features. 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You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. 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Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. 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You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn","officialWebsiteLink":"/mindshift/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"2"},"link":"/podcasts/mindshift","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"}},"morning-edition":{"id":"morning-edition","title":"Morning Edition","info":"\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.","airtime":"MON-FRI 3am-9am","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/morning-edition"},"onourwatch":{"id":"onourwatch","title":"On Our Watch","tagline":"Police secrets, unsealed","info":"For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"On Our Watch from NPR and KQED","officialWebsiteLink":"/podcasts/onourwatch","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"1"},"link":"/podcasts/onourwatch","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw","npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/onourwatch","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/0OLWoyizopu6tY1XiuX70x","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/On-Our-Watch-p1436229/","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"}},"on-the-media":{"id":"on-the-media","title":"On The Media","info":"Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us","airtime":"SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm","meta":{"site":"news","source":"wnyc"},"link":"/radio/program/on-the-media","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/","rss":"http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"}},"our-body-politic":{"id":"our-body-politic","title":"Our Body Politic","info":"Presented by KQED, KCRW and KPCC, and created and hosted by award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, Our Body Politic is unapologetically centered on reporting on not just how women of color experience the major political events of today, but how they’re impacting those very issues.","airtime":"SAT 6pm-7pm, SUN 1am-2am","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Our-Body-Politic-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kcrw"},"link":"/radio/program/our-body-politic","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/our-body-politic/id1533069868","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9feGFQaHMxcw","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/4ApAiLT1kV153TttWAmqmc","rss":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/_xaPhs1s","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Our-Body-Politic-p1369211/"}},"pbs-newshour":{"id":"pbs-newshour","title":"PBS NewsHour","info":"Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.","airtime":"MON-FRI 3pm-4pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"pbs"},"link":"/radio/program/pbs-newshour","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/","rss":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"}},"perspectives":{"id":"perspectives","title":"Perspectives","tagline":"KQED's series of of daily listener commentaries since 1991","info":"KQED's series of of daily listener commentaries since 1991.","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Perspectives-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"/perspectives/","meta":{"site":"radio","source":"kqed","order":"15"},"link":"/perspectives","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives","rss":"https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"}},"planet-money":{"id":"planet-money","title":"Planet Money","info":"The economy explained. 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Freelance writer Brandon Reynolds chronicles his Antarctic journey aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star.
