Ioannis Baziotis, Scott Van Bommel and John Schutt sporting different types of ‘icetronaut’ attire at Amundsen Glacier today.

‘It’s another beautiful day’ came John’s voice through the tent fabric at 6.40 am this morning, ‘we should begin searching again at 9’. ‘Okay’ I croaked, woken from another dream. I seem to dream an awful lot here.

Aside from this disturbance, last night was wonderfully silent and still. I could get dressed this morning without the stove on and the tent felt warm, even if it was not. The lack of wind leads to the feeling of ‘burning’ sunshine.
Scott and I started our day in style; cheese and bacon sandwiches cooked in butter. Excellent, excellent choice. I washed this down with two cups of coffee and two shortbread biscuits. Bought the shortbreads in New Zealand and started eating them 3 days ago, accounting for ten days of rationing. They are a marvel, given my 21+ year abstinence from chocolate.
Talking of chocolate, Cari Corrigan and the crew from the Smithsonian sent us a massive box of M and M candies. In fact, 9 boxes of 36 (yes, that’s a lot of candy – Scott gobbled some up as soon as we opened them). Thanks Cari et al.!
Today has been, for the most part, devoid of wind, and relatively warm. During yet another epic Skidoo search over the blue ice of Amundsen Glacier, I pondered on some blog posts we read while we were in Cleveland for the ‘Boot Camp’ in October.
As ‘Drill Master’ Ralph (Harvey) put us through our paces, one of the topics that came up was a blog by Stan Love from a few seasons ago, where he quoted Don Pettit as saying something like ‘If you’ve done ANSMET, you’ve done long duration space flight’ (or something similar).
Now both these aforementioned gents are experienced astronauts, so they should know what they are talking about. I, on the other hand, can only imagine what living in space must be like.
As I looked out across the blue ice and gray-white sastrugi, ice crystals shimmering in the morning sun, I pondered what exactly made ANSMET analogous to long-duration space flight. I imagined, at least.
The first idea that came to my head was the team. If you are not one with your team, it would be pretty difficult operating in a harsh environment like the Antarctic, or in space. You rely on your team. Last time I was out here, I was fortunate to be on the team with Don, and he, Ralph, Linda Welzenbach, Nicole Zellner, Cliff Leight, Mike Rampey, Matt Genge and Sean Norman were an excellent team.
Once again, this year, I am part of a great team. John Schutt, with 36 years of experience is the ‘icetronaut’ par excellence. Our collective confidence in him is total. Scott VanBommel is surely destined for space one day. An excellent team player (don’t tell him I wrote that). Ioannis Baziotis is always happy, keen and eager to work and I am going to start using his favorite superlative, ‘super’, to describe food, no matter how good or bad.
As I pondered this on my skidoo, engine droning, skis drumming on the hard blue ice, I also considered logistics. My, oh my, logistics are something else. Yes, we lug 10,000 lbs of gear around, but we are the ‘tip of the spear’. So many people deserve our gratitude for making searching for meteorites happen. Back in the states, in McMurdo, at Shackleton camp, and the excellent continued support from NASA. I can only imagine the unsung heros who make space flight possible too.
So many other ideas sprang to mind. Time away from family and friends – many of you reading this blog can feel this aspect keenly. What about some endurance and mental fortitude? Yes, there’s a bit of that, but having good team mates, good books and plenty of things to keep you busy makes this relatively minor.
What is clear is that ANSMET is an important endeavour. Many call it the something along the lines of the ‘economical space mission’, returning thousands of meteorites over the last 40 years or so. I think that anyone who has been lucky enough to be a volunteer ‘icetronaut’ feels that this service to the scientific community is really worthwhile.
Meteorites are critical scientific samples, providing us with information on the materials that formed our Solar System, how the planets were formed and reached their present states, when all these processes occurred, and so on, and so forth.
Finding these materials, here on the Antarctic ice, is a special kind of thrill. If you’re searching systematically, like Team A is, or you are searching new areas of ice, to see if meteorites occur there or not, like our sub-team (Team B), it has the feeling of exploration, breaking new ground, or making a discovery.
Being part of the ANSMET experience is a fun, worthwhile service, where the hardships are outweighed by the experience, making new friends and being part of something bigger. I know Don or Stan are the ones who can make the comparisons with space flight (I recommend you find Stan’s blog post), but I appreciate them enabling me to imagine as I bounced over the sastrugi and blue ice here in picturesque Amundsen Glacier.
As we returned to camp, after John and I took a few moments to study and discuss the granites and granodiorites forming the steep walls of the cliffs that dominate our view, the wind picked up and the air chilled. I am cooking for all of us tonight (yes, curry of course!) and it’s good to share a meal and time together.
Icetronauts, or not, hopefully we’ll be out again tomorrow, hunting, searching and finding our extraterrestrial quarry.
Posted by James, at Amundsen Glacier, on the 7th January 2018 at 15:00 local time.