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In our era the movement was calculated based by the satellite tracking operation-- the exact geographical position of the sattrack antenna was computed from the tracking data Oh yes...in the upper left photo of us watching this event, you will notice an airplane circling to land. This was one of the three planes that ended up parked on the taxiway overnight due to bad weather at McM--Mr. Lyddan and his party of DV's got to stay overnight with us as well. While I was taking the picture I was already worrying about what to do with all of the overnight visitors... For too much more information about the geographic pole, and an essay or two on how it is located these days, here is a NASA Quest page about moving the Pole marker on Boxing Day, 1993 (archive), an old CARA page on the subject, and a more recent AAD (Australian program) page about the various Poles.
On 30 October 1976, the opening day of the station (while the second flight was on-deck) it seems that someone dislodged the fragile glass globe mounted on top of the ceremonial pole. The result was what you might expect. As if we didn't have enough to worry about with the fires and other early season disasters. I helped pick up the pieces of broken glass and throw them away (or so I thought).
But...would you believe that one of my fellow Pole Souls saved some pieces of the broken glass ball, and presented them to me (well, in my historian role I guess) at our June 2006 reunion. Anyway, I thought about how to getting the fragments repatriated to Pole in February 2008, but I couldn't figure out a good way to pack them in my baggage. But here they are. Anyway, after cleaning up the broken glass, this problem called for some ingenuity. Since there were no other silvered glass globes on the ice, the short-term solution was that someone at McM painted a bowling ball silver and Bruce Carter from the Navy public works department brought that down. The long-term solution was that a new glass globe was procured, and in this picture it is being presented to me by the CO of VXE-6, CDR D. A. Desko, while Robert Rutford, the NSF Director of Polar Programs, looks on. The original glass globe was one of two that Paul Siple obtained in 1956 for use in all-sky photography. These globes were airdropped (as was 99% of the construction material for the original station) and the parachutes just barely opened in time. One of the globes was mounted atop the bamboo flagpole which you see in the above right photo. A bit of that bamboo pole, no longer a flagpole, still exists as the Ceremonial Pole today. After Paul's winter, he switched out the globes and brought the original home. His wife Ruth donated it to the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, where I took this picture of it (at left) in November 1977. Oh yes, I've been told that after our ball broke, NSF explored the possibility of getting this one out of the museum and shipping it to Pole.... Nowadays modern industrial technology has triumphed again. The ceremonial pole was rebuilt at some time after 1990, but it still uses a piece of the original bamboo. The globe is metallic and unbreakable (although I understand it can get dislodged if you work at it). I wonder where the rest of the old bamboo pole went. In any case, we pole souls including yours truly securely anchored the ceremonial pole in place with Antarctic cement several times during the 1977 winter. Another mystery, I've been told that there was at least one 1960's era time capsule inside the top of the original bamboo pole.... Here at left is my January 2004 hero shot in front of the updated Pole exhibit at the Canterbury Museum. The caption reads: "This 16 inch (405 cm) silvered glass ball was dropped by parachute at the South Pole 18 years ago [sic] during the construction of the first Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in December 1956. It was one of two bought from Bradley Bros. Ltd. by Dr Paul Siple, scientific leader of the team of 18 Americans who in 1957 were the first to live at the South Pole. Dr Siple arranged to have this ball mounted on a symbolic "South Pole" where it remained for 11 months, until he took it back to the United States as a memento. The late Ruth Siple was on the way to the South Pole for the dedication of the domed station when this presentation was made. My most recent visit to the Canterbury Museum was in January 2014, and this exhibit was still on display. |