COST OF SOUTH POLE BASE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28748, 20 November 1958, Page 9

COST OF SOUTH POLE BASE

£6m This Winter

The cost of keeping 18 men at the Amundsen-Scott I.G.Y. station at the South Pole this xx’inter was about £6m. Dr. Paul Siplc. who was the first I.G.Y. scientific leader at the Pole, has estimated that it cost a million dollars a man for the first 18 men to winter there, according to an I.G.Y. news release received in Christchurch. The first scientist to leave the South Pole station this season is a glaciologist, Mr S. P. Fazekas. who returned to Christchurch from McMurdo Sound this week. He said that all the men at the Pole were in good health, proud of their accomplishments, and happily anticipating their return home.

Work throughout the winter xvent on around the clock under the customary Antarctic schedule of two 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Life at the Pole was marked by interminable major and minor frustrations, Mr Fazekas said. Equipment was sometimes damaged in parachute drops, and extremely low temperatures ruined delicate instruments. The lowest temperature at the Pole this winter was 93 degrees beloxx’ zero, about nine degrees “warmer” than the lowest temperature recorded last xvinter.