Up, Up, and Away

There’s a part of me that like to pretend that even for an oldster, I’m kind of a cool guy.  The reality, of course, is quite different.  I may be cold here at the Bottom of the Earth (-90’s F outside with a wind chill down to -130’s F as I write), but cool is definitely not one of my most pertinent adjectives.  When I choose to introduce reality into my self-perception, the truth is quite different.  Take music, for example. I am firmly of the belief that no good music has been created since the 1989 release of “Love Shack” by the B-52’s.  This is why when I watch the Super Bowl halftime shows, I generally have no idea who the performer is, what the songs are, or why they’re any good.  Halftime of the 2023 Eagles-Chiefs contest looked like a timely convention of Chinese weather balloons.  At least I understood the “left shark – right shark” controversy of Katy Perry’s Super Bowl performance, because I had previously seen Katy Perry in Chicago a night notable for a guy on a bicycle trying to hitch a ride onto the back of our cab and falling off into the street, unconscious with blood pouring from his head, while the Dental Empress accidentally “butt dials” her mother in Florida and all the future in-law can hear is her screaming, “He’s dead!  He’s dead!”  Meanwhile, the cab drove off with my fleecy jacket and newly purchased Katy Perry lunchbox.

My particular tastes run from the Big Band era through the vocalists of the 50’s, the rock revolution of the 60’s, the disco era the following decade, and both pop and country tunes of the 1980’s.  (Anyone who comes near my dish pit on my assigned days is subject to anything from these years, but the current millennium is off-limits to my playlist.)  But I must admit a certain excessive fondness for sunshine and bubblegum pop.  The Wikipedia definition of sunshine pop is music that combined “nostalgic or anxious moods with an appreciation for the beauty of the world;” bubblegum pop is “pop music with an upbeat sound that is considered to be disposable, contrived, or marketed to children and adolescents,” which probably explains probably explains both genres’ enduring appeal to this particular immature senior citizen who sometimes regrets that he was born a few decades earlier so he could have taken advantage of the sexual revolution instead of coming to manhood smack in the middle of HIV.

I have a particular fascination with the lead vocalists of the era’s ghost bands (groups that existed only in the studio) such as Ron Dante, the voice behind such hits as “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies and “Tracey” by the Cuff Links, and Tony Burrows, who did the same for the First Class (“Beach Baby”), Edison Lighthouse (“Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes”), and White Plains (“My Baby Loves Lovin’).  I have yet to discern the voice of Sugar Bear on the 45 rpm cardboard discs we used to cut out from the back of our boxes of Super Sugar Crisp cereal and play on our spindle spinners.  I still have the song “Feather Balloon” stuck in my head:

“We’re flying to the moon in a feather balloon.

Don’t know how long we’ll be gone but we won’t be home soon.”

Stirring stuff.

One of the more obscure groups of that era is the Peppermint Rainbow.  I found them by accident about five years ago, and have become totally enamored of their single self-titled album.  As best I can tell, they specialize in songs from the category “I’ve Slept With You, and Now You’re Leaving,” with songs such as “Are You Staying after Sunday?”  and “Don’t Wake Me Up in the Morning, Michael.”  (Other entrants in this genre include “Chelsea Morning” by Judy Collins and “If I Could Reach You” by the Fifth Dimension.) This seems to be a female corollary to the “Creepy Male We’re Gonna Do It Even Though You Might be Jailbait” group, which includes “This Girl is a Woman Now” by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, “Tonight’s the Night” by Rod Stewart, and “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon” by Neil Diamond.  I’m not surprised by the inclusion of Neil Diamond, who I always thought was a bit off with his imaginary friend named after a bloody Civil War battle and his expectation that chairs will take an active interest in his life story.  But all three of these artists must have been cringing if they had adolescent daughters of their own.

