View from atop the physics building at the University of Guelph (pronounced “Gwelf”) towards the south-southwest; a mere 15,233 km (9,465 mi) between here and McMurdo.
Greetings all,
With departure just around the corner, this season’s three newbies/rookies are planning to post short blog entries prior to our respective departures. Today, that means me! I will first say, as a Canadian on the team, I know what many of you are thinking. Yes, I do say “eh”, but you’ll only read it here and in future posts if it happens organically – outside of that, just some extra vowels or perceived-weird spelling along the way.
Earlier this week Juliane provided a fantastic introduction to this season’s team and recent events. As she noted, the team will be split into two groups of four. Initially, these groups were referred to as “Varsity” and “Junior Varsity”. Varsity, or Team A as it is more commonly called now, is made up of James “Jim Time” Karner, Brian “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” Rougeux, Barbara “Space Guru” Cohen, and Juliane “I Just Love Meteorites” Gross. Debate remains on what to officially call Junior Varsity. Juliane coined us “Team B” or “Team Brilliant”. I propose, however, that John “Captain Antarctica” Schutt, James “I Publish Papers Every” Day, Ioannis “La Sportiva” Baziotis and myself, Scott VanBommel, instead be called “Team Eh”. This eliminates any perceived difference in hierarchy and the team names would even sound the same – can’t get more equal than that! We’ll ignore the possible confusion when describing aloud what Team A and Team Eh are going to do. (Author’s note: This is the first time Team Eh and the nicknames of all team members are presented. Potential rebuttals/alternatives from teammates may come in future posts and are welcome/encouraged.)
As one of the newbies on this year’s team, the recent trip to Case Western Reserve University for boot camp was an especially valuable experience. While I have followed ANSMET for years and have spoken with several veterans, seeing and going over everything first hand really helped me personally prepare for this year’s campaign. I know what to expect (or so I think, time will tell!), what I’ll need, and I even spent a night in a Scott tent with Ioannis. This night in the tent gave a feeling for what “home” will be like for several weeks – it was surprisingly comfortable! Word is we even dodged Jim’s snoring display so that was a bonus!
Experienced ANSMETer Barb gives Ioannis (blue) and Scott (green) a rundown of the intricacies of a Scott tent. “This is the entrance to the Scott tent. I do not recommend burrowing in like Bugs Bunny.”
Boot camp also provided the opportunity to meet this year’s team including rookies and experienced explorers of Earth’s extremity alike. Despite being a newly minted PhD (physics) graduate (if I was a cell phone the plastic protective cover would likely still be on), at age 30, I’m not the youngest on the team. Barb and Juliane (29) take the cake there – I have so much catching up to do career wise! Tent assignments were a given going into boot camp with a single exception: which rookie would be paired with which veteran on Team Eh. We were informed shortly after boot camp closed that, through the application of angular momentum to an analog binary randomizer (coin toss), the pairings would be the Johns (Ioannis is Greek for John I’ve learned) and then James and myself.
On a personal note, I’m extremely excited to participate and contribute to this year’s campaign. As a Mars rover scientist part of international teams who study potential future Martian meteorites in their native habitat, participation provides a wonderful opportunity to give back to the scientific community that has been incredibly supportive through my early career. I’m thrilled to be a part of a fantastic international team on this NASA-funded mission to recover meteorites in one of the most remote and beautiful places on Earth. I cannot think of anything more fulfilling than recovering these space explorers so anyone can request their study for the benefit of all. A very special thank you to Ralph, Jim, NASA, CWRU, U. Utah, and all those who make this incredibly important work possible – I’m honoured and thrilled to be a part of it. Talk soon, eh! (Okay, that one was forced, but if I didn’t squeeze one in you’d question whether I was truly Canadian.)
– Scott VanBommel from the University of Guelph, Guelph ON, Canada on Thursday November 9th, 2017 at 13:00 EST.
NOTE added by RPH: My favorite response so far to Jim calling his group “Team A” and “Team Varsity” was from James Day, who on hearing this immediately said “….and we’ll call ourselves ‘THE Team’ “. Both teams are clearly at the top of the class.