NASA & LIDAR

Current Conditions
Temperature: -4F
Wind Chill: -29F
Condition 2

Ok, since my recent blatherings on the topic of my current state of emotion have come out a bit on the jaded, bipolar, morose side (hey, at least they're not mushy), in this post I'm going back to some of the things that go on here, some of the science I haven't touched on yet.

The Lunar Habitat
So back in November, I got an email from Norman asking if I knew anything about this Lunar Habitat they were erecting in Antarctica for testing. No, I didn't, but I was curious. At the next Crary weekly meeting, I asked my boss and she didn't know either. I think it was a month later, "Remember that Lunar Habitat you mentioned? Yeah, the one your friend in Oregon found on the internet? It's looking like you'll be its caretaker over the winter." Yep, Raytheon Polar Services' communication deficiencies are a bottomless well. I have to revert to friends' internet skills to know what my job entails...

NASA's Lunar Habitat is basically an inflatable Jamesway structure, modeled after the ones that were once used as housing here, and still are at the South Pole. It was erected and lashed down over the summer, and its feasibility is essentially being tested against the elements in this harsh environment.

The Habitat has various sensors installed to monitor things like temperature, CO₂ level, and energy usage, a pump system that monitors the structure and inflates it as needed, and small electric heaters. The structure is not airtight, and there is no airlock, so the inside and outside air are free to mix, and astronauts would have to be suited up while using it. I guess it's purpose would be more of a shelter and laboratory than an actually livable habitat.

There is also a networked video camera in the center of the Habitat to view the interior remotely. At one point during the winter, several of the Habitat systems were in need of manual resets. We organized a teleconference where I literally called NASA in Houston from inside the Lunar Habitat. Exciting. I brought it up at Scott Base the evening before, and Lyal, one of the Kiwis, thought it would be great if I wore his homemade space suit to the conference, since they would be watching me on the video camera. I also brought along "Myrtle", our friendly neighborhood inflatable green alien doll. The NASA boys got quite a laugh out of the whole thing. They even had me pose for a picture, and were kind enough to send it to me:

Houston, we have a problem. No, the equipment is fine, this is a mental problem...

RaySat
You may have noticed the silhouette of a sphere on a hill in some of my pictures. That's RaySat, which is short for something nonsensical like "Radar Satellite," I think. The dome, which resembles a massive golf ball, is the protective housing for more NASA equipment. Inside is a 30-foot articulated satellite dish:

I'm not sure who's doing the Alfred Hitchcock impersonation in this one, but it's pretty good, especially for being unintentional:

The dish is used to track satellites as they traverse the sky, and it swings in an arc to stay focused on whatever satellite it is tracking. The keepers of this equipment like us all to think that there's a bunch of top secret stuff going on up there, but they're simply downloading scientific data from these satellites. The Antarctic treaty doesn't allow them to do any defense work here, only science.

LIDAR
One of my tasks over the winter was to fire the LIDAR. LIDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. It is the same premise as SONAR or RADAR, but uses light instead of sound or radio. The LIDAR here uses a pulsed laser beam to measure atmospheric conditions. The laser points straight up alongside a telescope that measures the reflected laser light off of particles in the sky. It is used particularly to determine the altitude, thickness, and particle size of Polar Nacreous Clouds. This information is used in conjunction with high altitude balloon launches to study ozone depletion.

The lidar is housed in Crary and fires through a viewing window in the ceiling. Its light reaches the edges of space, 20 miles straight up. You can see it here amongst town-lit exhaust columns:

The LIDAR uses a 500 mJ, Class IV laser capable of permanent eye damage and the ability to burn skin, though it does not seem to be capable of lighting a piece of paper on fire (maybe if I try it before the beam expander next time...)

When you're standing right underneath it, the beam appears to bend up and over your head backwards. This is an illusion, of course, from craning your neck back while searching for the elusive end of the thin green line.

We should have had three flights of fresh people in by now, but the weather this week has been horrendous, and flights have been canceled for five straight days. This is great news for me, because I don't have to deal with the population jump yet, but a lot of toasty winterovers are scheduled to leave, more than ready to leave, and some of them are getting downright irate at this point. Sorry kids. "You can check out any time you like... "