A sometimes dangerous environment

Monday night at 10:30 a huge storm knocked out power to the entire town. I received a page that all the NASA instruments were on Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) battery backup power. My work partner and I arrived at work to find the UPS batteries holding up power. After about 10 minutes power to our building came back online. We spent a few hours working through some resets than went back to sleep.

The next morning brought even more wind and snow. We were notified from Colorado that one of the antennas that lost power was again at its limit and needed to be moved to restore operations. At that point it was not safe to travel as the wind up the hill was being clocked at 87mph. In the mid afternoon the wind appeared to slacken so I drove us up in a Pisten Bully (PB). We put the antenna back into operational mode then filled the PB with diesel. It was a rough ride with white-out conditions.

Tuesday evening it was announced that all evening activities were canceled and we would soon be in Condition 1. Walking was almost impossible. That night we recorded 123mph gusts.

Filling the Pisten Bully with diesel.

Soon after we left this road to Scott Base was shut down.

 I really enjoy driving the Pisten Bully.

 To operate depress the gas pedal until the tach gets to 17...

 then release the brake, depress the left 3 way toggle switch (forward, neutral, reverse), then using the white dial to the right of the switch set a speed. The speed is controlled with the dial while always keeping the tach up around 17 with the gas pedal.

The NASA meatball splattered with snow.

Wednesday 1pm: moon over Mt. Discovery. At the same time the Southern Cross and other stars were visible. A beautiful windless day. Photo credit to Matt Nelson.