The Whole Wide World

I received some more questions from Hilary-yay!

Why is the station called McMurdo? This is a great question. I didn’t know the answer either, so we are all learning something together here. I am going to share directly from good ol’Wiki on this.

Mcmurdo takes its name from its geographic location on McMurdo Sound, named after Lieutenant Archibald McMurdo of British ship HMS Terror. The Terror, commanded by Northern Irish explorer Francis Crozier, along with expedition flagship Erebus under command of English Explorer James Clark Ross, first charted the area in 1841.

That actually explains so many names here. Erebus is the name of the volcano and we are on/next to the Ross Ice Shelf and Ross Sea. And just a little more from that paragraph…

The British explorer Robert Falcon Scott established a base camp close to this spot in 1902 and built a cabin there that was named Discovery Hut. It still stands as a historic monument near the water’s edge on Hut Point at McMurdo Station. 

So many of my photos are from Hut Point. In the summer I walked there every morning before work to check on the seals and scout for penguins.

Has anyone famous(other than you) been stationed there?

On the scale of famousness, I am not aware of anyone famous famous being stationed here. Other than the early explorers as mentioned above and also local legends. Like the pub Gallagher’s is named after Chuck Gallagher, who was stationed down here many times, but while wintering over in 1997 he passed away from heart failure. A memorial is held every year for him at the pub.

Personally, I think all the NASA people are famous. During the summer season, I got to meet Carla Heroz who is the Antarctic Operations Manager for the US Office of Polar Programs. She oversees all three US stations down here. Before taking this role she worked for NASA for two decades and spent the majority of her career as a technical liaison between Mission Control Moscow and Mission Control Houston. I was a total fan girl for her. Apparently my Dad was too, because I told him about a presentation she gave us one evening in the galley back in November and he ended up looking her up and they corresponded via email for a bit-haha! Her presentation was about her career in Mission Control for The International Space Station. She was super engaging and very funny.

And When NASA and the Canadian Space Agency announced the astronauts for the Artemis II moon mission, it was very cool to learn that one of the four is a former USAP participant, too, Christina Hammock Koch. Christina worked as a Research Associate in the United States Antarctic Program from 2004 to 2007, spending three-and-a-half years traveling the Arctic and Antarctic regions. She wintered over at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station and a season at Palmer Station.

Thanks for asking Hilary…I’ll share the other two questions tomorrow.