In the Land of the Ice Bears

It's 7:30 AM, and as I write this there is more water than ice. There is little to no wind, and the outside air temperature is around 37°F. The water is smooth and calm, reflecting the clouds and sun. Every so often, a sea bird swoops down or lands or takes off, disturbing the perfectly glassy surface. We’re traveling deeper into the sea ice, looking for wildlife: most notably, the polar bear.

Naturalist Adam, with his rifle

Polar bears are the largest land carnivores in the polar region. They are considered ‘marine mammals’ because they wander the ice pack and often swim long distances between ice floes or islands. They are also more dangerous than other bear species because they are much more carnivorous, given the lack of plant matter in the polar regions. In fact, by Norwegian law, anyone who goes outside in the Svalbard must carry a weapon.

On Wednesday, we reached a latitude of around 80°N. Being this far north of the Arctic Circle means perpetual sun. It is so cold that in winter the ocean freezes, causing a thin layer of frozen fresh water that builds up over time, known as sea ice. Unlike glacial ice that is compressed from snowpack and breaks off in chunks that rise up several meters above sea level, sea ice stays relatively flat – like a vast plain of white that stretches as far as the eye can see. When the ice breaks up, it forms interlocking pieces that slowly and gradually drift around and apart.

This is where polar bears like to roam. 95% of bears can be found on sea ice, where their main source of food congregates. Their favorite is the ringed seal - mainly because it is mostly fat. Polar bears don't eat much of the meat; instead, they favor blubber. They will also hunt bearded seals and harp seals, whales, and juvenile walruses.

We continued sailing north from the tip of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago. We sailed north and had just reached the beginning edge of sea ice - still in open waters just skirting the edge of ice -  when the call was made that bears had been spotted. One was solitary and fairly far in the distance, but the other was closer to the ship. It was mostly hidden behind a mound of snow, but the ship was slowly creeping closer and soon we could make out the outline of a mother bear and her two cubs. She woke up and wandered further away from the ship before settling down again with the cubs. We floated quietly alongside the ice, drifting closer and closer, but she seemed to have settled down again for the night.

After watching the bear for a while, Jeanne and I decided to go down to bed around 11:30PM. I was getting ready to close the porthole when I glanced outside, and to my surprise the bears were right outside the window. In a stroke of luck and perfect timing, just then the mother was startled and ran right across our field of view. Because we were down in our rooms, we got a great eye-level view. We could easily see the look of urgency in the mother’s face, and the curiosity and confusion in the eyes of the cubs. Turns out the solitary male had made his way over to the ship, and would potentially kill the cubs. Luckily, this one was more interested in us than the other bears, and spent some time circling the ship before wandering away.

For the rest of the next day, we cruised around the sea ice looking for wildlife. There were several seals (bearded and ringed) that dotted the landscape, but for the most part it was a quiet day. During the evening briefing, we were told by the staff that we’d only cruise in the ice through dinner, then we’d have to turn south in order to get to Hinlopen Strait, away from the sea ice where there was less chance to see a bear.

And just before dessert, the call was made: another bear had been spotted. This one looked curiously at the ship before slipping into the water and swimming several hundred meters to another ice floe. 

  

Friday gave us views of two more polar bears – one from afar that was wandering the shoreline near Kapp Fanshawe - unusual that it was on land...

And one on a swath of fast ice, feeding on a recent seal kill.

Covering his kill with snow to protect it from scavengers

The bloody remnants of the kill site

As we cruised around the ice floe, we could see where the bear had made the kill near the edge of the water. Because the ice is constantly changing and melting, being by the edge was risky since there was no guarantee it would be there the next day. We could see where the bear had made his kill, and could follow where he had dragged it further inland (inice?).

It was great seeing these polar bears, looking healthy and active. The sea ice is shrinking - multi-year ice is rapidly melting, and there has been no new sea ice formed the past year. For a species that has adapted so well to this unique environment, it is scary to think how climate change will effect the polar bear population. I'm definitely glad I got the chance to see them while I could, out on the ice!

Where in the world am I?

Where exactly am I, when I say I’m in the Arctic? There is a lot of mystery and confusion about where I am – in fact, before I left I heard over and over, “When are you going to Antarctica?” Nope. Pretty much the exact opposite...

The Arctic and Antarctic Circles are defined by the areas on the Earth which experience at least one complete day of direct sunlight, as well as at least one complete day of no direct sunlight, each year. Because of the shifting tilt of the earth, this line actually varies year to year but it is at about a latitude 66.5° North and South. The polar region, on the other hand, extends beyond the Arctic and Antarctic circles; parts of the Greenland Ice Cap are nearly 400 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and the Antarctic Peninsula stretches far north of the Antarctic Circle. Because of this, the Arctic boundary is sometimes defined as the northern tree line, and other times defined by average temperature.

