RENDEZVOUS 90 SOUTH

this is the end of the world the last frontier over 5 million treacherous square miles whipped by incessant awesome width and temperatures beyond description as mysterious and remote as moon as forbidding and invincible as any of the unknown elements in outer space in man's quest for knowledge it cannot be ignored for this is Antarctica this is 90 degrees south to the armchair geographer of past centuries the existence of the continent of Antarctica had little meaning to them this largest land mass in the southern hemisphere was simply a vast inhospitable basin of rock cut to a depth of 2 miles and filled with ice and snow set apart from the rest of the world but coupled with the progress of science and modern methods of transportation has been the growth of the importance of that arctica and man's scheme of things to come for here locked in these icy wastes are the secrets of thousands of years and here a rendezvous is taking place man's rendezvous with a part of his past and a fragment of his future here since the international geophysical year of 1957 in an endless struggle against the raw at Arctic winds American scientists have been conducting an extensive program of research a program which in scope and magnitude surpasses anything that science has done before glaciologists working in mines carved deep into the ice mass are helping to free some of the frozen secrets of nature at temperatures of 60 degrees below zero words literally freeze on lips rubber boots become as solid as cast iron and the physiologist has ample opportunity to analyze the stress of the human body working under extreme conditions of cold but the scientists zeal for knowledge knows no physical limitations for a hidden and the samples of ice may be clues as to the climatic future of man I scores to be sent to laboratories in the United States for a detailed examination of microorganisms and dust which may have fallen to earth long before the days of Magellan and Columbus but also dust which today may enable man to calculate the changing directions of major trade winds and their effect on civilization in the relative minus 25 degree comfort of the ice laboratory photographs are made of snow blocks who's buried layers reveal their pass to the trained eye just as surely as to the growth rings of an old tree adding further to our understanding of how the Earth's crust reacted to the ice ages and hoping man to prepare himself for the changes to come and from the bottom of the Antarctic sea have come new discoveries for other men of science geological specimens adding to man's deductions as to the structure of the earth even shedding light on the formation of the oceans themselves and the biologist who has found life teeming in the frigid seas and varieties never dreamed of Antarctica remains an untapped source of food for a world soon to be threatened with overpopulation meteorologists working on programs that will take years to complete make up the largest group of scientists working in Antarctica for the origin of much of the world's weather is here and it affects the destinies of everyone from radio sent high aloft into the polar atmosphere data is received which is diminishing the mysteries of the ionosphere and the cosmic ray for the first time man is able to prepare synoptic weather maps of the entire southern hemisphere in contrast to the drifting ice of the Arctic all directions are north from a firmly fixed point thus allowing more accurate studies of the universe surrounding us land Traverse parties always accompanied by the hazards of the unknown are continually spreading out over the wide expanses of ice mapping every crevice every mountain plotting every square mile for accurately mapping this last frontier will furnish an exact starting place for the precise charting of the rest of the world and the poles that the axis of the earth must be that starting place over half of the continent has already been explored and mapped by American scientists who make no claims of ownership or recognize the claims of others much of their success is due to the efforts of the US Navy entrusted by the National Science Foundation to furnish support to the entire US Antarctic Research Program with ski equipped patrol planes such as the p2v Neptune and advanced para dropping techniques problems of supply to advanced exploration parties though still difficult as and expensive are not insurmountable the land parties must not only chart that area which can be seen in studies made to map the terrain of bedrock far below the ice cap seismologists measured the sound waves generated by dynamite blasts enabling them to gauge the depth of snow and ice in some places over 10,000 feet deep figures show that if this polar ice cap were to melt the world would be flooded with a 300-foot rise in the sea level all personnel are carefully screened for suitability and adaptability to the lonely rigors of the Antarctic winter for with the coming of the long six months of darkness man is indeed apart from the world and dependent on himself but the wealth of information being collected from that arctica has not come without its cost in terms of hardship and money the long periods of isolation the continual struggle against winter winds and temperatures of a hundred degrees below zero in time becoming unbearable and the cost of supporting just one scientist at the South Pole has been estimated to be nearly 1 million dollars a year in time prohibited knowing that the last frontier can never be fully conquered that its contribution to man sum total of knowledge can never be wholly realized until these obstacles are erased the dream of every polar explorer since Admiral Byrd has been the same an unrestricted supply line to the pole itself and during preparations for the current winter a new sound was heard at 90 degrees south a sound destined to speed up our scientific efforts by removing the dreadful barrier of remoteness for with the landing near McMurdo Sound of the giant Air Force c-130 Hercules at arctica succumbed to the onslaught of the jet age in support of the Navy deep freeze operation the first of seven Air Force c-130 DS landed in near whiteout conditions this completed the last leg of an eleven thousand mile journey from Seward Air Force Base