[WIND BLOWING] This is awesome! Hey, it's me Destin. Welcome back to
Smarter Every Day. This video is
unlike anything I've ever had the opportunity to do. It's incredible. What you just saw was
filmed in March of 2020. That was me on a sled on my
way to a US nuclear submarine that's just popped through
the ice in the Arctic. By the end of this
video, you're going to see what it's like
to board that submarine. I went out to observe a military
exercise known as ICEX 2020. I boarded the submarine. And when I got back,
everything was different. This happened right
before COVID 19 started hitting the US
in a significant way. And things continue to change. This was before the murder
of George Floyd, which has proven to be
a watershed moment in the history of our country. This video was a very
clear demonstration to me that no matter what's happening
here at home, right now there are hundreds of
thousands of people in the US Navy from all
different backgrounds providing security and stability
across the entire world. These people have taken an oath
to defend the Constitution, and they take that
very, very seriously. So what's so cool about
this, is in this video, and in some upcoming
feature content, hopefully, I get to share
with you how I learned what these people are doing. How they're protecting
our interests and assets at the far reaches
of the Arctic. And how they exactly do that. We as Americans, are in a
tumultuous time of change. But it feels like we're actually
on the cusp of living up to the ideals the
country was founded on. All that being said,
there are people that want to do harm to
America, and this video is an attempt to give you
a little insight into those that are defending America
at the outer edges. The Navy is not just
a huge organization. It's made up of people. We the people. These folks are highly skilled. They come from many
different backgrounds. And like I said, they've
taken a solemn oath to defend the US Constitution. I'm going to introduce you to
the Navy one person at a time. In a way you've
never seen before. A couple of years ago,
I showed you RIMPAC, the rim of the Pacific exercise. That's where the Navy
partners with its Allies in the region for
a huge military exercise in the Pacific Ocean. ICEX is a three week
biennial exercise that offers the US
navy the opportunity to assess its operational
readiness in the Arctic, and train with other services,
partner nations, and allies to increase capability
in the region and maintain regional stability
while improving capabilities to operate in the Arctic. To help you understand
the strategic importance of this operation that
we're about to explore, the day after I left,
our F-22 fighters intercepted Russian bombers,
reconnaissance aircraft, and fighters as they
approached and circled Camp Seadragon Which is the
forward operating ice base that we're going to travel to. It's located off
the coast of Alaska. This is a big deal. All right. So now that you have some
context for the video, let's do it. And to be clear, the Navy has
paid me nothing to do this. They simply gave me
access, and said, tell the story as you see fit. It's a beast to even
get there, though. So let's start by
showing you what it takes to get to Camp Seadragon. I flew across the
country to Seattle, which was a long flight. But I hadn't really
thought about how far it was from there up to Alaska. I didn't realize that as far
as I'd flown from Alabama, I was only about halfway
there because of the distance between Seattle and Fairbanks. Once I got to Fairbanks,
I had a layover for a day, and I decided to
try to track down a couple of different
local scientists before I continued the
journey further north. And by the way, it is
stinking cold in Alaska. I'm going to experience
negative 30 for the first time. [LAUGHING] Oh! DESTIN: I had heard from
experienced explorers that my camera gear might not
work at these temperatures, but this is the moment
that made me start to take that advice seriously. This is a problem. [LAUGHING] OK. We are testing the cold
weather gear at the hotel. It looks like I'm
testing for good reason. I'm just recording
with the camera to see what the camera does. OK. First thing I did in Fairbanks
is I came to Beaver Sports right here. And I got a little pressure
transducer right here. I don't know if
you can see that. I want to measure the pressure
on the inside of the submarine. Now I'm walking to the
University of Alaska because I want to
meet the people that are going to be out on the ice
taking scientific measurements. So we'll see what they're doing. I think I'm also
wearing my parka wrong. I don't know what I'm doing. So I'm walking to the
University of Alaska. And people are laughing at
me as I cross the street. Apparently this is a bad plan. DESTIN: To be clear, I