Of course, those aren’t the only categories of songs that are filed away in my head.  There’s the “I First Did it with an Older Woman” gang which includes Bobby Goldsboro’s “Summer – The First Time,” “War is Hell on the Homefront Too” by T.G. Shepherd, and the slightly more contemporary “That Summer” by Garth Brooks.  But none of these hold a candle to the plethora of “She’s Dead” tunes, ranging from two-time award winner Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey” to Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun” and the peppiest good-time sing-along death tribute “Last Kiss” by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers.  (“Where or where can my baby be?  The Lord took her away from me,” that’s where.)  This category also includes one my most hated songs of all time, Michael Martin Murphey’s “Wildfire.”  To sum up:  It’s a blizzard.  The horse is lost.  You heard the owl.  Don’t go outside.

(“The Leader of the Pack” by the Shangri-Las gets an honorable mention here, as it’s the guy who dies instead, but one cannot overlook the impact of the phrase LOOK OUT LOOK OUT LOOK OUT LOOK OUT LOOK OUT on our collective cultural memory.)

My favorite vocal group from that era is the Fifth Dimension; their 1967 Jimmy Webb concept album “The Magic Garden” was one of the first ones I listened to on my Uncle Steve’s clamshell stereo.  (I still love it…it’s one of the few CD’s I brought with me to the Pole.)  Most people today know the group as the voices behind the songs “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” and “Up, Up, and Away,” the latter of which won the Grammy Awards for Song of the Year in 1968.  The latter asks the listener to hitch a ride in a hot-air balloon.  And speaking of balloons once again, we arrive at today’s tale of aerial adventure.

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I have previously noted that the main reason we’re here at the South Pole is science.  That sounds kind of hokey and idealistic, but it’s actually true.  While many countries lay claim to pieces of the antipodean realms, the Antarctic treaty pretty much ensures that the coldest continent remains neutral ground.  There’s nothing about the station, other than the US flag flying outside recognizing the building as gift from the taxpayers, that would indicate some sort of colonization or rule.  So the focus is not on territory, or control, or governance, but on what can be accomplished in the scientific realm.

Antarctica is unique in that the harsh continent is largely unspoiled.  If you’re taking air samples, the Pole has the Cleanest Air on Earth.  If you’re using a telescope, the atmosphere is thin and there’s no light pollution. Even radio telescopes work better here with a paucity of outside interference.  If you’re looking for subatomic particles, a two-mile thick layer of ice provides an ideal medium to do so. Out of our 43 winter crew, ten are focused on the science; the rest of us are simply support staff, looking after the researchers, the physical infrastructure of the station, and each other during the long night ahead.

(I believe I’ve noted that the phrase “Antarctica is a harsh continent” is also the excuse of everyone off the ice who either can’t help us, won’t help us, or enjoys making life more difficult for those of us on the polar plateau...

South Pole Scientist:  The camera on our telescope that points to a star to keep us focused is broken, and there’s no instructions here on how to fix it.  In fact, the last guy who knew how to fix it died last year, so there’s nobody to talk to.  We’re out here in -120 F wind chill trying to turn a few screws and make something happen.  Can you help?

Them:  Well, it’s a harsh continent.)

The previous dialogue is a bit misleading, because many of the folks here working on science are actually engineers.  The over-winter task is to keep the various telescopes and arrays functional, not to analyze data or proffer opinions.  The scientist who sponsors a particular project may be searching for the origin of the universe, but have no idea how something like liquid helium gets from one tank to another.  So what we need here is not the guy who sits by the fireside contemplating the mysteries of the cosmos, but the handyman with a doctorate who can figure out why an instrument was designed a particular way and fix it when it inevitably breaks.  And break it will, for as you may have heard, it’s a harsh continent.

There’s lots of interesting science going on here, but I think my favorite is the meteorology work.  I’m not sure why I gravitate to this.  Perhaps it’s because contemplating the end of the universe, as do the folks who look at cosmic background radiation, is just too depressing.  Maybe it’s related to knowing that the group looking at neutrinos (a fundamental particle of matter) have no idea what to do with them if they find any.  (It turns out you’re not supposed to ask “So what would you do if you had a can of neutrinos?”)  Maybe it’s simply that every time I walk out to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Atmospheric Research Observatory (NOAA ARO) I get offered hot tea and cookies.  But I suspect it’s really because they let me help launch the weather balloons. 

