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A boomerang and the McMurdo crud
Yesterday, we
spent most of our day
checking our data output system. Since NSBF is still having
problems with their TDRSS system, we just wanted to make sure that when
everything is up and ready to go, our flight CPU will be sending data
to TDRSS correctly. Things finally went smoothly after we
troubleshooted hardware and software, only to find that we had one bad
cable in the mix. Once that was fixed, we were ready to go.
And wouldn't you know it, Bob Binns and Paul
Dowkontt boomeranged! They were about 3 hours and 45 minutes into
the flight, and Paul turned to Bob and said, "We just passed the point
of safe return, there's no heading back this time." And within
minutes, the C-130 banked and headed back to Christchurch.
Apparently it was a weather related concern, although visibility out at
Williams Field didn't seem that bad today. Boomeranging in a
C-130 is much less fun than it would be in a C-141: the difference
between a 7- or 8-hour flight and a 5-hour flight.
In other exciting news, I fear that I might be
getting the "McMurdo crud." The "crud" as it is called, refers to
the many illnesses that can move easily around MacTown. I guess
in addition to imagining what kinds of adjustments people must make
down here, you have to think about what life would be like for a virus
or a bacterium. It starts out making someone nice and sick in
some pleasant town in California (a lot of people are from the west
coast down here), and then all of a sudden, it finds itself fighting to
stay alive down here where it's cold and inhospitable to almost all
living things. A virus might eventually mutate to cope with the
environment and become more capable of infecting other people.
All over town, on drinking fountains and all over
the galley (dining hall), there are signs reminding citizens, "don't
share the crud." But even so, I woke up with a bit of a scratchy
throat this morning, and was so exhausted by the afternoon that I had
to lie down in a cot in a Jamesway out at Willy Field for a while.
Back in town, I went with my friends Jeff and
Lindsey down to the dive hut again, so Jeff could test his watertight
container again. There were a couple of seals there again and I
got some more pictures. Then it was up to try and get a good
night's sleep, to kick this thing before it gets worse. Bob and
Paul should be here tomorrow.
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