6 ms·
Risky South Pole mission: retrieve sick scientists from research station
- ekimekim 10y agoPaywall. Web link didn't work for me, but trying to print the page produced a readable version.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- labrador 10y agoFree: http://www.smh.com.au/world/risky-south-pole-mission-retrieve-sick-scientists-from-amundsenscott-research-station-20160616-gpl3hg.html http://www.smh.com.au/world/risky-south-pole-mission-retriev...
- dang 10y agoOk, we changed to that from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/06/16/a-rare-risky-mission-is-underway-to-rescue-sick-scientists-from-the-south-pole/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2....
- Bromskloss 10y agoI would love to get the opportunity to overwinter at the Amundsen-Scott base. Being cut off is what makes it an attractive adventure in my eyes.
- strathmeyer 10y agoThey're all drunks, and if you're lucky someone you live, work and sleep with won't sexually assault someone you live, work, and sleep with.
- Bromskloss 10y agoUm, go on …
- numlocked 10y agoI googled this because it sounded sort of weirdly plausible; there are a number of stories about it. http://www.today.com/news/are-researchers-antarctica-thin-ice-abusing-alcohol-t51841 http://www.today.com/news/are-researchers-antarctica-thin-ic...
- DanBC 10y agoHere's a blog post from someone who was there: http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2013/06/alcoholism-in-antarctica/ http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2013/06/alcoholism-in-antarctic...
- goldenkey 10y agoThat was a great read. Not sure what to think though after reading it. I suppose I'll remain nuetral with regard to alcohol in dark and cold places.
- mikestew 10y agoDeadhorse, Alaska (beginning of the Alaska Pipeline, and as far north as one can go in AK) isn't neutral: no alcohol allowed, and it appears to be at least mildly enforced. Drunk oil workers where it's dark for three months? Yeah, Deadhorse decided that was a bad idea, apparently.
- radicality 10y agoThat does sound attractive and a good opportunity to reflect. Anyone here (or do you know any good stories) spent any long periods either in complete isolation, or in a small group like this far away from society? How was it?
- PKop 10y agoMaybe not exactly the situation you're describing, but similar. Spent a month of one of my deployments at a small operating base in eastern Afghanistan. Our barracks were small, minimal structures that had two to a room. We slept during the day. Planned missions in the early evenings. Huddled around the fired pit, drinking coffee and looking the stars for a few hours each night before conducting missions in the middle of the night, in remote villages far off in the mountains, which would extend till morning. It required helicopter operations flying low, between the mountains. Long offset infiltrations... we'd land a few km away from the objective, and walk our way, for a few hours at a time through mountains and valleys on our way to the target. Being in this remote post was surprisingly an enjoyable part of that deployment (most of us were disappointed when told we'd be going here at the last minute)... The (relative) isolation from other units, cleared your mind and focus. We all enjoyed the camaraderie and time we had to just hand out with each other during down time. During off days / nights I got a lot of reading done, probably more than I've ever been able to in a short period since. The scenery and beauty of that country, and specifically that location is something I'll never forget.
- molecule 10y agoThe way I've heard it described: McMurdo is a drinking station w/ a science problem.
- seszett 10y ago> Anyone here (or do you know any good stories) spent any long periods either in complete isolation, or in a small group like this far away from society? How was it? I overwintered on Kerguelen island. The environment is not as extreme as on Amundsen-Scott, but from what I can see the isolation is almost exactly the same: same amount of personel in summer and winter, just a slightly shorter isolation in winter. On the other hand there's no runway and it's too far from inhabitated land for helicopters, so in case of a real emergency the best that can happen is that a ship can come to the base and get you to Réunion in ten days or so. Also, communications are much worse it seems, with a few tens of kB/s at most, shared with two other smaller French bases in the Indian ocean. It was great, the best experience in my life so far. It felt like real adventure that doesn't really happen anymore in the civilised world. You have to be very patient, understanding and open though, because at least a few of your companions won't be. There was a sense of companionship I haven't felt elsewhere, as well as the possibility for people with vastly different backgrounds to meet, when they would probably never had met in "real life".
- voltagex_ 10y agoFrom the article, here's the flight path - https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CGKBO https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CGKBO
- laretluval 10y agoI tried like 30 different mailinator e-mail address as a way of getting through to this article without giving my real e-mail address. Kudos to the Washington Post tech team!
- nickparker 10y agoI just entered [myname]@aol.com and it worked. It's not like they're making me authenticate the email. What problem did you run into?