had no scheduled meetings or appointments. My goal was simply to adjust to
the cold over this layover day. But I walked up
to the university and kept going until
I found a rocket outside the
geophysical institute where they study
all kinds of science that ICEX 2020 relies on. I had no idea that
they own a rocket range. Did you know that? The only university owned
rocket range in the world. That is a gigantic rocket. They fire sounding
rockets up into the Aurora and see what they can learn. DESTIN: I connected
with Fritz on Twitter. He's a science
writer at UAF, and he explained all the Arctic
science research they do. And introduced me to
Dr. Donald Hampton, who told me all about the
Aurora for a future video. Fritz then did some
coordination so I could attend a special ICEX
meeting that I didn't even know was happening. We're at the International
Arctic Research Center at the University of
Alaska, Fairbanks. DESTIN: Got it. And your the director,
is my understanding. I am the director of the
International Arctic Research Center. DESTIN: And it's Hajo-- It's Hajo Eicken. DESTIN: Eicken. OK. Pleasure. Yeah. DESTIN: And so, my understanding
is the meeting today is about how to keep
these people safe when they're out on the ice. Yeah. I mean, we've got,
of course, the Navy who is taking care of that. We have one of our
researchers, Andy Mahoney, who's with the Geophysical
Institute here doing it out on the ice. And we're a group
of people who have a lot of experience and
experimental forecasts looking at what the best science
gives us to give them just that little bit
of additional edge. DESTIN: Got it. So you're going to be looking at
winds, temperatures, and like, the ice breaking and
things like that? Yeah. I mean ultimately,
it's all about the ice. The weather is potentially a
concern from the perspective of flying conditions. You know, blowing
snow, key concern. But what we really
care about is, how does the ice respond
to changes in the weather, changes in the ocean, and
changes in the ice itself? DESTIN: So you have people
here at the University, and you also have
people out there? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we're communicating
on a daily basis. And kind of using satellites
and various other types of data sources to give us the
best picture of what the situation is. DESTIN: This meeting
was fascinating. There was far more planning
involved than I realized. Turns out, the
specific spot ice camp was set up on is
carefully selected and they constantly have
tons of experts monitoring the situation with satellite
imagery, GPS trackers, and weather simulations. All to keep their Naval and
academic colleagues safe. And at one point
in the meeting, it dawned on me that this meeting
had direct implications for my own safety. Amazingly strong
arctic oscillation. DESTIN: Mmhm. MAN (ON PHONE): Yeah the
AO, the arctic oscillation, is now forecast to
say strongly positive. You know, pretty much
throughout the month of March. WOMAN (ON PHONE): They did
upgrade today's risk fracture is from low to moderate. And then downgraded that
very high risk to a moderate. DESTIN: So the next
morning, it was time to head even further North. For the first time
in my life, I was going North of the Arctic Circle
to a fascinating place called Prudhoe Bay. On the flight up
there, it was clear looking down at
this vast landscape that I had never been
anywhere like this before. When I landed, I was
picked up by a Marine named Sergeant Santos. Manny handles the
logistics and transport, and gave me my first
look at Prudhoe Bay. This town is crazy. It's basically the
end of the line and, it's mostly occupied
by oilfield workers and tons of machinery. The atmosphere here was so cold
that I saw a weird 360 degree halo around the sun. Which I can only
assume has something to do with the ice
crystals in the atmosphere. Anyways, we headed over
to an airplane hangar which serves as the
staging area for Camp Seadragon Over the
course of the exercise, they have to get over six
semi trucks worth of equipment out to camp, and this is
where they store it and manage it and then pack in onto
planes and ship it out there. It was here that I was
given the opportunity to speak to the Admiral who
is over the entire operation. OK. I'm sitting here. I should take my hat off. I'm sorry, sir. I'm sitting here with Admiral
Logger And are you over ICEX? I'm trying to understand
the structure here. I am. So I'm the Commander of Undersea
Warfare and Development Center. And I have the pleasure of
having the Arctic sub lab lined up underneath within my domain. My warfare expertise. Because Undersea Warfare
and Development center, we control the undersea domain
for the commander submarine forces within the big Navy
structure of the warfare development centers. And within that, is the
