More LDB

I should have waited a day for the last post. I found someone elses awesome pics who was actually at the launch. So here ya go

LDB Launch

One of the projects that NASA runs down here is called the LDB or Long Duration Balloon project. A couple times a year they launch these massive balloons that carry science payloads that weight up to 8,000lbs high up in the stratosphere. Because of some atmospheric vortex type thing the balloons actually stay more or less overhead even though they fly as high as 26 miles up. They only partially fill the balloon but as it rises the pressure change causes the helium to expand until it fills up completely. Even with the balloon only partial filled it still has over 52 million cubic feet of helium in it. The balloon is made of 16 acres of .0008 inch thick plastic film, 26 miles of seams, with a diameter of 518 feet. From the payload to the top of the balloon it is more than 900 feet long. I didn't hear this from a scientist but someone said that once it's full the balloon is as big as the Superdome. It can stay aloft for up to 3 weeks. After the experiments are over the flight controllers send a signal that opens some valves that start releasing helium. At a predetermined altitude they send another command that fires an explosive charge that cuts the payload away from the balloon. It deploys a parachute and takes about 45 minutes to float back to Earth. If all goes well they go out and get it so they can reuse it.

Yesterday they launched the CREST(Cosmic Ray Electron Synchrotron Telescope) balloon so that was kind of cool to see. The LDB launch facility is about 6 miles from here but it's huge so I still got a good view from here. I'll post a couple videos I made.

Here is a link where you can track the balloon and see it's current altitude and location.
http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice.htm

Here is a link about the CREST project. The info looks to be a few years old but still interesting.
http://stratocat.com.ar/fichas-e/2009/FSU-20090505.htm

Here is a video of a different balloon launch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDkV-p65DI

My videos...

Address

Courtney suggested I post my address here so people can send me stuff iffin they wanna. I like getting mail so that seems like a damn good idea. They'll be shutting down air operations and along with it, mail, in a couple months so I should have posted this when I first got here! :)

Ladies, feel free to send me photos of yourself. No naughty ones though because I'm not that kind of guy! Oh, who am I kidding. Hahaha

I like cars, money, and brunettes so feel free to send any of those. It takes about 2 weeks for packages to get here so if you send a puppy you better put a lot of breathin holes and leave him lots of food in there. I'm more of a big dog kinda guy, so if you send any ankle biters I'll feed em to a seal. Hahaha

My tummy is grumbly, time for lunch!

Rickie Foshee, RPSC
McMurdo Station
PSC 469 Box 700
APO AP 96599-1035

Christmas dinner and contractor

Hey everyone.

Sorry its been a while since I posted. There hasn't really been too much going on here, and I'm not always sure that anyone really reads this thing anyway so I just haven't posted. However, I've had complaints from a couple people recently that I haven't updated in a while, so I guess someone is reading this thing afterall.  So I'll try to post updates more often.

On that note. I thought I should give a big, fat, gooey, sloppy, slippery shout out to Jesse and his co-workers.  Apparently they enjoy reading this monstrosity and I have neglected their loyalty by not posting. So here I am posting the shit out of this post.

P.S. Jesse, are any of these co-workers ladies? :)

P.P.S Jesse rocks the casbah for sending me a assload of TV shows to amuse me throughout the winter, which I will likely watch well before winter sets in!

I'm not sure if I mentioned the whole contractor thing before.  The National Science Foundation runs the show down here. They can't do everything themselves so every 10 years they put out a new contract and companies bid to be able to provide the support down here.  Raytheon has been the contractor for the last 10 years and that's who I'm employed by now. Well their contract is up on March 31st. They've been putting off announcing who the new contractor is going to be for like a year. They finally just announced yesterday that the new company is Lockheed Martin. So that'll be who I'll be working for through the winter. Maybe they'll come in and give everyone raises. :)  Well I can dream.

Anyway, where was I? Seriously, I can't remember where I was. Hmmmmmmmm. Oh I can tell you about the polar bear attack we had here the other day. 2 people were seriously injured. Both of them had to be medi-vaced back to New Zealand. One of them apparently died 3 times on the plane back but they kept reviving him and he's holding on for now. The other person is this really petite girl that I work with. She's so tiny that he had her in his jaws tossing her around like a rag doll. He had actually biten her arm nearly clean off by the time they killed the bear. It was apparently just barely hanging on.  He also cracked her skull so she's had some severe brain swelling and if she even lives she might end up mentally handicapped from the brain damage.  They don't like to waste anything around here so they brought the carcass back here. They skinned him and one of the items on the Christmas dinner menu was polar bear, pretty cool huh? Who is laughing now you little fucker!? They skinned him so after the hide has been cleaned they're going to send it back to the families of the 2 that were attacked. Actually we don't have polar bears here.