The ARO crew are a pair engineers, whose main duties are to collect air samples, ensure the machinery continues to run, fix it if it doesn’t, and regularly display the intestinal fortitude climb a 75-foot tower in the dark to knock snow and ice off weather sensors.  Both are female, which I bring up only because issues of sexual harassment within the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) has recently been a hot topic featured in the mainstream press.  From my perspective, entering the program a year after the National Science Foundation released a comprehensive report detailing years of concerns, the USAP has been extremely active in trying to prevent further harms.  Messages of safety, support, and the availability of resources to those who feel uncomfortable are commonplace within the Station.  We’ve had peepholes installed in all the berthing doors this winter, and a “safe room” has been set up on Station in an unoccupied administrative office for those who feel endangered.  Just after my arrival in late January, someone was sent home for a slew of inappropriate comments.  This latter event led to my first requested clinical opinion.  Was it indeed anatomically possible to pull the offender's balls out by their throat?  (The answer is I think so, but it would take a special effort and violate more fascial planes than you could shake a stick at.)   

I can’t know what it’s like to be a woman in a male-dominated world, a gay person in a straight land, a person of color in a landscape of pale, or any other permutation you can imagine.  I’m an old white guy from the suburbs of the Midwest.  And while I like to believe I’ve always been pretty open to people, and freely admit to having a set of rose-colored lenses permanently implanted with my last cataract surgery, I think the winter-over environment here at the Pole is some ways actively works to minimize the chances of sexual harassment (or racism, or homophobia, or the -ism or -phobia of your choice).   The fact that we’re all interdependent means that exhibiting disdain for others simply doesn’t work.  Up North, you can always find someone of your “preferred” group to conspire or collaborate.  Here at the Pole, in the depths of winter, that’s simply not possible.  You can either be open and accepting or cut yourself off from the benefits of the community.  It takes extra mental effort out of your limited emotional reserve to keep up the rage and hate, and without living in the echo chamber of the media it’s hard to find the energy to keep up with the diatribes.  I’m not saying that sexual harassment and the promulgation of the -isms and -phobias aren’t possible; the truly motivated can spew rubbish anywhere.  But it takes work to keep the hostility going, and the bottom line is that most of us simply aren’t that driven.

It’s not that you suddenly turn into the Hard Rock Café of the South Pole, walking about with a banner that proclaims you “Love All, Serve All.”  Like in any group, there are some folks you get along with better than others, but it’s based on differences in personality and not on labels.  My friends here are from different professional and personal backgrounds, people I never would have met in my prior world.  It’s been great fun, and I hope others see it that way.

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The work they do at ARO is absolutely fascinating to me.  I’ve mentioned before that the South Pole has the cleanest air in the world.  That’s because the prevailing wind is out of the northeast (technically “Gird Northeast” as we apply direction because technically everything could be northeast), and the closest possible source of contamination is a small station on the coast over a thousand miles away.  So the Pole the perfect baseline for measuring levels of ozone, carbon dioxide, and particulate matter in the atmosphere.  It we can see it here, it must be real.

The air here is different than I’ve experienced anywhere before.  It’s not so much a particular scent as you might experience in a city, or a sense of heat and humidity like that which greets me outside my home in Florida.  It’s a sense of cold, to be sure, but more remarkable is the absence of anything else…no odor, no smog, no taste, a truly delightful yet frightful vacuum free of all we expect, refreshing in its’ clarity but terrifying in the knowledge that with every breath, it takes away just a little bit more of the heat that keeps you alive.  In the Polar summer, where face coverings are not needed for short excursions, the clarity persists; but in winter, when a face covering is mandatory, that freshness is quickly replaced by the scent of your breath frozen on your gaiter or balaclava.  So brush often.

(One of the fun perks of being here is that you can get a small sealed vial from the roof of the ARO building labeled The Cleanest Air on Earth, complete with the date and the carbon dioxide content of the air in parts per million.  This made me think that expired laboratory test tubes of air and snow from the Pole would be unique, inexpensive souvenirs for friends and family.  However, my family might be inordinately suspicious…because they raised me…that what I really did was just filled them up with air from the car or water from the tap, because they know that the TSA might look askance at a carry-on bag filled with thirty tubes of undetermined fluid.  So it looks like it’s back to bumper stickers and refrigerator magnets.  Now you know what you’re getting for Channukah.) 