Arctic Submarine Lab. Because they own the Arctic. DESTIN: So what's
the point of ICEX? Like, is this-- my
understanding is this is a demonstration of
the Arctic ability of US forces and our allies. Is that what we're doing? Yeah, absolutely. One of the things is twofold. From my perspective, it's
one, Arctic readiness. Submarine force Arctic
readiness is one of our priorities during ICEX. The other one is
Arctic engagement. With our allies as
well as, I'll be honest with you,
academic institutions within the United States. Such as MIT Woods Hole,
who does experiments during our ICEX time frame. And the reason for that is,
we want to make sure that one, we have assured Arctic access
for the submarine force as well as our combat credibility. So we, The Undersea Warfare
and Development Center, we own the tactic
techniques procedures for the United States
submarine force throughout the entire globe. To include the Arctic. And so that's what we're
evaluating with our submarines here. DESTIN: What are you trying
to demonstrate with ICEX? You said, you
know, capabilities. But what are the capabilities
that you want people to know that America has? I would like America to
know that we bring individuals from all over the United States
to operate our submarines. And we're very capable
with ensuring that we can defend our homeland. We can defend our strategic
resources here in the Arctic. And we also want to
be open and engage with the community, our allies. And again, academic community. To ensure that we have
the best technologies to maintain our undersea
advantage in the Arctic region. DESTIN: This was a
great conversation. And some of the things that
the Admiral I talked about will make a lot more sense
once I make it out to the sub. So we're here and
Bob is going to make sure I have the appropriate
clothing for ice camp. So, it's outside. OK. DESTIN: I don't have a tactical
beard like you do, though. What do we do about that? Well, you just have
to wait and grow one. DESTIN: [LAUGHING] So we're
going to be here while, buddy. Bob works for the Arctic
Submarine Laboratory. And if you look at their
logo, you can pretty much figure out what they do. Submarines under ice have unique
navigation and communication challenges, and they
work to solve those. I've got the first layer
on, and my understanding is this is for wicking? This is for wicking,
and also protecting you from the wind and the cold. DESTIN: OK. BOB: It's your base layer,
so it's your first layer. And then you have
your mid layer. And you can do
multiple mid layers depending on what kind
of environment you're in. Your next layer can
be another mid layer, or your civilian clothes. Or, with the military, they'll
use their specific branch of clothing for that layer. And then your outer
layer is going to be your parka, your pants,
boots, balaclava, hat, gloves and ear protectors. And that's pretty much
about it for keeping you warm out in the Arctic. DESTIN: Now that I
have the right gear, I want to introduce you to
someone who's critical to ICEX. So I've heard about this
person called the Ice Queen. It's Sofia. Why do they call
you the Ice Queen? I got to know. Like, have you researched-- like, do all the stuff with ice? What's the deal? Yeah, I work at the US
National Ice Center in DC. DESTIN: Uh huh. SOFIA: And I have done
the big three deployments. Gone on the US Coast
Guard cutter Healy, the Coast Guard cutter
Polar Star to the Antarctic, and now I'm at ICEX. DESTIN: What are you doing? You're tracking the ice? Yeah. I'm tracking the ice
floe that the camp is on and tracking any fractures
that might have been in the ice around it. DESTIN: So when we're
out at ice camp, you're going to see if it's
going to break up with us. Yes. DESTIN: Since ice
camp is floating on the ice in the
middle of the ocean, Sofia sat me down and
taught me about a ton of stuff I was going to see. She explained what's
called a lead, which is a long crack in the ice. She politely corrected me when
I misused the term iceberg. Can I correct to you
that it's not an iceberg? DESTIN: Please do. Icebergs are from glacial ice. DESTIN: OK. SOFIA: Ice that froze
on land is glacial ice, and that calving off is a berg. And this is all
sea ice, and these are called ice floes or cakes. DESTIN: My favorite thing she
told me to be on the lookout for was called finger rafting. That's when two large
ice floes come together. And right where they meet,
parts of the ice from one side will go over or under the other. And they end up interweaving
almost like a zipper. It's crazy. Because if you look at a large
scale out the airplane window, it looks like it was like, I
don't know, like a woodworking finger joint. Hence the name finger rafting. So you're tracking the