Tennessee the crews of the 61st troop carrier squadron veterans of ski lift support to the dew line in Greenland showed their affinity to polar flying conditions as they let down smoothly and surely onto the frozen runway of the Ross Sea weighing 62 tons fully pressurized and heated this modern workhorse of the Tactical Air Command is the first cargo aircraft capable of taking off or landing at will with wheels down or skis down either on snow or ice or a primitive dirt strip their immediate mission to pick up 400 tons of supplies and equipment at McMurdo base and to deliver them to a small group of scientists wintering over at the South Pole quickly before the long winter night sets in but their ultimate mission is to fulfill the dream of a Munson scott and Byrd an unrestricted supply line to the heart of Antarctica because of the lateness of the summer season and the resulting potholes in the melted sea ice runway at Naval Air Facility McMurdo Sound the c-130s were directed to land at the site 10 miles away from the nearest settlement but Navy personnel experts at polar improvisation soon erected a miniature City insulated James Way huts the modern version of the Quonset were quickly raised allowing the Air Force crewmen to remain near their planes on 24-hour alert the name he turned to and setting the stage for the performance of the tak cruise and their c-130s as the rest of the village complete with operations tower was finished in a matter of hours but for most of the crewmen first order of the day is Chow after a 10-hour flight the old navy standby beans with addressing of meatloaf tastes mighty good in true Navy and Air Force tradition one of the first facilities to be finished is the mess hall and its customers have no trouble in finding it because of the long hours of daylight there are no regular schedule meals are served on an around-the-clock basis a far cry from the early century once a day ration of hardtack horse meat and pemmican part of all US efforts in Antarctica is the metropolis of Naval Air Facility McMurdo base by fast tractor three and a half tortuous hours from the c-130s since this is the main supply base for the entire US Antarctic Research Program coordinating the efforts of over 3,000 men and millions of dollars worth of equipment it has quite naturally grown to be probably the most modern and mechanized outpost of research in the world and wherever there are Americans there will be a main street USA nearby serving as a reminder of the pioneer spirit which opened the continent stands the first operation center of the Antarctic Shackleton's Hut preserved even to the food tins as it was in nineteen nine when the gallant british explorer narrowly missed being the first person to the pole and observing from a safe distance the inroads that science is making on his homestead is the only land animal that has been able to survive this forbidding climate the penguin his durability is no doubt due to the paternal instincts of the mail for even in temperatures far below zero he manages to keep his mates egg warm to a hatching temperature of 92 degrees liking quills his wings are useless for flight but on land they come in mighty handy sometimes just for walking winning arrival of the c-130 traffic on the connecting Road with McMurdo hit an all-time high with the curious who just wanted a look at the Hercules and with the heavy duty tractors carrying the equipment and supplies selected as high priority cargo for the pole occasionally breaking the white monotony of the road are the signs of the international importance attached to Antarctica Scott Base named by New Zealanders after early explorer Robert Scott who lost his life just a few miles from the pole its crossroads as a reminder that home is never far away 12 different nations man 67 such stations over the continent not all as self-sufficient as Scott but all with the same objective to add to man's knowledge of his planet the trip from McMurdo to the airstrip three and a half hours seems long by turnpike standards but when you realize that the same trip would have taken days for the Pioneer the contribution made by self-propelled transportation toward conquest of Antarctica becomes obvious but even with the advance of mechanization the oldest form of polar transportation still has its place the sled dog you the barking of the Huskies is seldom heard around McMurdo anymore but at smaller out of the way camps there are still jobs which they can perform and they serve as a lifeline to civilization unfortunately unlike machines dogs have to be fed and cared for whether they are used or not so the colorful error of the Husky has come to an end as far as US operations are concerned though they have yielded to the age of machines the great part that they played in early antarctic exploration will never be forgotten for they were the mainstay of the men who opened the trail and on their departure still hold a record for the longest unassisted overland traverse ever made but the passing of the sled dog is a source of celebration for one nearby tenant the weddell leopard seal who for years provided the huskies with their daily meal since the weddell seal produces only one offspring a year the practice of slaughtering them by the hundreds in order to supply the sled dog with his vitamins could easily have led to his extinction but these days he has learned to relax while taking his son bath an acute sense of smell and notoriously bad eyesight have combined to make him a very inquisitive animal sometimes too inquisitive at the c-130 site the temple equipment is the pole distant cargo arrived from McMurdo for the planes had to be loaded immediately to take advantage of constantly changing weather conditions all personnel worked at full speed in a race against a common enemy the intense cold of the coming winter it was under condition such as these that the lockheed c-130 demonstrated one reason it was chosen to support operation deep freeze its capacity for quick loading with its floor a truck bed height an adjustable ramp loading could be accomplished with a minimum of effort and in a matter of minutes the cargo was varied and valuable fuel food scientific instruments too delicate to para dry prefabricated houses to replace those weakened by the weight