Antarctica - would you go?

jdcaples

Not Suitable w/220v Gen
I would not go to Antarctica.


Ok, I might, but it would take obscene amounts of money, or very realistic threats - by very, very smart people - threats against a very few beloved ones' lives or limbs, before I would consider setting foot in such a god-forsaken place as this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Dry_Valleys


In the same region there is Lake Vida, where 2800 year old microbes were harvested from the largest, longest cryogenic accident I could possibly have imagined if I'd lived 10,000 years.

The lake gained widespread recognition in December 2002 when a research team, led by the University of Illinois at Chicago's Peter Doran, announced the discovery of 2,800 year old halophile microbes (primarily filamentous cyanobacteria) preserved in ice layer core samples drilled in 1996.The microbes reanimated upon thawing, grew and reproduced.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vida

If Antarctica weren't a place
that would just as soon kill me
as it would allow me
to come within 3000 miles of its shores,
I might feel differently
because the place is filled with really fascinating things.


... Like Lake Vostok.... I love thinking about Lake Vostok and what really nifty novelties are locked away down there (where again, I am decidedly not welcomed!).

It's the stuff of really bad and really good science fiction novels and movies....


... but I get nauseous just thinking about the cold, the wind, the practical problems I'd encounter after 4 hours at Vostok Station.... ugh.


If you had an all expense paid trip to anywhere on the largest, coldest, windiest possibly most deadly desert on the planet, would you go? If you'd go, where would you go?

... and don't gimme any of that Penguin stuff....


-Jon
 

OrioN

2008 2500 170" EXT
damn it... the first thing that came to mind were the Penguins, cute and adorable penguins... until you corner a flock and they peck you to death slowly and painfully...

so.. in their absence I give you...


Alien Colonies which are existing under the ice!!

:tongue:
 
Last edited:

icarus

Well-known member
I was within 24 hours of wintering over at the S.Pole station. Events conspired such that I couldn't go. I will forever regret it.

I would go in a heart beat, but I would not go as a tourist.

Icarus
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
I tried... one week i found myself in Ushuaia (on fairly short notice) in 1988, and watched as the last ship of the season went sailing off as i walked into town.
I found out it had been the last ship when i tried to book passage on "the next one." If memory serves, the price on a Russian scientific ship was $1200.
(about as much as the local Dodge dealership thinks i should spend on my 39k-mile Sprinter for "scheduled service")

Would i go? Yes. (*)
Do i know people who have gone? Yes... a co-worker who overwintered at Siple Station before it closed, and my first wife who went as a tourist in the 1990's

--dick
(*) How did i end up in Ushuaia? As i was walking along a corridor at work in Seattle, a visiting professor asked: "Deeek, we are having some problems with software we are running in Buenos Aires, would you be willing to come YES!!! down to... eh, what?"
Once in BsAs, it took only a $250 "Visit Argentina" airfare to travel from end-to-end of the country.
If life/chance drops an exotic trip (or even simply "facilitated logistics") in your lap... try to take it.
 
Last edited:

CJPJ

2008 3500 170 EXTD 3.0 V6 OM642.993 4.182
:bounce:...I am extremely adventurous, and the view I have right now I'm loving it, plenty of adventure right where I am!:bounce:.......

Best wishes to You!
 

Top Bottom