thickness of the ice? Whether it's going to fracture? All that good stuff. Mmhm. DESTIN: OK. Sweet. Well, do me a favor. Keep us alive. Yeah. DESTIN: It's time to
head out to ice camp. And to be clear, ice camp
is located on the ocean, out in the deep water. Which means the
airplane is going to have to land on an ice floe. Before we boarded
the plane, Bob put us and our stuff on the scales
for weight and balance. So the Canadians are good at
flying in the Arctic, huh? It's all we do. DESTIN: Yeah? That's awesome. Coming in, sir? Yup. So as you come in, the
seats are folded down. Just makes them
easier to climb over. DESTIN: OK. Fold them up as you're-- DESTIN: Sounds good. Twin-- so this is a twin otter? Yeah. Twin otter. So most you guys are scientists? Yeah. There are some students. DESTIN: Yeah? Professors and staff. All over the place. DESTIN: All over the place? We took off from Prudhoe
Bay, and headed North out into the Beaufort Sea. The Royal Canadian Air
Force are the experts at Arctic flying,
which is why they handle most of the transport. The ice was beautiful. The way it breaks up reminds me
of my fracture mechanics class. I saw leads and flows
and even finger rafting. I started to be able
to identify first year ice versus multi-year ice. And while staring
out the window, I chatted with the
Canadians on comms and asked them how they land
a heavy airplane on first year ice. It was an interesting
discussion. And right after that, we saw it. Camp Seadragon. Just before landing, we circled
over one of the two submarines that had popped up out
of the ice near camp, and it was amazing. This is a huge machine
that contains people. And it went under the
ice hundreds of miles. I don't even know how far. And just popped up
right out of the ice. All my questions
rushed to my mind. But they would have to
wait, because first we have to land an airplane on
ice and make our way to camp. So what exactly are you
guys studying out here? What we have working
on specifically is acoustic navigation
communication under the ice. Because of course
we don't have GPS. But what we have
developed is an approach combining acoustic
communication with navigation that allows us to get close
to GPS navigation accuracy under the ice. And that's what we're
going to be demonstrating. DESTIN: Nice! So you have beacons
out somewhere? Yeah. DESTIN: And then
you're going to put-- They're out there. A couple of my guys are out
there putting them out now. So we'll have four
of those beacons and their communication buoys. And the vehicle will then
communicate to these buoys. Where it thinks it is. DESTIN: Right. And then on the
top side, we'll then make a track
solution and send that back down to the vehicle and
tell it, no you're not there. You are there. DESTIN: Ah. And then it's updating that. DESTIN: Oh, so it's
like a correction. It's like when you integrate. That's exactly it. It's the plus C. Plus C. Yeah. And also, we tell
it where the camp is. Where the camp is moving. What the ice is moving. Because it's using an upward
looking device for measuring speed relative to the ice. It gets confused when
the ice is moving. So we also tell it how
much ice is moving. DESTIN: Oh, that's awesome. So it's a really
complex navigation system. DESTIN: Oh, it's just
calculus though, right? Absolutely. DESTIN: Yeah. That's it. That's what PHD
students are for. Exactly. DESTIN: [LAUGHING] I
know all about that. I'm just here to talk to you. DESTIN: Yeah, that's right! You're here to get
your name on the paper. Am I right? Am I right? Yeah. They're the ones
doing everything. DESTIN: You left me hanging. Oh. There you go. Thank you. Recaught it. How are you guys doing? Ready to go? Oh yeah. Absolutely. All right. So I can take two up here. And then everybody else can
get comfortable on the sled. We'll go sledding. DESTIN: Oh, that's
what I'm talking about. WOMAN: You want
to be on the back? DESTIN: Sure. WOMAN: Front? Or-- This will be fun. DESTIN: This reminds
me of when like, it used to snow in Alabama. We would pull a tire
behind a four wheeler. [LAUGHING] This is awesome! DESTIN: The beauty and
simplicity of the Arctic is striking. And it was meaningful for me
to see this many people coming together from all over the
world to do science and learn from and help each other. How's it going? Going great. DESTIN: I'm Destin. I'm Michael Cox. How are you doing? DESTIN: Where are
you from, Michael? Originally? Texas. DESTIN: This is not Texas. This is not Texas. This is by far from Texas. DESTIN: What are
you doing here, man? I am a part of ASL. DESTIN: Yeah? I just started-- DESTIN: The Arctic
Submarine Lab? Yes sir. DESTIN: Yeah. What do you do? Uh, we set up camp. We dig holes and we make
sure everybody gets around where they need to do. All of the teams. All the projects. We assist with