of heavy snows every piece carefully calculated for its usefulness to the scientists who win winter over at the bottom of the world at the operations Hut flight schedules have been shuffled and reshuffle to accommodate the weather for in Antarctica there are only two kinds good and bad visibility is either clear and unlimited 400 with little warning as to what comes next vandyke whitener and Brenneman will go to bird station browser flight cutter go to pole station as soon as we get a break in the weather okay three planes to the pole as soon as there's a break in the weather for the time being the mission will have to wait for some the waiting period is a time of relaxation it's the familiar feel of a deck of cards and member lands a time for easing the tensions and strains of always being on the alert against the unknown for some the waiting period is a time for the neverending bull session the time for swapping tall tales were here the perpetual daylight spawns a sleepless irritability that lets some men stay up around the clock in contrast to the days of the early polar explorer lack of privacy not boredom is the problem and brothers it's a time for thinking thoughts of home of pleasures far away but not forgotten and sooner or later for men away from home the waiting period is something else or a time for worship where true devotion knows no restrictions of longitude or latitude it recognizes no boundary of discomfort or hardship so for these men the waiting period is a time to give things to revere the memory of earlier less fortunate comrades and to receive the spiritual strength for what may lie ahead Oh Oh to the man who fly them in the men who make them the c-130 was doing no more than fulfilling its destiny as it cruised 24,000 feet above the perilous expanses of ice that had resisted man for centuries bread was in 1928 and a Lockheed Vega that Sir Hubert Wilkins made the first Antarctic heavier-than-air flight and since that day the story of exploration has been the story of the advance of aviation in the Hercules the cruise of the 61st fly in a warm pressurized cabin at all times in radio contact with the home base and it's beads which will in just three hours carry their cargo to the pole 90 degrees south an oasis in the middle of a polar desert and none too soon for even with the most advanced of aircraft the strain of racing over an unknown featureless plateau against unpredictable weather can be telling on human endurance the landing strip leveled out of the rough sastrugi of po'lice seems to have been waiting just for the arrival of the c-130 it's a moment of history for never before has an aircraft this large been landed at the South Pole with inside of the very land that boasts the spirit of the Pioneer leaders their goal was achieved the beginning of an unrestricted supply lines in the heart of Antarctica the landing was rough rougher than any previously experienced by the veteran ski pilots of the Tactical Air Command but the colder temperature and dry contacted snow made up for it with more efficient operation of the skis with the landing of the c-130 only 45 hours flying time from the United States an aura of permanence came to our operations in the Antarctic the nineteen dedicated navy and civilian scientists who were to remain at the pole for the turned out in a body to greet the incoming food for strange places are seldom seen at the pole and before them is the prospect of a long grim winter soon when the last contact with the outside world is gone they will feel the strange emptiness that comes with being completely isolated from the rest of the world in unloading the c-130 speed was again the primary factor for in temperatures of 50 degrees below zero and at altitudes of 92 hundred feet even the strongest of men must gasp for breath under any prolonged exertion here efforts to beat the weather are doubled for even though it's late summer in Antarctica such intense cold has been known to freeze the last drop of oil and 2 well skis to the ice beneath oh the payload was only 15,000 pounds less than half of the aircraft's capacity the rest of the load being made up in extra fuel all four engines were left running the nearest maintenance was 800 miles away too far to take a chance on cutting as a precaution against the unpredictable weather no two planes were allowed at the pole station at the same time so in 15 minutes the Hercules had to be unloaded and airborne again to make way for the next lobe which was not Pharma hi this is the 90 degrees south which greeted the c-130s and their crews a white flat plateau broken only by a thicket of radio masts and wind breaks but buried beneath it is a village devoted to learning and the hazards of being a member of this underground community are many its buildings must be replaced periodically because the weight of the winter snows makes them unsafe because of its remoteness the dangers of accident are amplified the extreme cold can freeze human limbs in seconds and to forestall apparel of a fire which could wipe them out fully stocked duplicate survival Hut's are buried a quarter mile away the South Pole ironically a bamboo pole planted in the ice at the exact bottom of the world it's silver dome reflecting a welcome from the Midnight Sun to incoming pilots a symbol of the last frontier in the world the last place on earth to succumb to the modern age of exploration for with the arrival of the c-130 and proper supply support the Antarctic will soon become as accessible as the rest of the world and soon the US Navy commanding their own giant Ski transports will be supporting the Antarctic research program without fear of broken supply lines an exploration of its wilderness will become routine the cost of our rendezvous until now has been great 18 lives and over a half billion dollars but so too have the fruits of our scientific efforts been great for no longer is Antarctica a missing link in the knowledge of mankind instead it is one vast international laboratory dedicated to the enrichment of man's way of life an integral part of his plans for a better tomorrow for the challenge of Antarctica the challenge of the past for the future is a challenge that is being met by the men machines and material that are a part of the rendezvous at 90 degrees south