[HN Gopher] Doors of McMurdo ___________________________________________________________________ Doors of McMurdo Author : Amorymeltzer Score : 262 points Date : 2022-12-15 17:00 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (brr.fyi) (TXT) w3m dump (brr.fyi) | ilkkal wrote: | I wonder if proper door operation is part of orientation: | https://youtu.be/Wof0xPUmW38 | loufe wrote: | I work at a large mining complex in Canada's far north. We have a | mix of all types of door handles and mechanisms in outside-facing | doors, like McMurdo, it would seem. Even the best of them fails | to keep snow out and heat in when you get snow and ice caught in | the door creases. Salt, sand, and shovel and pick are the motto. | | Thankfully, more doors are further off the ground because of | permafrost. Having stability and door-jam-avoiding benefits | simultaneously. | loufe wrote: | Permafrost stilts, for reference: | https://s3.amazonaws.com/greenbuildingadvisor.s3.tauntonclou... | dendrite9 wrote: | Are the stilts connected to thermosiphons? That is a cool | technology and application I learned about when reading about | building larger structures in the far north. | https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072021/thawing- | permafro... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosiphon | https://dot.alaska.gov/stwddes/research/assets/pdf/erdc- | crre... | loufe wrote: | Good question, honestly I'm not sure. I will try to | remember to ask next time I fly up. | JP_Watts wrote: | Man this brings me back. I did a year at McMurdo in 2004. We got | hit with such a bad storm that conex boxes were tossed all over | the yards. Snow drifts covered up some doors, but... they opened | inward ;) | chrisbigelow wrote: | See also: "Power Up: What Keeps McMurdo Going?" | https://scienceroadshow.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/power-up-wh... | greenhearth wrote: | Love this blog! | m463 wrote: | I couldn't help continuing with "McMurdo's Automated Teller | Machines" | | https://brr.fyi/posts/mcmurdo-automated-teller-machines | | This is fun and fascinating. I wonder how much critical minutiae | from our daily life goes undocumented. | | for example: | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/45rpmada... | Magi604 wrote: | These are fantastic, high quality posts. | | This is the type of stuff that sadly gets drowned out in the | ocean of today's clickbait content. | birdman3131 wrote: | I don't tend to count (currently) #2 on the main page to be | drowned. | hprotagonist wrote: | _This is not a master-planned community. Rather, it is a series | of organic responses to evolving operational needs._ | | over time i have become more and more convinced that this state | of affairs is _better_. | notduncansmith wrote: | That is the central thesis of The Timeless Way of Building by | Christopher Alexander, which I highly recommend. | conductr wrote: | Don't live there anymore but it's basically why I actually | liked no zoning in Houston | teddyh wrote: | "The ITS system is not the result of a human wave or crash | effort. The system has been incrementally developed almost | continuously since its inception. As the system has matured | there have always been new features to add to those under | consideration as others were implemented or discarded." | | -- Donald E. Eastlake, _ITS Status Report_ , AI Memo 238, 1972: | https://its.victor.se/wiki/aim-238 | Georgelemental wrote: | You may be interested in "Seeing Like a State" by James C. | Scott, an entire book about this subject: | https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/d... | odiroot wrote: | It begins as a very interesting book (especially the forest | management example) but boy is it slow. The author tends to | repeat his point ad nauseam. | mustachionut wrote: | Also check out "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand. | kapep wrote: | I appreciate the beauty that comes with the organic evolution | of these buildings but if it leads to a "break lock in | emergency" door, it is definitely not better. | lilyball wrote: | That door's state is due to the key being lost, not due to | organic growth. | [deleted] | tomjakubowski wrote: | It's certainly incorporating local knowledge though | bombcar wrote: | Certain things lend themselves well to master-planning. TCP/IP, | or where transit lines are run _before the city builds up | around them_. But only things that really _need_ to be master- | planned do better when planned that way; much of the best | "large things" seem to work out better when many of the aspects | are organic and