South Pole to Get Highway

tetrad writes "The New Scientist magazine reports that the US is building a road to the South Pole. The "highway" would cross the Ross Ice Shelf and then pass through the Transantarctic Mountains (map here). Convoys of tractors will be the only traffic on the road, bringing fuel and heavy equipment to the South Pole, as well as enabling the installation of a $250M fibre-optic communications cable (discussed previously)."

says who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they ask the rest of the world, or did they just assume ownership of the south pole??

Structural problems

[skubalon]

Wouldn't that have some significant problems in structural stability. I mean it's built on an ice shelf. Ice floats. Antarctic ice shelves have been known to dissapear [slashdot.org]

Sounds like a waste of money to me!

Watch Out Chile!

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Antarctic is not owned by anyone, it is international territory, and governed by an international committee, with representatives from signatory countries. Therefore I would have to assume that before any highway is laid, this committee would have to approve it. I would say that if they're announcing the plans to do this, it's already been approved. I mean, it is a useful project. Scientists living in Antarctica currently have many problems involving not being able to get supplies and not being able to easily communicate their findings 'back home.'

On a side note, "Both Chile and Argentina have gone to great lengths to make their claims in Antarctica part of their national territory. While there has been no recognition of these claims by any other sovereign state, both countries have great nationalistic pride in these claims. In August of 1973, an Argentine cabinet meeting was held in the area claimed by Argentina. Chile's president Pinochet spent a week in Antarctica in 1977 which caused Argentina to devise the boldest plans for claiming sovereignty. In the fall of 1978, a pregnant Argentine woman was send to live in Antarctica and in Jan. 1979, Emile Marco Palma was the first child born in Antarctica. Following the pattern in colonialism as seen in North America, Emile takes his place in history along side Virginia Dare. The Argentines followed with a wedding in Feb. 1979. Both countries have maintained colonies of civilian dependents living year round at their bases and tourism from bases both in Chile and Argentina has grown significantly in the last decades." So perhaps this means...WAR! Yes, let's fight over a piece of ice.

It's safe

[siskbc]

Except for maybe the outer few miles, it's completely safe. The earth won't warm that much, and the shelf will only melt at the edges (where it's within a degree or so of 0C now). Within, there's about no chance. The ice in that shelf is *incredibly* old - that's why they take ice cores from it to get a picture of the atmosphere tens of thousande of years ago.

Sounds like an X-Files thing

[westfirst]

What do you be that there's something terribly secret down there that needs $250 million to develop. These weird "scientific explorations" are often just fascades for weird political operations. The Glomar Challenger, after all, was searching for Russian subs not manganese nodules or whatever the cover story said.

Re:About Time!

[gabec]

I told my friend about this article and her response was: "Hah! Forget world hunger and stopping war, let's build a road to the moon!" lol.

Re:Longevity?

[AGMW]

Satelites have to orbit the Earth (or any body) over a Great Circle, and it just so happens that if that Great Circle is the Equator, then the satelite can appear to be stationary to an Earth observer.

You could put a few satelites in a Polar Orbit so that at any one time one or more of them would be visible. You would have to be able to switch the signal between the satelites as they came into and left LoS with the Pole (whichever one you were at), but isn't that just like Mobile Phones when your are driving (with hands-free of course) and it switches you between cells?

Re:Two birds with one stone

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but there are over six billion of us, and the cumulative effects can be pretty big.

Also, I live in South Australia -- we can't be outside for longer than 30 minutes during the summer without getting burnt (without suntan lotion). It used to be OK to do this 20 years ago, it's not any more. Personally, I blame the hole in the ozone layer for that one...

Re:Gas stations?

[timeOday]

Hey, it's your crappy system, next time you spin off a colony get your units right first.

Re:About Time!

[CrayzyJ]

she meant elevator [highliftsystems.com] to the moon, right?

But then it's stupid...

[ElGanzoLoco]

The WHOLE POINT of putting a scientific base in the south pole is to access data you only find in remote places that are not affected by human activity (fresh ice that "keeps samples" of the earth's atmosphere in the air bubbles, etc etc). So if they start to trash the south pole with a road, heavy machinery (diesel engines) to build it and more supplies for the scientists to consume, then the whole point of the camp disappears. Otherwise, well, they'd just have set it up in New Jersey or something... But well; I guess they have a point with this fiber-optic internet connection stuff there: more porn for those solitary, frustrated south-pole-scientists! Yay!