- tbirdz 10y agoI just put in an @washingtonpost.com address. If they start sending spam, no reason anyone else should have to deal with that.
- laretluval 10y agoHm, that didn't work for me either! A random gmail worked.
- seanp2k2 10y agoI've been postmaster@aol.com for years on many sites with mandatory registration.
- diamondlovesyou 10y agoOpened devtools, deleted a few elements, unchecked "overflow: hidden" on <body>, read article.
- ffmike 10y agoAnti anti-adblocker GreaseMonkey script for the Post: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/12363-wapo-escalation https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/12363-wapo-escalation
- sandworm101 10y agoOne of the heroes involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Otter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Otter These planes are special things. If you want to go somewhere dangerous, or just weird, this is what you want carrying you.
- digi_owl 10y agoIn northeren Norway there is supposedly a saying that if Widerøe was not flying, it was no weather to be outdoors in. At one point the company was the worlds biggest operator of Twin Otters. And the plane got a reputation for flying in horrible weather conditions.
- kevcampb 10y agoThere's a regular flight from Glasgow to Barra which makes use of these - the runway is a beach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVFjH6b07a4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVFjH6b07a4
- goldenkey 10y agoI go from reading about that plane to that a Panamian president died in a crash of that plane, to Noriega's payments by the CIA to the US invasion of Panama: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pa... At 3am when I should be sleeping. The internet is the invention of our lifetimes..its just amazing how just on the notion of sheer information - and education of us regular citizens, has totally been shaken. I recently read that libraries were first created with the purpose of letting even poor folk self-educate.
- jakeogh 10y agoAmundsen-Scott Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5lQ9DCXIbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5lQ9DCXIbs
- Bromskloss 10y agoI was amazed that they had brought all those musical instruments with them, and an entire gym! Then it just got worse. No weight spared. A huge building with seemingly no effort made to keep it lightweight. What a difference from Amundsen's and Scott's time!
- thisrod 10y agoAm I the only one who got a laugh out of the caption, "The last sunset of the summer at the South Pole"?
- knz 10y agoThis reminds me of Leonid Rogozov performing a self appendectomy in Antarctica in 1961. If I recall correctly there are requirements now that any doctor who winters over must have had theirs removed. More information, including photos - http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy1/appendix.html http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy1/appendix.html
- chrissnell 10y agoThat's unreal. I had appendicitis when I was 35. You know how doctors ask you to rate your pain level from 1-10? That experience reset the scale entirely for me. I suffered on the floor of an Army hospital ER waiting room for 8 hours before they brought me back. They quickly realized what was wrong with me and gave me morphine and I've never felt anything so blissful. Looking at that doc's pics from your link just blows my mind. I can't even imagine what that must have been like. Maybe he had lots of morphine on hand.
- ajitk 10y agoThe article states, "The operation was carried out under local anesthesia." Without one, pain will make any hand movement near to impossible!
- js2 10y agoSeems like this article could have mentioned the self-appendectomy: http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy1/appendix.html http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy1/appendix.html https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov
- xer0x 10y agoIsn't this the plot of for a horror-thriller movie?
- nprecup 10y agoOne of my friends is down at Amundsen-Scott, currently for his second overwinter. He works on the BICEP2 project. When I saw this I was worried it might be him. I was able to reach him over the internet and he let me know he was doing well. They are understandably keeping quiet about what is going on, so I can't offer any details, but it sounds like the patient is doing OK for now. That's all I know.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoI often wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to have sufficient medical resources ad Amundsen-Scott, than to repeatedly mount risky and expensive rescue efforts. Is it just human nature to expect the best outcomes, and not plan for disaster?
- evanb 10y agoThey always have at least one doctor at the pole over the winter. They have two hospital beds, an operating table, and a relatively extensive pharmacy. If someone's coming home, it's because it's extremely serious.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago...and that seems to happen every couple of years. Again, they're not prepared.
- rrmm 10y agoHow does this sort of experience bode for long term space missions and exploration. Will contingencies be better planned in environments with even less access to equipment? I guess most of it would go into crew selection and health screenings, but stuff still happens.
- cmdkeen 10y agoNations that conduct deterrence patrols on SSBNs have built up many decades of experience in terms of sealing up individuals for months at a time, operating in an unforgiving environment and being self reliant for that period. There's a surprisingly large pool of information potentially available to learn from.