human-scale. | puffoflogic wrote: | In what sense is TCP/IP master-planned? TCP has tons of | options, and one of its key components, the congestion | control algorithm, is unspecified and left up to client | choice. Both of these facts have led to significant | improvements, but even greater improvements were obtained by | dumping TCP altogether, in large part _because_ TCP ossified | due to middleware behaving as if TCP were master-planned when | it isn 't. TCP, at least, is an anti-example to your point! | pclmulqdq wrote: | So is IP - which version are we talking about? | | The out-of-address-space v4 that wasn't future-proof enough | to conceive of more than 4 billion computers? | | Or the reinvented ipv6 that seems to have gone way too far | in the other direction (and not just in terms of address | size)? | CrazyStat wrote: | > where transit lines are run before the city builds up | around them. | | I'm not sure even this is true. The city may not build up in | the way the planners anticipated. Even if it does, it will | change over time. | alksjdalkj wrote: | They aren't independent, the city will tend to build up | along the transit lines due to the easy access to transit. | E.g., the NYC outer boroughs and the DC metro area. | Eleison23 wrote: | That may be true for immovable train lines, but vehicle | transit such as buses have routes which are subject to | change, and therefore developers cannot depend on the | transit lines being there in 10-20 years. | | Bus lines instead tend to follow where the traffic wants | to go. Around here, many shopping malls double as bus | stations because the primary aim of transit seems to be | circulating consumers around places they will spend | money. | toast0 wrote: | > Bus lines instead tend to follow where the traffic | wants to go. Around here, many shopping malls double as | bus stations because the primary aim of transit seems to | be circulating consumers around places they will spend | money. | | This is circular reasoning though. Bus lines go to the | mall, but malls are built where the bus lines go. Malls | use a lot of space, so carving out a little bit for | transit is easy. | wins32767 wrote: | Consider the income levels of the staff that work at | shopping malls and what that implies for their ability to | pay for reliable personal transportation. | thewataccount wrote: | From my experience playing factorio, the best way to | approach it is to plan out the areas you are building to | allow future "backtracking" possible - increase space | between buildings, ensure new "roads" are "reasonably" | arranged to allow future expansion, etc. An example of this | is ensuring that driveways/building distances are a certain | minimum from the road, allowing you to expand a 2 lane road | to 3, etc. | | You build your infrastructure to, or just past the edges of | what you know is being built, and make sure you reserve | space past that to accompany further expansion. | | The lets you expand the ~factory~ city while still allowing | some sanity to the underlying infrastructure. | | * This will likely apply to anything that needs both | preplanning and unknown future expansion such as codebases | bombcar wrote: | You see stuff like that done in some places (eg: | https://goo.gl/maps/q4Qm1cjjF9rA6MQY6 - the "highway" has | space all around it for expansion, and has had that for | decades from when there was nothing there) | microtherion wrote: | That looks like an utterly car dependent community. I | don't think you can have walkability without fairly dense | construction. | bombcar wrote: | Yeah, the main advantage of pre-building is that land is | cheap and nobody's using it, vs post-building where you | know where the density is but you have to get the land. | | In the cases I know of the density followed upon building | the line, but that may not be universally true. | mattpallissard wrote: | Maybe not so much the where, but the how (zoning regs) | matter. In SLC, the roads are pleasantly wide for a city | it's age. Turns out they had to be wide enough for a wagon | to turn around. | | Trying to avoid painting yourself into a corner without | over thinking is the game. | bo0tzz wrote: | I've been thoroughly enjoying this blog and I'm looking forward | to read about the heating infrastructure there! | flobosg wrote: | Related: I enjoyed Maciej Ceglowski's articles about Antarctica - | https://idlewords.com/antarctica/ | alex_suzuki wrote: | Funny that this should pop up just as I'm reading the illustrated | version of "At the Mountains of Madness" (H.P. Lovecraft)... | anthk wrote: | I tought the same. | NaturalPhallacy