whatever they need. DESTIN: So logistics? Logistics. DESTIN: When you say dig
holes, what does that mean? They got a project
10 out there. Dug a three foot by
five foot hole for them to do their project
that they're working on. DESTIN: So you're keeping
camp alive, basically. That's what-- yes. Between us and UIC, we
keep everything running. Keeping it heated, and
keeping electricity to it. DESTIN: That's awesome. Thanks, Mike! Thank you! DESTIN: Pleasure to meet you! Take care! DESTIN: We're going to
be heading out to the sub pretty soon, so my goal is
to find Andy Hajo from IARC said he's the guy
that's studying the ice. What are we doing here? We are drilling a
hole for our RO unit. Make water. DESTIN: You're
making fresh water? Making fresh water
out of sea water. DESTIN: Nice. So is this salty? Uh-- You want to taste it? It's normal sea water so-- DESTIN: Yeah, I do, actually. Is it all right? Here's you a
slush if you want. Let's do it. It's the sea water. That will actually be
concentrated, so that's frozen. Whoa. That's very briney. Yeah. [LAUGHING] That is the saltiest
water I've ever had. DESTIN: So you're Andy? Yes. DESTIN: So, Hajo told
me to say hey to you. Oh, right. You talked to Hajo already? DESTIN: Yeah. Cool. DESTIN: Yeah. So what are you up to? Aside from drilling
holes in the ice, I guess I'm here as
the camp ice expert. Helped pick the
floe that we're on. Try and hedge our bets against
the ice floe breaking up underneath us. DESTIN: Yeah? Try to pick the right floe. And then I've also done
some research here. Working with colleagues
from Cold Regions Research Engineering Lab as well. To try and study
what makes ice break. How strong ice is. What makes it break. And we predict if and where
ice is going to break. DESTIN: So like, fracture
mechanics and stuff like that? Yeah, it's fracture mechanics. It's understanding properties
of a material at large scale. Like beyond the lab scale. A big enough scale where
there's random cracks and flaws and heterogeneities. Unevenness in the ice
that act to weaken the ice kind of in aggregate. The ice floe is our lab. DESTIN: Yeah? And specifically,
what we're trying to do is take this out of the lab. We're trying to make
measurements that are too big to do in a lab. So I've got a radar sitting
on top of the pressure ridge out there. And that's measuring
real small changes in how the ice is moving. DESTIN: Uh huh. We can measure
shortening or stretching of the ice by a few centimeters
over several kilometers. DESTIN: Yeah. Strain. Strain. Exactly, yeah. DESTIN: Yes. Strain on the order of 10
to minus five, ten to minus 6. DESTIN: Can you show me
one or two of these things? Uh, yeah. So this is on the
left is a radar. DESTIN: Yeah. Interferometric
terrestrial radar. DESTIN: Go ahead,
I'll follow you. And on the right is an
LSO, laser strain observer. DESTIN: Yeah. They're both essentially
measuring the same thing. We're trying to measure
strain in the ice. Potentially down to
10 to the minus 6, which is what we would
expect for elastic strain if the ice is just
being squashed without actually cracking. But if we start to
get cracks, that's when we'd start to see
higher rates of strain. You know, centimeters. Potentially meters of motion. And that's what we're
kind of sort of measuring. DESTIN: Yeah,
that's when you know there's been some
stress relief happening. That's right. And so we've also got a couple
of stress gauges out there. And what we see is, you
see a peak in the stress, and then the stress drops
just as the cracks open up and the stress
state relaxes again. Oh, so yeah, so this is rotating
once every five minutes. So we kind of got
up here a good time. It's just getting to
the end of a sweep now, and then it's going to
go back to find home. So the radar is doing
this every five minutes. DESTIN: So it's interferometry? It's interferometry, yeah. And it's actually got it's got
one transmit and two receive antennae so it can
do instantaneous interferometry and create a
3D map of the ice around us. Although, I am primarily using
it to look at interferometry looking at changes over time. So you know, it's
basically going to tell me how far
away an object is, and then I can measure
any change down to a small fraction
of a wavelength. This is a KU band radar with
about a 17 millimeter wave length, so we can
measure changes in the-- DESTIN: Oh, yeah. So you've got-- so the
wavelength means you can only measure up to 17
millimeters and change, but you have to
use interferometry to get it shorter than that. That's right. Exactly. DESTIN: Yeah. That's cool. So we're measuring the
phase of the radar signal. DESTIN: Can we go see your
total station over there? Yeah. So it looks off
into the distance where there's some
prismatic retro reflectors. They give a very, very precise-- DESTIN: Corner reflectors. Yeah, exactly, basically. And so it's going
