Station Tour: A pod upper level - A3 my office, medical, and past winterover crews

 

Fun 3D rendering of what the elevated station looks like. Ignore the stuff inside of rooms.

 Using the same map to get you oriented. My office is in A3.

Today's quick post is about A3, where my office is. My office is in a giant room with a 13 seat computer lab and 12 office cubicles. In year's past, there wasn't wireless so the station computer lab was a major hub of activity. Now that we allow laptops and cell phones to connect, this space is not well used. I am sure it gets a little more action in the summer with the population quadruples.

The station computer lab

Just past the campus computer, there are twelve computer cubicles for facilities, waste, food, safety, and fuels departments. Nothing sexy there, just lots of fun and silly decorations.

Cubicle land

The last piece of the big room is my office. The network admin sits on the right. As the sys admin, I sit dead center in this photo. During the summer, a PC tech sits just to the right of me. There is an extra squished space for an extra person to the left. It is squished because we installed a 3D printer a couple years ago. It gets a little recreational use, like to print tripod leg caps, but we also use it to print tools for the mechanics or toilet paper holder replacemnts.

My office for most of 2024. 

 

 

Just past my office is medical. They can do all the basic stuff really well, but nothing fancy. They would strongly prefer that we don't hurt ourselves. In between, there is a large hall way with photos of every wintreover crew from 1957 to last year. We just started planning our own photo last week. With folks on various shifts, it can be tough to get everyone in a single photo, let alone dressed in all their gear for an outdoor photo.

Past winterover crew photos

The more recent winterover crew photos. Our photo will likely go near here. 

 

We might get down to -100F for the first time this winter in the next 12 hours.

Station Tour: A pod - greenhouse, store, post office

Our greenhouse

I think my favorite spot on station is on the A2 lower level, the greenhouse. Nothing grows outside at the South Pole so the greenhouse is our only source of greenery. Not only that, but it gives us a small source of fresh vegetables. At one point, the greenhouse person was an officially funded position, but it is now all volunteer run. I volunteer there 1-2x a week to make sure I spend soak up some green goodness.

Each day, greenhouse volunteers plant 12 seeds on the germinating tray. The idea is that we always have new stuff coming in as old stuff gets pulled out. After the seeds start to sprout, they get moved into trays attached to the hydroponic system.

Seed boxes - where the goodness comes from

Germinating tray

Seedlings are moved into the trays connected to the hydroponic system

After the seedlings are moved into the trays, we spend weeks and months watching them grow and waiting for the goodness. If we are lucky, we get something like the next few photos. If we are unlucky, seedlings don't germinate or things die before they grow. 

A weekly harvest

 
A chart of all our harvests from this winter

Unfortunately, this year, we have developed a small bug infestation. Bugs??!!? How did that happen? We have no idea. The most likely answer is that they were from dormant eggs that got shipped up in something else. They did not jump from our fresh vegetable supply to the greenhouse because there was a couple month gap between the freshies running out and the bugs popping up. Luckily, we are able to share with the bugs and still get good harvests. We keep the bugs from getting too out of hand by spraying the plants with alcohol. We will have to clean out the entire greenhouse and bleach it to get rid of them at the end of winter. After that, it will take a couple months before the summer folks get harvests, but they should have regular fresh vegetables being flown in.

Our bugs are thrips. Last year, they had spider mites.

What the bugs leave for us is definitely appreciated. I can't wait to get back to infinite fresh food at home. Almost everything we have hear is expired. There was a decaf Folgers coffee can advertising that they were an official sponsor of the 1984 Olympic team.

Food!

We don't spend are limited resources growing too many flowers, but there are usually some there to spark a little joy.

More food!

Just past the greenhouse is our post office and station store. The store has basic toiletries, drinks, snacks, and souvenirs, but they definitely don't have everything. I lost my nail clippers and was unable to buy some there. They probably have about a bottle of alcohol per person per week. I think that is what the quota is per person per week. I don't buy any so I don't know. They also have quotas on the most popular snacks and soft drinks so that no one person buys all of them. I know we already ran out of Doritos and folks definitely miss them. As expected if you know me, I stick to the free snacks from the galley or the few I brought from home.

The post office

If you got a post card with a stamp, it came from here. If you want one, give me your address.

Where we pick up our mail.

South Pole souvenirs.

South Pole alcohol and soda selection. 

 

South Pole shirts.

South Pole sweat shirt options. None of these would be useful outside here, but are comfy around station.