Coal trams, from the days of mining

Regardless of what the exact definition may be, we were far, far into the polar region. The Svalbard Archipelago is a group of islands about 800 miles from continental Norway. It's an unincorporated area under Norwegian sovereignty, so we had to go through customs when we flew from Oslo. We boarded the ship in Longyearbyen, on the island of Spitsbergen, located at around 78° N latitude (for reference, Stanford University in Palo Alto, California is at 37.4°N). Longyearbyen was started as a coal mining town, although for the most part the mines have shut down. 

Longyearbyen, along the shores of Adventfjorden

Longyearbyen is the northernmost town in the world, boasting the northernmost post office, museum, university, and airport.

There are more snowmobiles than residents (about 2 to 1!) and the ground is permafrost, so all the buildings are built on stilts (if not, your house will melt the permafrost and the structure will become unsound).

"Everywhere in Svalbard"
It's also the only white-on-black warning sign in Norway.

  

The world's northermost
(and largest) post box

Because of the permafrost, you can't to die in Svalbard (well, you can't be buried here), and you also can't be born - pregnant women are flown to the mainland a month before their due dates - mainly because the hospitals are equipped for emergencies.

It was tough keeping zombie
apocalypse jokes at a minimum...

Svalbard is also home to one of the most interesting places on earth: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. This 'doomsday vault' holds over 1.5 million seed samples as insurance in the even of large-scale regional or global crises. The frozen seeds are stored 430 feet above sea level (in case the ice caps melt), and is cooled to -18°C. Even if the refrigeration fails, it would take several weeks for the facility to warm up to the surrounding bedrock temperature of -3°C. This means the vault could preserve most major food crop seeds for hundreds, and possibly thousands of years.

On a sad note, the first withdrawal just happened, in 2015, because of the Syrian War...

Screams, statues, and ships, oh my!

I've met up with Jeanne (Kinder-3rd teacher from New Jersey) and Breanna (7-8th from Lion's Head, Canada), and checked in with National Geographic/Lindblad!

It turned out to be a beautiful day, so it was really nice getting to tour around Oslo. We started at the National Gallery, which is a great art museum that features, among other things, Edvard Munch's The Scream.








We then went to Vigeland Sculpture Park, a huge outdoor park that features 212 bronze sculptures by Gustav Vigeland depicting various humans. Some were hilarious, like this man being attacked by babies:












and the most famous of the Vigeland statues, the Angry Boy:












After that, we went to the Fram Museum which celebrates polar exploration. Inside are two original exploration vessels, the Fram (which went on several Arctic and Antarctic expeditions between 1893 and 1912) and the Gjoa (which traversed the Northwest Passage led by Roald Amundsen in 1904-06). You can explore inside the Fram, and it was interesting to see how those old polar explorers lived for years at a time in harsh conditions. Their rooms were teeeeny tiny, and their beds looked like miniature coffins. Guess when I go aboard the National Geographic Explorer, I really can't complain about anything!

Even though we only had an hour total, Jeanne and I wanted to see the Kon Tiki which is housed in a museum next door, so we decided to rush over for a quick peek. Not only did the museum have the Kon Tiki, but it had the Ra II (a reed boat a la the ancient Egyptians, which Heyerdahl sailed from North Africa to the Caribbean).

The Kon Tiki

The Kon Tiki expedition was really an experiment - a 1947 journey by balsawood raft across the Pacific Ocean. Norwegian explorer/writer Thor Heyerdahl wanted to prove that people from pre-Incan Peru could have originally populated Polynesia around A.D. 500. It was amazing to see what the actual raft looked like...  101 days on board, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! Now I REALLY can't complain about conditions on board the Explorer... (not that I ever would!)

Interesting fact - Heyerdahl almost drowned as a child and didn't really know how to swim when he set out to cross the Pacific aboard the Kon Tiki. That takes some guts!

We headed back to the hotel to pick up Breanna (who stayed back to take a nap), and set off for a dinner. We walked down to Aker Brygge to see the shops along the harbor. We had dinner at Louise's, a waterfront cafe - I had to try the "Taste of Norway" starter (which included reindeer pate, aquavite sausage, cured lamb, duck, and cured ham), as well as Norwegian fish soup.

