A little side experiment

I think I mentioned before how everyone helps one another out down here. Mark was asked by another neutrino experiment to measure the flatness of the surface of the snow. They use radio-waves reflected off the continent from a balloon flown over Antarctica to look for
ultra-high energy neutrinos. The task was to go out at least a few hundred meters from the station, find a spot where the surface has been undisturbed as possible (i.e. not plowed, walked, or skied on) and measure the flatness in a line along the direction of the wind.
For equipment, we had two circular pieces of plywood, a small inclinometer (a device that measures tilt, kind of like a bubble level but with numbers), pen, and paper.

So, the four of us, Kirill, Gary, Mark, and I checked out a radio from the comms center at the station, and set out on foot against the wind, away from the station in the direction where the snow is least disturbed. When we found a good spot, we inched our way back with the
wind on our back, 50 cm by 50 cm, gently placing one plywood circle on the snow, get two readings with the inclinometer, along and perpendicular to the wind, place the other plywood circle in front of the other, and repeat. It gets pretty cold kneeling on the snow and writing with only glove liners on.

When it's really cold, regular pens stop working. Gary owns a U.S. space pen developed by NASA for who-knows-how-many-million dollars so the astronauts can write under zero gravity. Kirill owns a Russian space pen: a pencil.