| It's amazing that they have the bandwidth for this. I assume there is a US or NZ based server that serves the world, but still. I was there in the 92-93 season. We were lucky to have e-mail back then. We did our own special internet link for a project that used spare bandwidth on a non commercial satellite. We had 1.544mbit up and 9600 down. We sent what would eventually be called motion jpeg for "video". There was no audio. The satellite dish was pointed 3deg below the horizon; but we were on a mountain, so that was fine. McMurdo is a fabulously weird place. The US Navy manages all the food/fuel/housing logistics. Then you get the researchers coming through to do projects. They may be working from McMurdo, but most are just be gearing up to go out on the ice. These are often grad students, researchers, and faculty. So the average IQ is much higher than your typical ski town. The staff that works the station is there because they like the environment. You find people with college degrees doing maintenance and safety trainings. Most are just there for the summer season (which is now). Some will winter over. Most of the fuel and cargo comes in once a year. The ice breaker is at the ice dock, so that can happen any time now. Everything else is flown in/out from NZ at considerable expense. Early in the season the ice is thick enough to land jets like the C-5 and C-17. While they are in the ground, they have to move them every few hours to keep the ice from cracking under all that weight. By this time in the season it's probably just C-130s doing everything. Once the sun goes back down, all flights cease and there is nothing can get out for 9 months. |
> The US Navy manages all the food/fuel/housing logistics.
These days, actually I think since shortly after you were there, this is handled by (sub)contractors. "Antarctic Support Contract" is the phrase to search for, currently Leidos, Lockheed before that, Raytheon before that. US Military flies the LC-130s and C-17s, operates the ships, but has little other involvement.
> Early in the season the ice is thick enough to land jets like the C-5 and C-17. While they are in the ground, they have to move them every few hours to keep the ice from cracking under all that weight. By this time in the season it's probably just C-130s doing everything. Once the sun goes back down, all flights cease and there is nothing can get out for 9 months.
This has changed a bit too. For a very long time, there has been another runway on permanent ice (called "Pegasus" after a plane that crashed out there, as opposed to the "Ice Runway" that I think you're referring to, which is on annual ice just out of town) which can handle wheeled aircraft (C-17, chartered commercial passenger planes) in summer. Pegasus historically wasn't used a lot because it's inconvenient and the soot+dirt+wear isn't good for the ice surface.
At least for a few years recently they've routinely done a few flights over winter in to McMurdo - I believe the idea was to support a year-round rebuild of the whole station. But, the McMurdo winter was traditionally more like 6 months ending with "winfly" when a couple flights bring in people to open up the station for "mainbody" aka summer. Pole winter is roughly 9 months, driven by the temperatures being too cold for the hydraulics in the LC-130s.