Naturalist Tom, speaking to the group

We got back to the hotel right at 7, in time for the National Geographic/Lindblad reception. The ship holds 148 guests, and they seemed to range from retirees down to a family with a 7-year old kid. Tom Ritchie, one of the National Geographic naturalists, gave a short talk and asked how many people had been to Antarctica - amazingly, around 1/3 or more of the people raised their hands!! This is definitely a group of adventurous explorers...

We'll be flying to Longyearbyen tomorrow, so it's off the bed early for us! (of course, we first had to enjoy the fruit plate that was left in our room... it's nice being in a first class hotel!)

My roomie Breanna, with our evening gift

In Oslo... the adventure begins

Time to get excited...

I'm in Oslo, Norway, getting ready to meet up with my fellow Fellows. We'll be headed up to the Svalbard, the 'Land of the Ice Bears.' Not only do I hope to see polar bears, but most likely walruses, reindeer, and I'm crossing my fingers for narwhal (they actually saw some a few days ago!!!) Tomorrow, the tour officially starts and Breanna and Jeanne will arrive. I decided to come a day early just to have a little extra time in Oslo.

I checked into my hotel at around 3PM and immediately walked down to the Nobel Peace Center, a small museum that highlights the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. The main exhibit was about one of the most controversial prizes, the 1935 given to German journalist Carl von Ossietzky. Originally, nobody won in 1935 and Ossietzky was retroactively awarded in 1936. He had been convicted of treason by the Nazis for writing about German rearmament (in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles), so the Nobel committee and the Norwegians were afraid of offending Germany. In fact, two committee members resigned and the King of Norway skipped the ceremony, and Hitler later wrote a law banning all Germans from receiving the Nobel Prize in the future.

The Nobel Peace Center

Fun fact! Did you know that Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel made his money as a major arms manufacturer and inventor of dynamite? The Peace Prize is the only Nobel Prize not chosen or given by Sweden. The 5 members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, and the award ceremony is held in Oslo City Hall.

After touring the museum, I walked along the Aker Brygge wharf up to the Akershus Fortress and Castle along the waterway of Oslo Fjord.

Akershus Fortress

The view from Akershus Fortress to Oslo Fjord

There are some great views from the top of the hill, but I was way too tired to do much more than walk around. Jet lag is kicking in, so I'll save the rest for tomorrow...!

In space, no one can hear me scream...

A WEEK AT SPACE CAMP


My Summer of Ridiculous Awesomeness just started, and I'm off to a great start. This week I've had the privilege of attending the Honeywell Educators @ Space Academy, held at the US Space and Rocket Center (USSRC) in Huntsville, Alabama. 100 teachers from around the globe are here for the 5-day Space Academy for Educators camp, learning about space and participating in various hands-on activities like astronaut training exercises, jet simulations, and space missions. Seriously! Space camp!!

I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and went directly to the USSRC for dinner before checking into the dorms at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. My roommates are Pauline (New Mexico), Jodie (New Mexico), and Nidhi (Pune, India), and we're all on the same crew: Team Destiny.

We were given lots of goodies - a backpack, water bottle, flash drive, three t-shirts, and a jumpsuit that we have to wear for many of our simulations.

Pauline, me, and Jodie trying on our jumpsuits

THURSDAY
On our first full day, we met our fellow Destiny teammates. At camp, there are 100 educators from all over the world - including teachers from Australia, Finland, Mexico, India, and Romania in my group alone!

We heard from Ed Buckbee,
founder of Space Camp and
friend of Wernher von Braun

A tour of the grounds

 

Team Destiny with astronaut Bob Springer

We also saw the Saturn V rocket that first brought man to the moon, and had a lecture by Bob Springer, who flew on two different space shuttle missions (one of which is still classified, 25 years later... he'd tell us what he did, but then he'd have to kill us...)

Chillin' under a Saturn V Rocket...

At the end of the night, we relaxed at the Biergarten, a weekly event held in the Saturn V Hall of the Davidson Center. It is amazing how many people can fit under a gigantic rocket!









FRIDAY
It was a day chock-full of team-building, critical thinking, and educational activities, but we couldn't be more excited. We have so much fun with the 15 people on Team Destiny, and we got to work together at the Low Elements course this morning doing teamwork exercises, a la low ropes course.. 

One of the best things about Space Camp is getting to go on our own missions into outer space. There is a mock-International Space Station (with orbiter and command center), and after a tour we did a prep-run of our Alpha mission.

We're in the ISS!

We also built rockets (which we'll shoot off later in the week) and did an ECLSS lesson (Environmental Control and Life Support Systems) - essentially, things in the ISS environment need to be reused, so we had to find a way to filter urine into drinkable water.

