Even more penguin, SPIDER glamour shots, and the COSI SPB launch

Uncle John the penguin stayed out at LDB basically all day when he was here, so I got more footage to share with you all. These capture his experience with the “dance floor” a wooden floor in the snow where payloads sometimes go at LDB to do tests. It was really fun to watch him try to puzzle out what this thing was. In the first video, he finally gathers up his courage and tries to dive onto it. He quickly decides against staying, but in the second video, he sticks around a little longer.

Penguin naps near the dance floor. Mt. Erebus in the background.

Penguin thinks long and hard about stepping onto the floor.

Penguin considers whether or not he likes being on the floor. Cynthia takes his picture.

Jon sacrifices his own comfort and lies on the snow to get the best penguin shots.

Today we had the second balloon launch of the season. The COSI experiment was launched on a super pressure balloon- a model still being tested that should allow it to fly for 100 days. The road to LDB closed shortly before I tried to head out, so I watched from town on Ob Hill. A fog was mostly covering LDB up until very shortly before launch, so we saw the balloon rise out of the fog very suddenly and smoothly carry the payload away. We could see it fully inflated later in the day through binoculars. Pretty spectacular!

Even though we couldn’t see LDB well from Ob Hill, the view was nice. Fog stuck on top of the hill with the windmills that supply most of the power to Scott Base and McMurdo

Watching buddies, Sasha and Dave, on Obs Hill watching the launch.

If you squint, you can see the balloon rising up from the fog.

Looking through binoculars at the super pressure balloon at 110,000 feet! It is kind of huge.

Jon got an incredible video out at LDB of the balloon eclipsing the sun as it was released.

That makes it two launches down and one to go. We hear there might be good weather coming our way on Thursday… We will be ready for it! We’re fully assembled and ready to go to space!

Ivan and SPIDER on the front porch.

Mylar selfie with Jamil and Cynthia

Jamil, Bill, Cynthia, and Natalie with SPIDER.

And then I jumped in too.

Sometimes, SPIDER just needs some alone time to sit out on the porch and watch the clouds go by.

Remove before launch or YOLO.