A team led by University of Chicago geophysicist Doug MacAyeal flew out to iceberg B15A near Ross Island, Antarctica, and erected a weather and GPS station to track the iceberg until its demise. Credit: Brien Barnett, National Science Foundation |
The history of aviation and the history of Antarctic exploration and science are inextricably entwined. Most people today know of two historical events involving airborne vehicles. A third such event opened the southernmost continent to exploration and led directly to today's science discoveries there.
It is common knowledge that, in 1903, the first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, carried Orville Wright airborne for mere seconds. It is also common knowledge that, in 1969—nearly 70 years after those first halting flights—Neil Armstrong walked on the moon after arriving in a vehicle the Wrights scarcely could have imagined, across an almost incomprehensible distance.
The third event is far less known today, yet perhaps as important to aviation history. Nearly a half-century before Armstrong’s adventure and just 26 years after the Kitty Hawk experiments, the world watched with equally rapt attention as aviation opened up Earth’s most distant vistas.
In 1929, naval aviation pioneer Richard E. Byrd, became the first person to fly over the South Pole, dropping a flag to mark his achievement and breaking the isolation of the skies over the Pole for the first time since the age of the dinosaurs.
His successful flight produced an outpouring of public celebration in the United States and around the world that was seldom seen before. Books, feature films and the popular press all celebrated the accomplishment with a fanfare that, while almost passé today, was rare at the time.
Neither Byrd nor the Wrights could have imagined that aircraft a hundred times more powerful than their own would one day make flights to the South Pole nearly as routine as commercial flights to less populated areas of the United States. Today, more than 100 such flights annually cross the 900 miles between McMurdo Station (NSF's logistics hub in Antarctica) and the South Pole.
Related links:
For a chronology of Byrd’s life, see:
http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/arvweb/polar/byrd/byrdchrono.htm
NSF Fact sheets:
U.S. Antarctic Program
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102869
Significant U.S. Science Discoveries from Antarctica
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100855
Astrophysics in Antarctica
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102881
Related NSF press releases:
New Map Reveals Hidden Features of Ice-buried Antarctic Lake
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100407
NSF-Supported Teams Provide New Data on Early Moments of the Universe
Antarctic-based instruments support each other's results
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0138.htm
Construction of New South Pole Station Begins
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/00/pr0078.htm
“Winfly" Opens 2002-2003 Antarctic Research Season
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/winfly_images.htm
Runway Project Clears the Way for Improved Antarctic Airlift
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0214.htm
Air National Guard Recognized for Excellence in Support of Antarctic Research
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/00/pr0076.htm
Research Season will Feature Use of Sophisticated Technologies to Map Antarctica
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0176.htm
U.S. Navy to Depart U.S. Antarctic Program after 42 Years
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102871