around, and roughly it takes roughly five
minutes to make a scan. And so every five minutes
we get a recalculation of the position of
these reflectors. There's about 20
reflectors circling camp. And we can see changes
in the position of those. And what we've seen so
far, is that we're standing on an old pressure ridge. This is multi-year ice that
survived several summers. Off behind is camp itself. And the ice behind us
is also multi-year ice. Thicker, older, colder ice. Off on this side where
you landed on the runway, that's first year ice. Thinner, warmer, not so strong. DESTIN: But the
reason we did that is because it was smoother. That's right. DESTIN: So it's my understanding
that the position of ice camp was selected based on old year
ice right next to first year ice so you could get
the roughness to study-- or you know, basically
the depth to study. But you can also get the
first year stuff to land on. That's right. So it's very difficult to make
a runway on this ice behind. As you can see, it's
really lumpy in that it gets that terrain
that topography from successive
summers of melting. The first year ice
hasn't seen a summer yet. So unless it's been busted
up into a pressure ridge, it tends to be very smooth and
flat and ideal for a runway. So we want first year ice
for landing the plane, multi-year ice for the safety. It's less likely to fracture. I don't know if you
saw when you came in, there's actually quite a few
leads and openings around us. We went up in the
helicopter yesterday to kind of scout those out. And reassuringly, those
cracks are primarily in the first year ice. So they are circling us. I'm going to put my hat on
because my ears just getting a little bit cold. DESTIN: Yeah, my ears are too. So if I understand correctly,
correct me if I'm wrong, Andy. So you're using
the total station to measure strain between
here and many points. So this is your datum. Yeah. You're doing a two dimensional
strain rate analysis. Yeah, that's right. DESTIN: OK. And have you analyzed
the data yet? We're actually
analyzing the data in real time in
the command center. DESTIN: Yeah? So you have optical
corner reflectors for the Leica
total station here. That's right. DESTIN: You have metal
mechanical corner reflectors for the interfermetric radar? The sea ice is a
natural reflector. DESTIN: Really? Yes. This is the command center
for the Camp Seadragon And what we've got set up here
is a laptop showing real time data from the LSO-- the laser
strain observing system up on the ridge top out there
that we were just standing by. These arrows here
show the motion of some of those reflectors. So you can see this ice out
here, with these long arrows, this ice is moving in a
largely southerly or easterly direction. Whereas, out here, the arrows
are very small and not moving. So the old ice where we are is-- DESTIN: And where is camp? ANDY: Camp is right here. The laser strain system is right
on top of this pressure ridge. DESTIN: And where
is the airstrip? ANDY: The airstrip is in here. DESTIN: OK. And the reason it's on the young
ice is because it's smoother. Is that correct? Because it's smoother. But what these data
are suggesting, is the young ice is moving
relative to the old ice. And if we see some ice is
moving and some ice is not moving, then in between
those two bits of ice there's a crack. And we're trying to work
out where those cracks are. How they develop, how
quickly they develop, and whether we can predict
where they're going to be. So I think our current
location is the circle at the end of that track. DESTIN: Can we walk closer? Yeah. And maybe Bailey
here can correct me, but this is our
current location. Lieutenant Bailey Miller. DESTIN: Bailey Miller. Yeah. DESTIN: So, what's
going on here? Is this a GPS track
of where we're at? Correct. Yes. So, Andy's involved in the
designing of this buoy. But pretty much once we
found the floe that we liked, we left a buoy there that
Andy actually placed. And so then we're able to
track the floe that we're on. And it uploads via
iridium satellite. And then we can get a
live feed of where it is. It updates every hour. So we have data of where our
floe goes every hour based off of currents and wind conditions
where the floe is drifting. DESTIN: So, where
are we at on here? BAILEY MILLER: We are
at this bullseye point. DESTIN: Yeah? BAILEY MILLER: Right now. We were going really slowly
in various directions. Mostly based off of the winds. And then yesterday
we had a couple of days of moderate winds and
we tracked very quickly relative to the past month
up to the Northwest. And over the past couple
hours, now we've slowed down and we're heading
South right now. If you zoom in, you
can see the last two data points are Southerly. Lieutenant Miller,
