I thought I'd take a look at anything going on at Dumont D'urville-- on the opposite side of the ostensible "island" of Antarctica-- from Novoriska. I found this train on ice, via youtube. What a fantastic sight. You have to wonder what this is all about. Where is the economic return? Why the development? Why the land/ice train?
Sunday, May 17, 2015
1 comment:
Hi, I'm Captain Rick of the Virtual Circumference Voyage of Antarctica. I intend to prove definitively if Earth is flat or a sphere by paying careful attention to how many miles we cover as we travel "around" Antarctica. Flat earth theory says it's 50-60,000 miles. Spherical Earth theory says it 14,000 miles. Join me and ask any questions that you think would help our mission.
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Just wow, Rick
ReplyDeleteFrom another video **
The Raid is a land convoy system using modified agricultural crawler tractors and sleds specially adapted to transport loads on snow and long distances. A typical convoy consists of 2 gear grading and June to August tractors that pull loads: containers and tanks spread over several sleds. The crew consists of 9-10 people including a doctor. 3 caravans specially designed bring comfort and security during these crossings which, round trip, lasting between 20 and 25 days. 3 trains of this type carry 350 T. equipment and supplies each summer campaign. In return they evacuate waste from the Concordia station [Google trans] Map say it's 1100 km between the two places
http://www.institut-polaire.fr/ipev/video/video/le_raid_convoi_terrestre_antarctique
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7y0d8_arrivee-du-raid-a-concordia_travel
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1of69_le-raid-de-dumont-d-urville-a-conco_tech
You wonder how the location of Concordia or Dome C was chosen.Perhaps for maximal supply distance criteria? It's 1100 km from nowhere [wikipedia] Hey, perhaps that's what Dwight Yoakam was singing about?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWgd5UPmjqs
1,100 km inland from the French research station at Dumont D'Urville, 1,100 kilometres inland from Australia's Casey Station and 1,200 kilometres inland from the Italian Zucchelli Station at Terra Nova Bay. Russia's Vostok Station is 560 kilometres away. The Geographic South Pole is 1670 kilometres away.
Station personnel and light cargo arrive by air, using Twin Otter aircraft from DDU or Mario Zucchelli Station at 1200 km.
Concordia Station shares many stressor characteristics with long duration deep space missions, in particular extreme isolation and confinement, and as such serves as a useful analogue platform for research relevant to space medicine..... particularly useful for the study of chronic hypobaric hypoxia, stress secondary to confinement and isolation, circadian rhythm and sleep disruption, individual and group psychology, telemedicine, and astrobiology....Concordia station has been proposed as the one of the highest fidelity real-life Earth-based analogues for long duration deep space missions..... In the 1990s, Dome C was chosen for deep ice core drilling by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA). Drilling at Dome C began in 1996 and was completed on December 21, 2004, reaching a drilling depth of 3270.2 m, 5 m above bedrock. The age of the oldest recovered ice is estimated to be ca. 900,000 years.....Concordia Station has been identified as a suitable location for extremely accurate astronomical observations.
hmmmmm.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Station
So, again, why choose this spot?
Let's hope Nobody Robs the D'urville Train....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOk71pHqCu8
** there are stacks of videos [25] at that site uploaded to Daily Motion.
http://www.institut-polaire.fr/ipev/video/%28offset%29/25
eg
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1kkwr_atterrissage-a-concordia_tech
which shows a twin otter landing at Concordia from either D'urville or Zuchelli. The text only mentions the range of the Twin Otter - 4 hours.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ke0e_survol-de-concordia-en-twin-otter_tech