We found out later that we made the local news - and not only that, but our little group of friends (Beth, Lauren, Pauline, me, and Jodie) were the featured picture! Definitely the only moment when we weren't goofing off, and miraculously the camera caught us at the right time.

We ended the night with a truly meta- experience - watching the cheesy 80's movie "Space Camp" here at Space Camp!!!

Space Camp at Space Camp!

SATURDAY

It was flippin' fun!

Holy cow, we did so much amazing stuff today! It was mostly hands-on astronaut training activities, with an amazing mission thrown in for good measure. We started the day on the Multi-Axis Trainer, which gives astronauts the experience of disorientation in the event their crafts lose control. For the most part, you don't get too sick because your stomach stays centered and your head supposedly doesn't move in the same direction long enough for your ears to get wonky, but I still felt a bit woozy afterwards...

Parachute water landing...

Getting pulled out of the water.

After that, we had a quick presentation about getting radio time for schools to connect with the ISS, and then we went to the Aviation Challenge Water Survival activities. For this, we trained on what to do in the event of a parachute water landing, a helicopter crash, and a water rescue.

I've been rescued!

We spent so much time at the Aviation Challenge that we had to scarf down lunch in order to make it to our Alpha Mission. For this simulation,  the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis had to go to the ISS and switch out the crew. My job was solely on the ISS - I was a Flight Engineer I, which means I had to go on an EVA (ExtraVehicular Activity)... a spacewalk. Beth and I had to go out in space suits and built a structure outside, while sitting in neutral gravity seats. In the meantime, other people had jobs in Mission Control (MOCR - Mission Operations Control Room) and in the orbiter.

At first, Beth and I had to give ourselves a physical exam - we took our temperatures, blood pressure, and pulse. Then we got ready for our EVA. The space suits were really bulky and difficult to wear - first, we put on some "long underwear" - large pants with suspenders. On top of that we had vests with ice packs - really necessary because it gets HOT inside the suit, but heavy and unwieldy. The jacket goes over it all and zipped up in the back. On our head is a headset under our helmets, and we have moon boots and gloves that impede fine motor control.

I'm ready to go!

Beth and I, on our EVA.

Putting together the structure outside was actually pretty difficult, since the materials we were using were old (so the screws were stripped and wouldn't stay in place) and the gloves made it hard to manipulate the screws. We were seated on low gravity chairs (which balance our body weight using water tanks), so we had to hook our feet onto the metal structure to keep ourselves from floating away or bumping into each other. On top of that, we had several mishaps and equipment failures, including our radios cutting in and out (and Beth's never working) and my suspenders (which weren't properly tightened so they slipped down to my elbow, preventing me from lifting my arm).  Even so, it was so much fun being out there and getting to wear and work in the space suits.

The Apache Helicopter gunner and pilot

After the mission, our crew trainer Cristy was nice and gave us an hour and a half of free time to explore the museum, grounds, and gift shop. We started by going outside to ride the Space Shot, which shot us up to simulate a launch and to give a moment of weightlessness. It was over 90° outside so we didn't want to stay out too long, so we went back into the museum. We spent most of the time waiting in line and doing the Apache Helicopter attack simulation (which was like a really glitchy video game, but fun sitting in the helicopter).

Our next job was training for the Bravo Mission, which we'll be doing the next day. This time I'm the CAPCOM officer, meaning I'm in charge of communications with the capsule. I stay in mission command center, this time on the Moon at the Shackleton Operations Command Room, or SOCR. This job requires a lot of talking and switching from channel to channel (talking with SOCR and the Orion) plus problem solving all anomalies (system failures that pop up in the capsule), so I definitely won't be bored!

We had dinner, and to round out a busy day we ended with the 1/6 gravity chair, which simulates walking on the moon. It's like the world's slowest trampoline, but lots of fun!!

I'm on the moon!! (cue Baywatch slo-mo running music...)

SUNDAY
It was a much more relaxing day, even though we accomplished a ton. Team Destiny started the day with sessions by the Honeywell Ambassador teachers. First was a talk by Seema, a teacher from India who has done so much at her school integrating sustainability practices, ecology education and space education. It definitely sounds like she has amazing support from her administration, and her kids are well funded and high-functioning, but nonetheless she inspired all of us. We also heard from Vanessa, who showed us how to bring kids to Space Camp (not really relevant for me, but fun to watch).

We then went to launch the rockets that we'd built a few days ago. There is a large field where we ignite the engines (little gunpowder capsules), and in turn we set them off to see if they would work. Each rocket has three parts, with a parachute stuffed in the bottom, and our team had several spectacular failures. Mine went off fine, but I gave it to Karen, whose rocket ended up in the trees.