you're trying to track where we are
like, at a macro level. And then Andy is
doing the micro level. Like, what's happening locally. Is that what's kind of going on? We're both interested in
the overall health of the floe and how the Beaufort Gyre is
influencing our particular floe since we're living on it. DESTIN: Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of interested
in it too right now. That's awesome. Over here we have
the camp safety watch. And the camp safety watch is
manned by one or two people depending on how busy it is. They're keeping track
of field parties that are going out on the ice. Since it's obviously
very cold out there, we want to make sure that
they have good comms. And that we know
what they're up to, and that they're
accomplishing their goals. DESTIN: Oh, they're
tracking somebody right now. Can I see them tracking? Yes. DESTIN: Is that OK? BAILEY MILLER: Yeah. So we've got a live feed
camera that has IR and visual. And we're able to keep track
of 360 around the camp. Also, the camp safety watch is
keeping track of the weather. Providing it to the
entire camp, and also aircraft that are
coming in and out. DESTIN: So when we
called Seadragon you were the guys that answered. Is that right? BAILEY MILLER: Yes. It is, indeed. DESTIN: Yeah. BAILEY MILLER: You're the
voice of the Seadragon DESTIN: The voice
of the Seadragon. So what's up with this horn? That's the alarm
system for camp. DESTIN: For what? So, if I see a polar bear,
I just sound the alarm. DESTIN: Have you done it yet? Not yet. No. This is the closest I
got was this morning. I saw something
warm on the horizon, on this IR camera here. DESTIN: Yeah? Yeah. Right there. You can still see it. DESTIN: Yeah? And then in the morning, about
6:00 AM, nobody was awake yet. I thought, polar bear time. So I grabbed the horn. Somebody came in the tent,
got a second opinion. And they said, that's
a submarine sail. DESTIN: [LAUGHING] So I stood down. DESTIN: That was your
moment to shine, dude. Right DESTIN: Did you have
the can in your hand? I had it in my
hand and then I said, if he didn't walk
in I was buzzing it. And I was going to go-- we
have a loudspeaker here too. Camp safety, camp
safety, comms check. Over, over. DESTIN: You were going
to yell polar bear? Polar bear, polar bear. DESTIN: The submarines were
a couple of miles from camp, and we got word that they
were about ready to leave. So the lieutenant took us to the
helicopter for the short trip over. So do you love it? Yeah. Getting out of the
office is always good. This is definitely as far out
of the office as I can get. DESTIN: I'm Destin. I'm Bob. DESTIN: Nice to meet you, Bob. MICHELLE: Hi. Michelle. My co-captain
is Evan over here. Hi, guys. DESTIN: What's up, Evan? Hey. DESTIN: After a thorough
safety briefing, we spun up the
helicopter and headed out to the sub for one of the
most interesting moments of my entire life. [HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING] Well, that's a
pretty big moment. Hi and welcome. DESTIN: How are you doing, sir? We'll take your bags. We're going to go up the
sail, and then go down. So we'll take these for you. DESTIN: Yes sir. Thank you. No problem. We'll take that. We're going to hold the
bottom of the ladder. When you get to the
top of the sail, you're going to have to swing
your leg up and over to get in. DESTIN: Yeah. While you're going
down the ladder-- when you get down
to the bottom-- you're to have to shift around
because the ladder rung is going to change. DESTIN: Right. But other than that,
it will get you in, and we'll get you
set up and warm. Will you hold this? DESTIN: My name is Destin. Arnell. I'm the chief of the boat. DESTIN: You're the
chief of the boat? Nice to meet you, Arnell. No problem. DESTIN: All right. Following you guys. All right! [HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING] [INAUDIBLE] ARNELL: Normally the guys
come in through here, but we're not high enough
with the ice right now. So there's a little water
over our wet shipping hatch. We couldn't open
the normal hatch. DESTIN: Great. Sounds good. [INAUDIBLE] DESTIN: You want me to go first? Go first. DESTIN: Cool. ARNELL: Here. Make sure you take a good step. A good grip. [INAUDIBLE] DESTIN: What's up, man? Not much, sir. DESTIN: How's it going? Good. DESTIN: Nice to meet you. Same. DESTIN: Nice to meet you. What's your name? Caleb. DESTIN: Nice to meet you, Caleb. [INAUDIBLE] CALEB: You can step
down right there. And then the rungs
are on the left side. DESTIN: On the left side? CALEB: Do you see them? DESTIN: Yeah. Got it. CALEB: When you get down to
the second step they rotate. DESTIN: Yeah. Just be careful about that. DESTIN: OK. Sounds good. Can I take my gloves