Taking air samples is one of primary roles of the ARO crew.  The lab is full of cases filled with foam padding cradling different kinds of flasks.   Some samples can be taken directly from pipes extending through the walls of the lab; others need to be taken outside of the station.  The sampling tube is carried outdoors in a heavy metal suitcase.  An air pump inside the case flushes the sampling tube, which is then filled by an influx of air and sealed.   None of the flasks are evaluated on-site, but are instead packed away in their padded cases for shipment to scientists across the world for analysis when flights resume in the summer.

I mentioned that my vial of The Cleanest Air in the World notes the carbon dioxide (CO2) content; the label also has a small graph showing increases in CO2 content over the past five decades.  Because the air and water on continent are pure and uncontaminated, Antarctica and the South Pole is one of the best places for detecting signs of global warming.  Samples of air and ice cores here (and at other isolated places around the globe) clearly show increases in greenhouse gases over time, and studies of glaciers near the coast show warm water currents undermining the ice shelf at a faster rates than previously known.  It’s one thing to hear about the science, and another to hear the talking heads argue about it; it’s a step beyond to see in person how the data is acquired and understand through your own experience that the findings are real.  We can still argue how much of climate change is nature doing its’ thing and how much is caused by man, but there can be no question that the earth is warming, and faster than at any time in history.  It seems that one would need to be willfully ignorant to come to any other conclusion when the evidence is right before your eyes.

Air sampling is not the only work at ARO.  There’s a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) observatory for meteorlogic observation of the clouds, and a thirty-meter tower nearby with instruments to measure temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, and wind speeds at various levels above the ground.  The story is that the tower was condemned several years ago because of concerns with shifting ice under the foundation, but was then magically brought back to active life with nary or revision or repair.  My ARO friends tell me they think about this often when they’re twenty-seven meters in the air, the wind is blowing, and the entire structure shakes.

(This reminds me of the time an astronaut was asked what he was thinking during launch and replied, “This thing was built by the lowest bidder.”)    

There’s also a room dedicated to the Dobson spectrophotometer.  The Dobson is used to measure ozone in the atmosphere.  Ozone molecules in the air absorb harmful ultraviolet light, a significant cause of global warming, before it reaches to surface of the earth.  Dobson devices are relatively rare in the world.  (Check history of stations and instruments per Wikipedia).

Nobody really likes using the Dobson device, because in order to use it properly you have to throw open the windows and stare at the sun like your Mother told you not to.  However, the instrument is delicate enough that it can’t be operated with gloves on, so there’s an open invitation for frostbite to come on in and sit a spell.  This is one of the practicalities the scientists back home don’t understand as they warm their tootsies by the fire. 

Meteorologic observations and air sampling often need to happen at specific times during the day, so there’s often “down time” between tasks.  If it’s only an hour or so, it’s really not worthwhile to get dressed for the outdoors, trek back to the Station, get undressed, sit for ten minutes, get dressed again, and walk back to the ARO.  So there’s a pretty nice setup in the laboratory for rest and relaxation, with some comfy couches, an improved movie screen, and a bean bag chair reportedly shipped directly from an Amazon warehouse. It’s cozy enough that there’s an irregular ARO Movie Night, where the intrepid journey to the Second Southernmost Movie Theater in the World.  (The first is our gymnasium.)  And while at ARO, be sure not to miss the Ledge of Dried Fruit, where oranges and other pulpy treats have been allowed to desiccate over the years into an assortment of small shriveled gourds perched on top of a cubicle divider.  It’s harsh continent after all.

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All of these are Coming Attractions to the Feature Presentation of the  ARO crew, and that’s setting off the weather balloons. I like balloons.   They remind me of a time when my son was a baby and had blue onesie pajamas with little pictures of teddy bears holding balloons, and we would sing “Bears and Balloons!  Bears and Balloons!  Bears and Balloons!” and then follow it up with the Desi Arnaz version, “Bears and Balloons!  Bears and Balloons!  Bears and Baballoons!  No, you canna be in da show, Luuuuuucy!”  For a while I even made a hobby out of making animal balloons.  Pro tip:  Most every animal balloon is a variation of the basic dog.  You want a giraffe?  Body smaller, neck longer.  A rabbit?  Body smaller, back legs bigger, huge ears.  People should be this easy.

