Not much time for writing lately: integrating hardware and software for 5 different protocols, being not yet fully acclimatized, was challenging enough in itself. But both my oxygen saturation and the hardware testing are getting better, so it's time for a bit of reporting.
Concordia has been of interest to ESA as an ICE (Isolated and confined environment), which makes it an ideal testbed to study human acclimatization for future long-duration flights. That is easy to grasp in itself, but getting here makes it even more obvious. Whereas Dumont d'Urville is a coastal station, showing a variation in landscapes (glaciers, nunataks, islands, ice cliffs) and wildlife, Dome C is a desert. The station, with its two circular towers, might have landed from outer space (and I'm sure that, at the end of the winter over, some are longing for the mothership :-) . Of course, around the station, you find the usual container park, which seems perfunctory to Antarctic missions. Furthermore, since this place is like a Walhalla to astronomers, the landscape is dotted with telescope and observation domes. Then there is the summer camp: a couple of tents and containers allowing to accommodate the scientists and technical staff who are here only for a brief time during the accessible months. And at last, the caves, which are the natural freezers for sample storage.
On our second day here, we got a tour with the technical responsible, to show us around and inform us about the whereabouts and station 'etiquette'. The main prevention being of course about fire, for like on any other Antarctic station, this is the major risk here. The winter over crew is the fire squad, us 'tourists' are only required to memorize the escape routes, and find our way safely to the gathering points. Every story of the station has an emergency exit, with a door and an 'escape sock': fabric tubing bringing us safely to the ground. Tomorrow is our first fire drill exercise, can't wait to get in the sock!
Getting out of the station feels like kind of an Extra Vehicular Activity. Indeed, coming from the comfortable living temperature of 23°C in the two towers to the -37°C of the outside world requires a bit of packing up. And if there's no wind and a brilliant blue sky, chances are you'll end up sweating and puffing after 200 m. We tend to forget how much effort, and thus metabolic heat is produced, by simply getting around at 4000 m high.