Last night was our Christmas party. I went for a while and it was fun. There is a picture of me sitting on Santas lap somewhere so I'll post that with the other party pics when I get them.

Today was our fancy Christmas dinner and it was delicious. On the menu was...

Prime Rib
Beef Wellington
Lobster
Duck
Stuffed Pork Loin
and of course all the sides you'd expect and probably a few you wouldn't.

I'm not a fan of seafood so I had some prime rib, duck, pork loin, and some delicious mashed tatters.  A couple of the kitchen staff were singing Christmas songs but I got there a little late so I was getting my food to the table and they were done by the time I got there so I couldn't take any video of them, but they sounded great. I did take a short video of the Christmas fireplace though.

Today is my first day off of my glorious 2 day Christmas holiday. I am seriously sportin half a chubby with the thought of just doing, well, whatever the fuck I want all day long. Booya, suck on that one!


Christmas galley...

 There was a gingerbread house building contest. Looks to me like this collapsed or something...

 This is hut point gingerbread house. You may remember hut point from my hut point post when I first got here. Hut point, hut point, hut point...the words have lost all meaning...

 In case you can’t read words in english then this is Ivan of Ivan the Terra Bus fame. Of course if you can't read english then this could be a recipe for a turd souffle and you'd never know.  In case you don't remember from one of my first posts,  Ivan is the largest land vehicle on the continent. It comes to greet you when you first fly into this place...

 This is Ivan in real life, I wish this pic had a pickup truck or something in it too so you could tell the size...

 This is a Delta...

 Real life Delta...

 Galley Christmas Tree...

 This is my "after" picture of my dinner plate. I don't really have a before picture because I was hungry and I was thinking more about shoving it all into my cake hole than taking pictures. I'm such a selfish prick...

 Someones very festive door...

 Festivus pole for all the Godless atheist heathens, hahaha  j/k ...

 This is the Tiki Lounges contribution to the season...

These are non Christmas related pics, but this is my blog so I can do what I want. I run this bitch with an iron fist!

Look at how clean this floor is...

One of my fellow Tiki Loungers, Tessa, made her own art gallery under her bed. The debut was a few days ago...

Nate & Tessa chillin in the gallery. As you can see if you move the bed rails up to the top notch you've got about 3 feet of space under the bed. So she turned it into an art gallery for very small art. It was really cool. I wish I had gotten more pics before she tore it down. She said she's going to do another one in Feb so I'll get pics then. Notice the crackers and cheese, and she had wine. This was a serious gallery opening here folks...

McMurdo Christmas Fireplace...

Summer

This is the pic I had in my last post. I think I took it last monday, then...

That night it snowed, so I took this pic the next morning...

The cloud cover cleared and the snow melted over the next couple days so it was back to what pic #1 looked like. Then a couple hours ago it started snowing pretty good again so it already looks like pic #2 outside now.

This isn't like any summer I've ever experienced before.  I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore...

Poop chair

If you are squeamish at all you might want to avoid taking a look at the last picture. Atleast read the description of the pic before you decide to look at it. Just a warning. :)

The snow is melted mostly away around town now.

 There are little streams everywhere with the snow melt working it's way to the ocean.

 Hmmmmm.  That is a seriously small House of Blues

 This is the poop chair.  So I guess the story goes... After one of the big parties here some dude made a poopy mess in this chair because he was attacked by Jack Daniels and got his ass kicked. Apparently he tried a half ass attempt to clean it but didn't complete the work. So the janitors found the chair and had to finish the cleaning job.  They cleaned the chair and bleached the hell out of it. Then they wrote "Poop chair" on it in sharpie and placed it outside on top of the big non-recyclable trash bin so that the waste folks would dispose of it. Someone absconded with the poop chair! I'll repeat that, because it bears repeating, someone took the fucking poop chair!  So somewhere on station is a nasty orange chair with "poop chair" written on it.  It's not like it's a book and you could hide it in a drawer, it's a chairrrrrr. What. The. Fuck, over!

the "black guy"

So Saturday night they had a Mad Max themed party. So everyone was walking about dressed in all kinds of weird stuff.  Especially the women...I love wire mesh as a shirt! :)

So I woke up on Sunday morning and went to take care of my morning duties. I was walking down the hall and saw this on someones door.

I'm not sure who "the black guy" is, but I'm guessing he had a good night.

Good stuff right there.