Two kinds of weather balloons rise from the Pole.  The smaller meteorological balloon (“Met Balloon”) goes up twice daily during the summer and once a day in winter.  The inflatable launches from the Balloon Inflation Facility (BIF) which adjoins the Cryogenics Lab, a small outbuilding containing huge tanks of compressed gases such as helium as well as facilities for making other gas forms such as liquid nitrogen.   There’s process to setting off a balloon. First you unfold the balloon from its’ package and set it on the table in the BIF.  The neck of the balloon is placed over a small nozzle and secured with a clamp.  The nozzle is attached to a hose, which is in turn linked to a valve bringing helium from the storage tanks into the balloon.  When the balloon is lying flat on the table, the inflation process produces a wonderful flatulent sound which puts the classic whoopee cushion to shame, notably as the sound is not merely a single toot noise but a continuous audible smirk-inducing ripple through time and space.  It’s really great fun, especially if you manage to put an embarrassed look on your face, or beans were a recent galley treat. 

The balloon gradually inflates, and you know you’ve hit the sweet spot when the globe rises from the table and is able to lift a small weight attached to the hose to a vertical position.  You then take the neck of the balloon just above the nozzle, secure it with a few knots of waxy twine, and unplug it from the air hose.  The neck is then passed through a plastic clamp, doubled back on itself, and tied again with twine so the plastic hook now dangles from the bottom of the sphere.  The clamp is then connected to the BIF table as you move into the next room to prepare the meterological instruments. 

The balloon’s cargo is called a is a small plastic box that contain sensors that detect data such as temperature, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, relative humidity, and the like.  There’s an antenna emanating from one end and temperature sensor from the other. Once you have this sensor calibrated by computer with your current ground-level weather information, you attach it to the end of the balloon and you’re ready go.

(A note about “relative humidity.”  Knowing that Antarctica is the driest continent on earth, I was surprised to find that when we were setting up the weather monitor, the relative humidity at ground level was 60%.  How can that be?  It turns out that relative humidity means how much water vapor is in the air compared to how much would be theoretically possible given the ambient temperature.  So even though there’s minimal water vapor in the air at the Pole, the relative humidity content may well be 60% of that infinitesimal amount.)

Launching the balloon is the Grand Finale.  Once you’ve put on your cold-weather gear, a pair of 12 foot doors to the BIF are opened, and it’s kind of like parting the Gates Of Heaven during the summer as the light streams in, or descending into the underworld in winter as dark rushes into and suffocates even the Satanic glow of the red lights used for illumination.  You hold the neck of the balloon in one hand and the weather gauge in the other, and when you’re out in the clear you simply let it go.  Liftoff is not slow and graceful like your hot-air balloons or even the party globes that gradually head towards the ceiling.  The weather balloon simply goes. You’re holding it in your hand, your fingers relax just a bit, and it’s gone, soaring upwards hundreds of feet in moments and swept out of sight by the polar winds.  (And if you’re doing this during winter the inflatable is essentially invisible once the box clears your head.)

The second kind of meteorological balloon (the "NOAA Balloon") is launched less frequently.  It carries aloft the usual weather monitors, but also lifts a small Styrofoam box the size of a four-can cooler to detect ozone levels. Because there’s more weight to be carried, this is a much bigger inflatable, and as you might guess the fun of the launch is magnified as well.  When you’re carrying it out of the BIF and preparing for takeoff, the balloon is big enough to keep you off-balance as the wind hits the globe.  There’s no danger of drifting away like Carl’s house in Up, but you feel like you’re teetering on the precipice as the polar blasts do their best to leverage the balloon to knock you down.  Ascent is more dramatic, but it still simply takes off and zoom…it’s gone.

If only the balloons were cylindrical and I could twist one into a dog before launch.  Now that would be something to see.