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Design Wanted For Antarctic Base
colonist writes "According to the BBC, The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have begun a major international competition to design a new scientific research station at Antarctica. The old station, Halley Research Station, was built in 1992 and its ice shelf will break off by 2010." According to the article: "The first four bases were built on the surface and gradually got covered with snow and ultimately got so deep they became crushed by the weight of ice and had to be replaced", though the "current base on stilts" fared better until the ice shelf problems.
Kurt Russell and his crew had a pretty nice place in The Thing, why not copy that? Just make sure you don't dig up any... you know.. weird things.
That way, you would not have to transport any building materials except maybe shovels and saws.
The should build the base on imperal walkers like in that Zahn? book. It could just move around as needed.
Here you go, hot off the presses:
Polar Base Prototype
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
They need a new design because currently, All Your Base Are Belong To Ice.
They can build them above the ground again, only this time use steel beams and concrete, as opposed to cardboard.
Don't get me wrong, good ol' corrugated is a fine building material for forts and tree houses, but for a scientific station that is supposed to get covered with ice, one should invest into some steel.
That's my two cents, anyway...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
One of the bases disappeared mysteriously after the Vorlons needed it to fight the Shadows in the last Great War.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
... a bunch of AT-AT's storming the rebel base on Hoth?
...I read the BBC article (unusual for here...), but it didn't seem to say whether or not the designers of the 1992 base knew the shelf would eventually break off...will this new base be designed to be easily expendable?
As long as the current base is operative, could the thing just be towed a few miles or however far the thing has to go? Of course it might actually be worthwile to ditch the old one & start new, but why give up on a perfectly good building?
They could build a base to resist the weight of accumulated snow and ice, and just expand the passageways as the base further gets buried... until they have to move to another ice-shelf.
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY:
The base must be terrorist proof, with extra security, metal detectors, and the ability to survive a impact from an airliner.
1) Put in the water, on pylons. Concrete ice-breaker pylons like they use on bridges.
or maybe..
2) Don't fight the mounting ice. Use a modular, extendable lift system, and build down into the ice. Much like the ice caves they build into glaciers, but with structural reinforcement and climate control + serious bilge pumps. Your computers will love it down there.
Is there such a hurry to put more wastes in this area of the world?
"All Your Antarctic Base Are Belong To Us!"
1999 called. The copyright on this joke hasn't expired yet.
"Derp de derp."
How about a research station with a heated roof to melt the snow and such? I would have thougth that was obvious.
What is your penile percentile?
With out knowing the physical limitations or the like from the average submarine, why not use something of this style. The deepest diving subs can tolerate pressures on the hull far that of the average structure on land. Could something of this general style sustain the pressures exerted by a large amount of snow piled on top of it? Plus it would have the added benefit of being able to handle the under water conditions after the next ledge breaks off sending the base into the cold seas.
Listen, lad, I built this post up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was a blank web page. Other slashdotters said I was daft to post, but I posted all the same just to show 'em. It was modded -1. So I posted a second one. That was modded -1. So I posted a third one. That was scorned, mocked, buried in the blog, then was modded -1. But the fourth one... was modded Funny!
maybe then need to invest in some shovels.
Villain Supply!
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
This should last them for a while, at least until the base is discovered.
that's so obvious i'm positive there are reasons why that isn't feasible although it seems no physicists or meteorologists have weighed in yet. as possibilities i'll advance:
1) you can't melt the stuff fast enough for it to flow off.
2) even if you could, you need to shunt it someplace, in heated pipes or other methods, to deposit the mess someplace where it won't accumulate and create the situation you're trying to avoid.
3) daunting power requirements to heat the exterior of any structure of adequate size.
my guess is that it's impossible to heat the exterior sufficiently to cope w/ the overnight lows they routinely experience there.
ed
Although what I really want to do is to imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...
Or not. Yeah, definitely not.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
For more reading about living and working in Antartica, see Big Dead Place
I don't think you're far off. I'm thinking modular base. each unit being moveable / liftable to 1) stay on top of accumulated snowfall and 2) move away from the calving edge of the ice shelf.
The catch here is that the 'ground' is constantly rising because the snow never melts. Simply removing the snow will result in the base being in a big pit. Oh, and it does nothing for the ice breaking part.
(Hmmm, then nix the pile the snow under it part, the base has to move somehow...)
note: this post is directed at the dozens of 'shovel the snow' posts, not just yours.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
investing in the research and development of Transformer technology is so important.
You wouldn't have to worry about this sort of stuff if you had something like Metroplex. You could just tell the city to switch to robot mode and move to a safer location.
And you'd also have a line of defense against Trypticon, to boot. It's a win-win.
Seems to me if the Continental Drift theory is correct, there SHOULD be large oil fields in Antartica; as it was once an equatorial continent.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Seems pretty obvious to me... but then, all of my great ideas do. Unfortunately, so do all of my bad ones.
Make the foundation of the base an inverted cone. That way, inward pressure will push the base up, out of the snow. Additional upward force can be generated with hydraulics, and heaters could be used to melt the ice off of the surface, and reduce friction that would prevent the rise of the base up out of the snow.
Submitted challenge to my in-house think tank and here is what they came up with: 1) 2,000 foot tall wooden skyscraper anchored into ice. Advantages: Tourist attraction as world's tallest building (added attraction that when viewed outside while standing on head, gives impression of being under world's largest popsicle). 2) Blue police callbox appearing structure that can be moved when necessary to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Advantages: Can be referred to by the highly memorable acronym, BASTARDIS (British Antartic Survey Time And Relative Dimenisions In Space). Can also be relocated back in time to take advantage of warmer eras. 3) The Halle Berry Research Station complete with the Monster's Ballroom and the Swordfish solarium. Advantage: Self-generating heat
Whatever they do, maybe they should make float! Then they could just reuse it when it sinks!
__________
Huh?
" Thoughts?"
Boobs.
"Derp de derp."
As the snow built up around the base, you would simply drive the vehicle/base forward up and over the new snow/ice. Of course, there is the problem of the extreme cold and what it does to machinery of any kind, and how much weight could be handled under each tread (there would have to be enough space covered by the treads to distribute the weight enough to allow the treads to safely move the base.)
But, a mobile base would allow for some interesting investments to be made in the research capabilities. It would also allow the base to eventually move further inland with much less effort/risk as compared to building a new base closer to the pole (since you would have your habitat right there with you ;-). IANAA(I am not an architect), but I can still dream.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Seriously, there is snow in northern india.