off or leave them on? You can leave them on. DESTIN: All right. So there we go. Even getting to the boat
is an incredible adventure. When I went down in the boat,
I saw things that I never thought I would see. In fact, it was hard to point
the camera in any direction without capturing
something classified. In fact, that's where
the video is right now. It's being OPSEC reviewed. Operational security. So we're going to wait on that. In an upcoming episode
of Smarter Every Day I'm going to show
you amazing things. But for now, I want
to say thank you to the sponsor for this
video, which is not the Navy. In fact, I had to pay for
my own food on the boat. It's Audible. Audible is a place where
you can go and listen to incredible audio
books about adventures and get yourself outside of
your own personal perspective. If you want to
check out Audible, do that by going to Audible
dot com slash smarter, or texting the word
smarter to 500 500. Whether you're mowing,
you're driving, whatever it is
you're doing, you're going to be able to consume
audio books in that moment and you're going to
reclaim your time. The only point of reference
I had for being this cold was Endurance by Alfred Lansing. This is an incredible story
about Ernest Shackleton's adventure to the South
Pole with his crew. They get stranded in a boat. Like, I had the option of
leaving in a helicopter, a sub, or an airplane. They didn't. By the way, my favorite
person in the entire story is Frank Worsley. His navigation skills
as a captain basically what saved the entire crew. This is an incredible
story of survival that I desperately
want you to listen to. It's true, too. It's not fiction. When you go to audible
dot com slash smarter, you get a free audio book. And I recommend Endurance. However, you can get
whatever audio book you want. You can also get unlimited
access to Audible originals. That's 30 days of Audible
by going to audible dot com slash smarter, or texting
the word smarter to 500 500. Anyway, that's it. I really want you to subscribe
and see these upcoming videos about this submarine stuff. Imagine Destin in
a nuclear submarine with a camera and
able to ask questions. It's incredible. There's science
everywhere you look. I loved it. So please consider
subscribing if you feel like this earned it. If you trust me at this point
to give you good content, I would even
appreciate it if you you would consider
that little bell. If you click on the bell by
the YouTube subscribe button, it'll actually give you a
notification when I upload. Big thanks to the
navy for allowing me access to all this stuff. Thanks to everybody at ice
camp for keeping me alive. And thank you to
you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I'm Destin. You getting smarter every day. Have a good one. Bye.
Time to ignore the world for 34:40...
u/MrPennywhistle, I am insanely jealous of the opportunity that you had here. Not only getting to travel to Camp Seadragon, but for being able to board a USN SSN operating in the Arctic. I look forward to seeing future videos once OPSEC clearance is completed.
On a more personal note, it was nice to see the Royal Navy represented in the later stages (about 28mins); it's a shame we weren't able to get a boat up to this ICEX. It really shows how many assets the USN has available compared to other navies when they can afford to send two multi-billion dollar units into a region which is, as you pointed out, tricky to navigate and communicate in whilst operating underwater.
Destin,
Your content is amazing as always. You might just be our generation’s Bill Nye. My son and I enjoy your YouTube channel and watch all your videos as soon as they come.
Thank you for being you, and I look forward to seeing you soar.
Silly Alabaman, never seen a sun dog before.
/u/MrPennywhistle,
This content is mind-blowing since it's a different aspect of nuclear deterrence coming from the Air Force side. I'm excited to see the new video once it gets out of OPSEC review.
Curious question:
For these types of videos...since you're working with classified information, how difficult is the content creation aspect on your Youtube end? I imagine you had to use separate equipment and edit the footage all within a classified setting. Assuming that is the case, do you come in with a strategy for editing the video since you don't have access to the footage all the time like at home?
Thanks for getting out there and experiencing and sharing all your cool adventures with us!
Great video Destin. I cant wait to see the next video of how a submarine is from a civilians point of view.
Awesome video! Was great meeting up with you at UAF and hope you enjoyed your trip to Alaska. ☃️
31:27 Sideways, apparently.
Destin that is awesome can't wait for the sub video.
My brother has worked in Prudoe for various oil company's for like 20 years.