Old South Pole dome replaced by modern structure

Photos and story by ERNIE MASTROIANNI
Originally published January 8, 2001

Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica -- The real South Pole is a 12-foot rod pounded deep into the ice in a new location each year, to account for the steady movement of the ice sheet underneath it.
But the South Pole in the memories of scientists who have done research here in the last quarter-century is a geodesic dome, constructed in 1975.

This year, under the midnight sun of the Antarctic summer, the dome is being replaced under the guidance of a civil engineer who grew up in Monroe, was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and is one of the more rabid Packers fans -- at least in this half of the world.

A steel skeleton is taking shape, 60 feet high, a virtual Sears Tower by Antarctic standards. The new building will sit on stilts to allow drifting snow to blow underneath, but also will have some portions below the surface, to house fuel tanks and garage space.

It's being assembled by workers from Raytheon Polar Services, an Englewood, Colo.-based company that contracts with the National Science Foundation to do most of the construction in this part of the world.

The new building, officially called the South Pole Station Modernization Project, is desperately needed, partly because the dome is literally being buried by drifting snow and partly because the South Pole address is so in demand by researchers and scientists. During the summer, more than 200 people are crammed into the existing dome and temporary shelters nearby.

Wisconsin native Jerry Marty is directing the construction of the $153 million project, which so far is ahead of schedule and under budget.

"This summer," Marty said, referring to the warm months that started in December, "the symbol of the dome will fade away. The new building needs to be a food service center, a hotel, a vehicle maintenance center, an airport and a scientific lab."



The push for improved facilities is coming from scientists, who have huge projects in the works.

Just two examples: A $10 million project named AMANDA, which is designed to detect neutrinos from the edge of the universe, and a $253 million project named ICE CUBE, which will have a similar mission, only on a much larger scale. Both are led by Wisconsin researchers.

This past week, three of those researchers -- UW-Madison physicist Albrecht Karle and grad student Katherine Rawlins, and physicist Jim Madsen from UW-River Falls -- were in a cramped galley at the Pole, discussing adjustments and fine-tuning the icebound detector, sunk more than two kilometers below the ice.




In addition to the scientific pressure for a new facility, there is some political interest as well. As early as 1982, President Ronald Reagan officially declared it to be in the nation's best interest to occupy the South Pole year round. And the State Department, in a 1996 memorandum to the National Security Council, said there were strategic, foreign policy and scientific reasons for occupying the South Pole on a continuous basis.

"If we were to depart the South Pole station, there would be another tenant," Marty said, certain that another nation would fill the void.

Construction of the new station is a marvel of engineering and management. Every piece of material, every tool and every worker has to come in by LC-130 cargo ski planes, flown by the 109th Air Wing of the New York Air National Guard. It is not feasible, Marty said, to bring in supplies over land. The South Pole is 830 air miles from McMurdo Station, and an overland trek would take three weeks and require many people to run the vehicles.

Trades workers stay here all year, and they work inside when the sun goes down for six months and temperatures drop to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Over winter, the station population is 50," Marty said. "There are 20 support people, 20 construction trade workers and 10 scientists."

He said the tradespeople "need to have the ability to fix things without having to go to a store. If something doesn't fit, we try and make it work. We look for someone who can live in a confined circumstance and work creatively."


Marty said the station is expected to be complete by 2005 and will house 110 people -- still cramped, but less than in the dome. The design allows for an additional wing to accommodate 40 more people if more money is budgeted.

Mike Papula, who directs the project for Raytheon, said many components were test-assembled in the United States before being shipped to the Pole.

"We did some test-builds of various different things, such as the fuel tanks, the under-snow garage and power plant," he said.

The steel fabricator erected one bay of the elevated station; a crew of carpenters installed the insulated panel skin; another crew tested the jacking system used to raise the structure onto its supports.

Asked last year how everything would work at the Pole, Papula chuckled and said: "It went really smooth in Little Rock, Ark., in the summer."

The station is being built with the ability to be raised periodically to keep it out of drifting snow, because any object on the featureless plain of Antarctica ultimately becomes drifted over. Marty thinks the station will not need to be raised for 20 years.


"The challenge was to construct a building that is very strong for as little weight as possible," he said. "Weight is key because the load limit for each plane flight is 30,000 pounds."

Another factor to consider was that the station will not stay in the same place. "The entire snow and ice sheet the station is built on is moving at a rate of about 30 feet per year, which could cause differential movement in the structure," Papula said. "We are building on a snow foundation, which will settle differently from one corner of the building to the other over time."

The extreme cold posed other problems.

Waste heat from the diesel-run power plant is recycled to heat the buildings. And an elevator with an exposed rack and pinion mechanism is made from a beryllium-copper alloy to resist temperatures of minus 100 degrees.

In addition to his other duties, Marty acts as a spokesman for the National Science Foundation when tourists come. The cost, he said, is anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000, but the people who make the trip "are well-to-do, and this is on their list of things to do in life."

"It's been a much more busy place," he said. "If they arrive on a Sunday, we'll bring the group in the dome for half an hour and explain the world-class science that goes on here. We do this because it is important to market National Science Foundation science, it's important to represent our country, and most importantly, -- if they are Americans -- they see their tax dollars at work, and they should see where their money is going."

THE PROJECT

-- The South Pole station structure was needed because the geodesic dome, constructed in 1975, is being buried by snow. The station is being built with the ability to be raised periodically to keep it out of drifting snow. See updated photos of the deconstruction of the old dome at Bill Spindler's unofficial South Pole website.

-- The construction also is needed because the South Pole is so in demand by researchers. During the summer, more than 200 people are crammed into the dome and temporary shelters nearby. The new station will house 110 people. The design allows for a possible wing that could hold 40 people.

------------

Photojournalist Ernie Mastroianni visited Antarctica as a guest of the National Science Foundation. His photographs and reports originally appeared in several sections of the newspaper in early 2001.

Copyright Milwaukee Journal Sentinel