wrote: | I find everything about McMurdo fascinating because it's such an | extreme place. I looked at every one of these doors and read | about them. And a friend of mine from college worked (works?) | there after and has cool stories to tell. | | Like penguin feces smells _awful_ because it 's predator feces | raised to the fish power. | | And emperor penguins are _huge_ , and if they whack you with | their wings they can break finger bones. | | And people who newly arrive look "orange". | | And this wasn't from him, but some other documentary: Chips left | out don't go stale because the air is so dry. In fact, _they may | get crispier._ | londons_explore wrote: | It's a very cold place right...? And a place where energy is | insanely expensive because all fuel has to be shipped thousands | of miles? | | So energy efficiency is paramount. | | So why are these doors, even the modern ones, just a few inches | thick? I'd expect to see the doors being 6 inch thick foam, and | every outdoor door to be a double door (ie. into an entrance | room, and another door into the rest of the building, such that | only one door is ever open at once, to prevent heat loss). | | I'd expect all the walls to be 12 inches thick (with 10 inches of | foam) too - and again, this doesn't seem to be the case. | danielvf wrote: | McMurdo has a deepwater port, and a lot of fuel storage tanks | as a part of its facilities. Tankers and can just drive up in | summer and offload large quantities of fuel. It's not like the | South Pole station where everything must be flown in. And the | "waste heat" from the generators making electricity is routed | throughout the base and used for heating. | | Not to mention almost a megawatt of wind turbines in the near | constant wind. | | A study on the feasibility of electric vehicles had the | expected cost of electricity per kWh at the base lower than | California residential rates. | jacoblambda wrote: | McMurdo during the summer routinely gets above freezing and | isn't all too different from Alaska or northern Canada in the | early spring. During the winter of course it gets cold. | | As for power, McMurdo has a mix of power sources including a | number of renewables. For about a decade ('62-'72), McMurdo | also had a small nuclear power plant on site as well. This was | also only a few years after McMurdo was established ('56). So | there was definitely a time where energy was not particularly | expensive and the greater issue was the cost per kilo for | shipping supplies. | | Of course now that shipping logistics are mostly ironed out and | nuclear was deemed too problematic, various fossil fuels are | used for power and heating a good chunk of the site (whatever | the scattering of renewables can't handle). | | Wind Turbines: https://brr.fyi/media/hut-point/town.jpg | | PM-3A Nuclear Site: | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/PM3Anucl... | musha68k wrote: | Just the article I come here for, thanks for sharing. Fitting | background ambience for reading: https://youtu.be/870PlmjnLHw | [deleted] | russellbeattie wrote: | Antarctica Condition 1 Weather [1]. Her giggle in this video | always cracks me up. _Waaaaaaaahhhhh!!!_ | | https://youtu.be/qz2SeEzxMuE | [deleted] | bacon_waffle wrote: | Classic "Condition Fun"! | | Antz and Christine are great - recommend "A Year On Ice". | throwawaaarrgh wrote: | The first thing I think about isn't snow or handles, it's the | framing. Poor framing results in door sagging which results in | sticking, wearing or even broken doors. A handle you can replace | pretty easily with basic tools (and a crescent wrench and square | tube works as a handle in a pinch). A poorly hung door requires | more skill. | foobarbecue wrote: | This made me homesick for Antarctica. | | Tempted to do a "Doors of Erebus" in this style... They would | mostly be tent flaps, but there is a garage door and a really | great outhouse door. | xwdv wrote: | How can I do a stint in McMurdo? | TurkTurkleton wrote: | Unless you're a scientist or researcher in a field that would | be performing research at McMurdo, your best bet is probably to | apply for a support position with one of the organizations or | parner institutions listed here: | https://www.usap.gov/jobsandopportunities/ | | Though as the blog mentions in an earlier post[0], you may have | to re-apply repeatedly over the course of several years. | | [0]: https://brr.fyi/posts/basics | rootbear wrote: | I kept hoping I could trick NASA into sending me down there for | a few weeks. Surely a senior Linux/Unix admin would be useful | there? Ah, well, there's