OLE 1, PROP, and CAPCOM,
hard at work

We had a long leisurely lunch, followed by our Bravo Mission - this time, it was set in the year 2041 and we were based on the moon inside the Shackleton Crater. Our goal was to send the Orion shuttle to the Rising Star station to fix damage done by an asteroid. My job was inside the SOCR - as the CAPCOM officer in charge of communications with everyone inside the Orion capsule. I was constantly switching channels on my headset from A (hearing what was going on at SOCR), to B (hearing the Orion crew).

My SOCR workstation

It was actually hard and stressful, because there was a very strict timeline and script that we needed to follow, but there were anomalies thrown in that I had to solve and direct the Orion crew to fix. On top of that, the scripts weren't well written and had several mistakes, and we weren't confident enough to do a lot of improvising. Even so, we successfully landed the Orion and had a great time.

Team Destiny, hard at work

*** Commercial break for nerds ***

Cristy gave us another chunk of time to wander, and this time some of us returned to the Davidson Center (Saturn V Hall) and talked to another retired NASA alumnus. Again, we heard some amazing stories about his time working on the Apollo, Gemini, and Space Shuttle missions. He told us about Skylab (and how the arm holding the solar panels got stuck, so the commander had to hammer it loose and was flung out into space by the spring loaded arm... luckily, he was tethered in, so he yo-yo'd a few times before reeling himself back on board), and about the space debris from the Sat V Apollo 12 stage 4 rocket, which was supposed to use moon's gravity to get flung into space but instead got stuck in orbit around the sun... then fell into the Lagrange point (the point between two bodies where gravity is basically the same) between the Earth and the Sun so it got pulled into Earth's orbit. It is now projected to fall back into the lagrange point and will most likely get sucked back into the Sun's orbit in the future. In case you're wondering, you can read more about it here.

*** Back to our regular programming ***

Taking external egg temp every 30 seconds

We ended the evening with another design challenge - creating an ablative heat shield that would protect our 'egg'stronaut during a 5- minute atmospheric reentry (a blowtorch). My team - Hermelina, Josh, Jodie, and Lauren - used aluminum foil, cork, steel wool, and other materials to make a successful shield. It actually kept the egg at the coolest temperature of any team - it went from a starting outside temp of 88° to an end temp of 112°. Some other teams actually cooked their eggs, and got up to temperatures in the mid- and upper- 200s.

That night we had fun watching Top Gun, with Josh and Lauren wearing their flight suits throughout the entire movie...


MONDAY
Our last day of camp was bittersweet - even though we've only been together for 5 days, Team Destiny became close friends quickly, and we'll miss being together nonstop. The morning started out fairly relaxing, learning about camp opportunities for visually impaired students and other special needs groups. Then we watched the IMAX movie Journey to Space, which was especially fun since there were several people who had never seen a domed IMAX screen before.

Working on our rover

We then moved on to our next design challenge - the X-Prize. This challenge is modeled after Google's $20 million challenge of landing a rover on the moon - we were to land our 'egg'stronaut rover safely on a lander inside a hula hoop target, then remove the rover and roll it down a ramp for as long a distance as possible. Our lander was the only one that made it into the hoop, and the rover had the second-best distance.

We also made paper rockets that were launched by blowing on a straw - each rocket had different variables that we were supposed to test to see what worked best. Mine, which was weighted at the nose cone, flew the farthest.

Homer Hickham Jr, Rocket Boy

The guest speaker for the afternoon was Homer Hickham Jr, author of Rocket Boys and the inspiration for the movie October Sky. He had a great story about overcoming obstacles, and was kind enough to give us each a personalized autographed copy of his book.

Our Commander's Cup patch!

That evening was graduation, which made us officially Space Camp Alumni. Unbeknownst to us, we'd been graded during all our missions and design challenges, and surprisingly, Team Destiny won the Commander's Cup for having the best score for our challenges. We were given mission patches for our flight suits.


The graduation dinner was held in the Sat V Hall, and it's amazing to think that a group dinner of over 100 people can have a sitdown dinner (including a band and dance floor) under the nose cone of a Saturn V rocket, and still only take up  1/4 of the room...!

The evening ended with music and dancing - a great way to end a great week. We leave Huntsville tomorrow, and I'm really going to miss the camaraderie we built with Team Destiny and the rest of the Space Camp crew. Thanks again, Honeywell, for such an incredible experience, and thank you to everyone at the US Space and Rocket Center and Space Camp.