How McMurdo Station Is Run On The Least Habitable Continent | 360 VR Video | The New York Times

a hundred years ago the base in Antarctica looked like this the lone height surrounded by Pony sled dogs and frozen crates of supplies from this Hut Ernest Shackleton struggled and fought within a hundred miles in the South Pole and returned to hero Shackleton and 14 men from his British Antarctic expedition lived here through the winter of 1908 he later wrote the hut was not exactly a palatial residence and we suffered many discomfort but we've been a very happy little party within its wall and often when we were far away from even its measure of civilization it was a mecca for all our hopes and dreams today the largest outpost in Antarctica is McMurdo Station cluster of buildings hugging the frozen shore of Ross Island this station was built to support science and the surrounding Heights are lined with experiments and sensors [Music] to take 700 seasonal workers to run the station and support 200 scientists through the busy summer months my name is Elaine hood the science of the National Science Foundation funds to be done in Antarctica if science that can't be done anywhere else on earth and there is no hardware store down the street there is no fuel station down the street we have to provide all of that for this research at the bottom of the world heavy equipment is everywhere wheeled or tracked removing snow dirt cargo or people up ahead three orange deltas and ivan the terrible' wake to haul passengers to and from there an hour away on the raw side shelf [Music] McMurdo freely mixes old and new Navy buildings in the 1960s for a short walk from high tech science class Flash Gordon anthem sweats designed in the 1800 share space with custom vehicles seemed nowhere else on earth when equipment breaks they fix it here the heavy shop the heavy shop is basically one large open bay large enough for us to pull the really large vehicles in there and do all of the maintenance on them if the parts aren't available the mechanics come down to the machine shop and I can usually make something happen for them my name is Keith Collier as it was my first season at McMurdo Station as the machinist the way I would describe McMurdo is like a mining town crossed with a very small college campus crossed with military barracks and with it being so isolated anything that goes wrong there we pretty much have to take care of ourselves to keep the base and the science going Thanksgiving begins with a turkey trot McMurdo builds intense friendships there are no cellphones few pagers a slow internet and little use for social media when everyone needs three meals a day together people here take pride in being just a little bit here and they take their costumes very seriously some joke that when you shake the world the most interesting people fall to the bottom over the hill from McMurdo is Scott bass a New Zealand outpost of neat green buildings Weddell seals wean their pups where the sea ice buckles and splits against the shore and a Kiwi sledge team practices for a friendly race against the Americans everybody needs their little moment of Solitude sometimes and that's hard to find at McMurdo my name is Laura Kerwin and I am a shuttle driver at McMurdo I love being up close and personal with these seals in if it's really quiet you can hear a steel breeze you can hear the sounds the seals make under the ice when you find those quiet peaceful moments in McMurdo when I first arrived at McMurdo the runway is on the ice so when you step off and it's just nothing but flat white it's kind of shocking it's like being on a different planet it sets our normal daily life down there that you kind of forget that you're out driving on an ice shelf at the bottom of the world we're on the same road every day but it always looks different depending on weather and the clouds and the blowing snow even though the sun's up the whole season that I'm down there there's still a difference in the light the food is better than the powdered Pease and boiled mutton of a century ago fresh bread lemon bundt cake and a hundred pounds of granola a week one of the things that we love about Antarctica is the fact that there are no cellphones so when you sit around and eat breakfast or you're eating dinner nobody is sitting there scrolling through Facebook you're having a face-to-face conversation and the lack of interruption by technology most of us like it whether is the talk of the station I'm a great breaker of schedules snow wind or clouds could keep scientists at McMurdo or in the field for unexpected days or weeks Antarctica is a desert the coldest driest windiest continent on earth you can feel it in chapped lips static shocks and chronic dehydration fire is the greatest threat to the station and the 55 men and women of the Antarctic Fire Department operate the most southerly fire house in the world [Music] as the summer winds down work turns to the future in mid-january the American icebreaker polar star will cut through the sea ice to the start frozen pier of ice and reinforcing cable cargo ship will follow bringing six million pounds of supplies and food for the new year when the ships leave most McMurdo residents will start to pack up the Sun last said in October and will set again in February finally disappear for the long Antarctic winter some people will work a summer here and never return the one-and-done errs some will head home to rejoin family and mainland jobs and return in October but for a few this remote outpost of ice and ash is home they will travel wander explore through the northern summer and plan to return with the Antarctic zone [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The New York Times

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Keywords: The New York Times, NY Times, NYT, Times Video, nytimes.com, news, newspaper, feature, reporting, nytvr, 360 vr video, 360 video, vr video, vr, virtual reality, mcmurdo station, mcmurdo, antarctica, antarctica research station, antarctica research, least habitable continent, Nimrod, Nimrod expedition, Edgeworth David, Ernest Shackleton, meterology, zoology, Ross Island, science, antarctic summer, national science foundation, antarctica science research, Ross Ice Shelf

Id: nZr5MJuNcXU

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2017