The Air Force May Be the Last Hope for the Antarctic Research Season

For a huge percentage of furloughed government workers, returning to work from the shutdown will be a nuisance: They'll have to answer nearly three weeks' worth of e-mails and voicemails, catch up on missed time, and try to get projects back on schedule. But the problem gets a bit more difficult for researchers who were scheduled to conduct research in Antarctica.

On the day of the shutdown, Kelly Falkner, director of the United States Antarctic Program, announced that the US Antarctic stations would be put into "caretaker" status, in which a small number of "excepted" employees "remained on the job expressly to ensure the safety of personnel and property in the Polar Regions." Everyone else was shipped back to the United States. When are they going to get back?

The timing couldn't have been worse: October marked the beginning of the research season, when the weather is just getting warm enough for scientists to begin their work. Research in Antarctica is notoriously difficult and slow. If you'll remember, it took Russian scientists more than 20 years to drill through the 2.4 miles of ice separating Lake Vostok's liquid water with the surface. The research season often runs only through February, so missing three weeks in early October can be devastating. It's also got the National Science Foundation reeling about how to resume research.

"With the partial government shutdown now ended, the National Science Foundation will restore the planned 2013-14 austral summer US Antarctic Program activities to the maximum extent possible," the agency said in a release Thursday. "Planned deployments of scientific and support staff were either disrupted or canceled, and in some cases personnel were removed from Antarctica.  With funding in place under a continuing resolution, NSF is directing all efforts towards an orderly resumption of seasonal activities."

The confusion surrounding who's going to get resume their research in Antarctica and who isn't has researchers thinking: What now?

"I've heard predictions that it will take 2-3 weeks to get everyone back and start supporting science. So that would put the whole schedule about 2-3 weeks behind is my guess. That may be too late for a lot of projects," Peter Doran, an Antarctic environmental researcher at the University of Illinois-Chicago, told me. "There will definitely be projects that needed to be there for early season, or are really big and needed the early season to get prepared. Anything that doesn't go in this year will need to go next year—and next year is already full, so there will be a ripple effect."

Doran says he hasn't heard anything about his project yet, but that the United States military may get involved to help speed things up. That's not unprecedented: A spokesperson for the United States Air Force told me that the military regularly shuttles scientists to and from Antarctica, but this time, with scientists who were in Antarctica already back in the States, it may require a more concerted effort. That might include flights aboard Boeing C-17s, a troop transport aircraft that can hold more than 170,000 pounds of cargo or 134 troops.

"My hope is there will be some special arrangements made with the military to allow us to throw a lot of C-17 flights at the problem and get caught up fast," Doran said.

The NSF would not say whether they are in talks to make that happen or not, and the military spokesperson said that it's a possibility, but the plans haven't been made public yet.

It's clear the NSF has a lot of work to do if this year's research is going to be salvaged.

"It must be understood that due to seasonally dependent windows and logistic limitations, certain research and operations activities may be deferred," the agency said. "Over the coming days, NSF will work with the USAP support organizations and researchers to recover planned research and operations activities to the extent possible."