So yesterday I was at Station 2 again, and was all psyched cause the LDB team (Long Duration Balloon) was launching the first balloon of the season. Basically, it's a 200 ft tall (maybe taller?) balloon that carries a 5000 pound payload that goes 125000 feet up in the air to the upper stratosphere and measures wind speeds and stuff. They launched yesterday at about 3pm, but I was at Pegasus.
http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/map/cream.htm
We had a C-17 come in that was supposed to fly in on Tuesday, but bad weather at the South Pole caused them to delay a day. Why would the weather at the Pole make a difference for a C-17 (a wheeled plane that can't land down there)? Well, they were doing a practice air drop at the Pole, which is basically when they fly over, open the rear cargo hatch, and dump out cargo pallets, which then float down with parachutes. Since the weather at the Pole was bad, they had to wait till yesterday to do it. There is also a C-17 coming in tonight. Hopefully the mail I am waiting for is on that one, since it wasn't on the plane yesterday. So I didn't get to see the LDB launch up close, but I could see it from Pegasus (which is about 9 or 10 miles away from the launch site). We could still see the balloon at midnight last night, when it was about 96,000 feet up in the air. Pretty impressive, yes?
So today is a bum around day. I finally finished watching all 4 seasons of NCIS on Cassidy's DVD's, so now it's time to switch to a new series. He does have the whole series of M*A*S*H on DVD, so I think I'll go for that one. We'll see how far I can get through the 11 seasons before I leave.
And today I start my weekend. 3 days off, followed by the holidays, which will be very interesting. It's supposed to snow this weekend, so maybe we'll have a white Christmas. It would be very strange to be in Antarctica, land of snow, and not have a white Christmas, while everyone back homes does. Very strange indeed.
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