Remote Ops of the IceBreaker Drill

So, one more 6 am wake up to dress in full gear ready for the field....and one more windy, snowy, low visibility, no helicopter flight out day. I was supposed to leave for Lake Fryxell in the Dry Valleys today, and then head out to University Valley tonight, but yet again, mother nature had other plans for me.

It worked out well, because I was able to stick around to see the IceBreaker Drill set up just outside the Crary labs  (an impressive, well run, tight science ship!) here in McMurdo station. The weather did not make setting up the drill very fun, but that's part of the reason they are testing the drill out here and not a safe, warm lab: to test the drill in the types of conditions it would encounter in extreme environments, like those on Mars.

Today the drill was tested with a group of kids in the U.S., who all the way in Arizona were able to send commands to the drill, and have it operate here in the Antarctic. We talked about our research with them on the phone, answered questions, and they remote operated the auger to drill at various speeds here. They were able to visually see the drill in action via webcam. I captured a bit of the scene on camera, but as you can imagine, the wind didn't make for great audio (and I had to upload a low-res version of the video to not choke up the internet that we all share here). Here's a taste of what was happening on our end in the Antarctic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSNuwtTO8_w&feature=youtu.be

Margarita Marinova (standing next to the IceBreaker drill) talks to kids in Arizona, while Brian Glass and Bolek Mellerowicz look over remote drill operations