A few days ago I was given the task of taking a loader and escorting one of our deltas (think moster truck meets semi) to the LDB site. I was very excited because along the way there are fantastic views of pressure ridges (places where the sea ice has buckled and shot skyward) and Mount Erebus (the southernmost active volcano in the world). It was an incredible drive but took some time due to the fact that LDB isn't what you would call close, not to mention that our vehicles are not exactly built for speed. Of course, I shouldn't complain since I was able to kick back and eat cheese & crackers with the heater blasting.
Although this all sounds great, the catch was that it was my job to offload a 3 million dollar stratospheric balloon from the delta and move it to the science team's cargo bay. The offload went smoothly (much to everyone's releif) and, just when I thought I was in the clear, the resident NASA guys asked me to move a 2nd multi-million dollar balloon and various storage crates that had previously been delivered to the facility.
Once the job was done I grabbed a glass of hot chocolate for the road and it was right back to the air strip to get ready for the C-17 that was expected after lunch.
Note 1: Yes, I am aware that I suffer from a permanent case of bed-hair.
Note 2: The kangaroo is anatomically correct.
4 comments:
If it wasn't for the -50 degrees, the sunny pictures make me think your weather has been better than ours! Stay safe.
Uncle Bob
Ha, it went down to condition 2 weather in town last night (particularly nasty) but today it was terrific weather again (I was only wearing two layers).
It's kind of amazing how fast your body adapts to the temperatures, now anything above 0F actually feels kind of warm. I must way though, that the feeling of -50F (w/wind chill) is NUTS! It's so cold that your exposed skin actually feels like it's being burned.
What is a stratospheric balloon from the delta? Your mom and I would like to know.
A Delta is a very large piece of equipment we use to transport cargo and a stratospheric balloon is a balloon around 750-800 ft long that floats 20-30 miles above the Earth's surface (they can carry scientific equipment weighing over two tons).
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