…is really big. It’s an interesting perspective, and it makes Scott’s attempt and Amundsen’s success, almost a century ago now, all the more impressive. It would be like a dash from south Texas to upper Missouri, and back, in much harsher conditions.
I would note that the key to success was supply caches along the way. It’s too bad that NASA can’t accept that lesson. I should write an alternate history of how NASA would have reached the south pole, using a heavy-lift dog sled.
“NASA would have reached the south pole, using a heavy-lift dog sled”
Pulled by a 380-foot-tall dog…
Nah, that would require basic genetic research and technology development, and NASA has gotten out of the technology business.
No, they’d use a whole lot of regular-size dogs, dropping them along the way. And they’d end up dropping most of them within 100 yards of the coast.
Actually, Amundson ate his dogs as he went. So does this mean this is the “expendable rocket” approach or the “Mars Direct” approach?
So does this mean this is the “expendable rocket” approach or the “Mars Direct” approach?
I’m not sure it has an exact space transportation analogy. It would be as if instead of just dropping engines, you used them as fuel for the others, and yourself (I assume that he fed the dogs to the dogs, too?)
Yes, he fed the dogs to the dogs. So did Scott. They also fed themselves with the dogs. And the ponies. Standard practice of the time.
I am convinced one (and only one) of the reasons Scott chose not to rely heavily on dogs for his final expedition included the fact that he had to go to the public for funding, and saying “Well, we are going to do this, and that, and that, and oh by the way we are going to eat the puppies along the way, and now don’t you feel like giving me some money?” is just not a good fundraising pitch,either today or then. The Edwardians were very sentimental about pets, after all…
You really don’t ever want to explore too much what a hungry sled dog from the Golden Age of Antarctic Exploration would have ate. The answer is anything–and I do mean *anything*.
The correct analogy for Amundsen is still more expendable rocket less Mars Direct. Amundsen only made water from the land, nothing else. The dogs, in this sense, can be viewed as a “fuel cell” that helped provide motive power and also had a consumable byproduct once expended (eg. protein). Note that because they made water out of snow, there still has not been a major terrestrial land expedition that ever entirely divorced itself from local resources. Lesson for the future.
Speaking of living off the land, Scott’s South Pole party, from the top of the Beardmore to the final camp, never had a chance to live off of local animal sources, and thus it didn’t have a chance to survive when the supplies it carried ran out short of One Ton Depot. Other parties that got immobilized or had their motive power reduced were able to get by off of the local fauna, and that made the difference. Another lesson for the future.
Incidentally, and as a matter of shameless self-promotion, I’ll be giving a paper at AIAA 2010 in Orlando this January titled “Fatalities on Past Antarctic Exploration Expeditions as Manned Spaceflight Hazard Identification Guides.” Hopefully I’ll even have an audience member or two, but one darest not get one’s hopes up too high.
My impression was that all Antarctic expeditions used depots, and that Amundsen’s success had more to do with his using dogs instead of ponies, and with he and his men being expert skiiers, and with a little bit of luck, since Antarctic weather above the Barrier can destroy even the best and most conservatively-planned expedition.
Amundsen’s luck was of the kind that comes to those who are well trained, prepared, and supplied. The greater efficiency of dog sleds meant he needed to cache less (I am not an expert on Amundsen, since my research to date has been focused more on why things failed rather than why they suceeded, so I won’t comment on the number of depots he had. I could go to my research library to find out for sure, but am away from it for the moment). The greater speed of dog travel meant that he had less of a window of opportunity for bad weather, trouble, disease, sickness, etc. Scott, on the other hand, would probably have been okay (except for Evans) if bad weather hadn’t hit. But it did–and the reason he was affected by the winter-like conditions in February, 1912 was because he was still on the barrier, due to a slower method of travel, and that method of travel did not allow for carrying enough consumable margin (fuel and food) to wait out the bad times. That is where being able to live off the land would have helped–but no penguins on the barrier. Thus, they died. By the time the weather improved enough to travel (and contra Solomon, I do think 11 day blizzards were possible back then. One happened a few years later on Shackleton’s Ross Sea expedition), Scott and his men were too weak to travel on–from lack of food and fuel (dehydration due to lack of fuel to melt snow).
Basically, Scott’s method did not have an exceptionally large consumable margin. Amundsen’s did.
You know, I gave it some thought, and even though all analogies are imperfect, the fact is that in a sense both Scott and Amundsen *did* use heavy-lift. Scott’s was called the Terra Nova, and Amundsen’s was the Fram, as each expedition started from Northern Europe. That would then make McMurdo Sound LEO, or the space station. What have you.
Having said that, I really don’t have a dog in the hunt about the current architecture wars.