always the tourist option. | focusedone wrote: | I dunno who's writing this, but they write very well and about | interesting things. Really enjoying keeping up with this blog! | dheera wrote: | I'm curious why many of the doors have deadbolts. | | In an environment where you presumably know every single human on | the site and there are probably no other humans in any direction | for 1000 km, is there a need for locks on anything other than | bedrooms and bathrooms? | _dain_ wrote: | > I'm curious why many of the doors have deadbolts. | | to keep the Thing out | jamincan wrote: | McMurdo is one of the major logistics hubs for the entire | continent, this means that it has a relatively high population | (~1000 in summer), but also that a lot of people pass through | on their way to other parts of Antarctica. It's definitely not | a situation where everyone knows everyone else. | mastax wrote: | Probably just a more secure way to latch the door when there's | lots of wind and snow attempting to push the door in. | | Also lots of standard doors come with deadbolts pre-installed | or at least a deadbolt hole drilled through. | jccooper wrote: | Mc Murdo is not the ISS. I think it's telling that it's | referred to as a "town". Plenty of unauthorized personnel. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Penguins. Penguins can't open deadbolts. | | (/s, obviously...) | bell-cot wrote: | But if you merely hide the key under the doormat, a Yeti | _can_. | petsfed wrote: | The threat is not from strangers, but from fully vetted and | trusted community members having some kind of psychological | event that leads them to bad actions. | | The various entities working at McMurdo do pretty thorough pre- | deployment psych evals to try to catch the kinds of people who | would break vital equipment (think furnaces, or water-treatment | equipment or high-cost/one-of-a-kind research equipment) or | equipment necessary to fix vital equipment. But there's really | no guarantee until you're out there that any given person is | actually trustworthy. To say nothing of emergent psychological | events that would drive a person to do such a thing. And | anyway, the kind of person who _wants_ to go to Antarctica | frequently doesn 't conform to our expectations of what a well- | adjusted personality looks like. When your threat model is | "trustworthy community members who occasionally and | unpredictably become threats", you lock doors. | cryptonector wrote: | Interesting link at the bottom: https://brr.fyi/posts/mcmurdo- | automated-teller-machines | tragomaskhalos wrote: | Sites like this are exactly why the internet was invented. | ocdtrekkie wrote: | What's really nice is they have an RSS feed, so after one of | these posts showed up on HN a month or two ago, I've been | following all their posts since. | 082349872349872 wrote: | Therefore I try to stay in the tail: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law | hiidrew wrote: | I've been following this blog since someone posted it a few weeks | back. Aweosme reads imo, satisfies my childhood curiosity of | Antarctica and I appreciate all the photos he includes. | nxpnsv wrote: | One thing I learned from those doors was to dry my hands really | well after washing them, I froze to the handle a bunch of times | in the beginning... | irrational wrote: | When I hear McMurdo Station, I think of a single solitary | building with maybe a dozen people. I had no idea McMurdo was so | large with so many buildings! I spent a few minutes trying to | find a decent map of the entire station, but came up short. | Sharlin wrote: | Kim Stanley Robinson's _Antarctica_ , a twenty-minutes-into- | the-future ecothriller, is much recommended reading for anyone | who'd like to know more about McMurdo, the South Pole Station, | and about the history of Antarctica's exploration and its | geography and ecology. As is usually the case, KSR has | definitely done his homework. (Disclaimer: you might fall in | love with Antarctica, or at least develop a serious crush, as a | result of reading this novel.) | milliams wrote: | OSM seems to have it quite well mapped: | https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=-77.846323&mlon=166.6682... | c0nsumer wrote: | Of course, I wanted to know what "FSTP Snow School" was, but | garbage blogspam gives first-search-results like this: | https://mapcarta.com/N8759058406 | | <sigh> | foobarbecue wrote: | I can help! I went through it 7 times. | | FSTP, prounounced "F-stop" like the camera setting, was the | "field safety training program" and basically it refers to | the group of mountaineers that the US Antarctic Program's | contractor hires to live in Antarctica and help out with | fieldwork. It also refers to the classes that they teach in | McMurdo. | | Basic FSTP "snow school" used to be required for everyone | at McMurdo, and for many, it was the most fun thing you | would get to do the whole season. You would learn to set up | camp, cook, use radios, sleep out on the sea ice for one | night (in a tent, igloo, snow trench, depending on the year | and instructors). | | I did a bunch of other FSTP-organized courses too, | including how to travel on sea ice, and some | mountaineering. | | We had FSTP mountaineers with us up on Erebus and the joke | was "the F stops here." | | I think it got renamed to something else in 2017 or so... | around when the BFC stopped referring to themselves as the | building fulla chicks... | vikingerik wrote: | You're thinking of South Pole Station. That's mostly one large | building for a few dozen people, and very photogenic for | snowbound isolation, so it's usually the picture used for | Antarctica articles. | | (McMurdo is not at the south pole, it's on the coast near New | Zealand.) (Edit since I keep getting nitpicked - near in | relative terms, it's at NZ's longitude and closer to NZ than to | anywhere else.) | rufus_foreman wrote: | Near? It's 99 miles! | | https://distcalculator.com/distance-between/106093/New- | Zeala... | | "If average speed of your car will be standard for this route | between New Zealand and McMurdo, Antarctica and road | conditions will be as usual, time that you will need to | arrive to McMurdo, Antarctica will be 1 hour." | jkonline wrote: | I think distcalculator is buggy: | | "Distance between New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA is 99 | miles. | | If average speed of your car will be standard for this | route between New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA and road | conditions will be as usual, time that you will need to | arrive to Los Angeles, CA will be 1 hour." | duskwuff wrote: | It appears to return "99 miles" for _any_ pair of | locations, even between a location and itself, or to | nonexistent locations (like "Narnia"). | ceejayoz wrote: | That site is getting confused by New Zealand's _Antarctic_ | Scott base. | | NZ proper is about least 1,500 miles from Antarctica. | bacon_waffle wrote: | Scott Base is easy walking distance from McMurdo, not 99 | miles (or 100 kilometers and 100 miles and 100 nautical | miles - that site is quite confused!). | | Both are actually in New Zealand depending on the | purpose, due to the Ross Dependency[1]. For instance, | most of those folks in McMurdo station have longer NZ | visas than typical US tourists visiting NZ would get (3 | months), because when they fly down to The Ice they're | not technically leaving the country. | | An interesting corner case is when something happens at | one of the US stations in the Ross Dependency, which New | Zealand wants to investigate. The Rodney Marks death[2] | is a particularly well-known example. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Dependency | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Marks | billforsternz wrote: | I'm typing this in New Zealand at latitude 42 degrees south | (so about half way from the equator to the pole). So no, not | near NZ, a bit less than 1/8 of the circumstance of the Earth | away, maybe 1/10, more than 2000 miles. | irrational wrote: | That isn't what I was thinking of. I wasn't even aware there | was more than one research facility in Antarctica. I was | going purely off of the name. | vikingerik wrote: | That's what I meant - subconsciously you probably were | thinking of the base that is the South Pole Station, since | that's the one with more pictures of it and that's the | location where you'd intuitively expect an antarctic base | to be. | kioleanu wrote: | It's big enough that they have a bus to go around. It's called | Ivan the Terrabus. | pkaye wrote: | I know McMurdo station is getting a major overhaul so all these | doors will probably be replaced. | | https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/antarcticas-agi... | mlindner wrote: | Makes sense. Some of these doors the latches look close to | breaking with door jambs that have partially been eaten away by | use. | sgt wrote: | Can they be replaced by Star Trek like doors that go.. | TSHHHHHH... ? A friend is asking. | akiselev wrote: | Be careful what you wish for cause you'll accidentally get | doors with one of those ghastly Genuine People Personalities. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-15 23:00 UTC)