Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.17
Vivian Fuchs, left, and Admiral George
Dufek (US Navy) standing alongside Fuch's Snow-Cat
a few minutes after the crossing party arrived at the
South Pole on 20 January 1958. (Credit: NSF)
Laurence Gould, former chief scientist on the
rst
figure in
American academic circles, to lead it in the
United States.
This scheme for international research in the
polar regions needs to be seen in the context of
the time. The Soviet Union and the United States
were competing superpowers in an increasingly
militarised world, there were Antarctic territorial
disputes between Argentina, Chile and the UK,
and the world at large was still recovering
economically from World War II. It was clear to everyone that the Antarctic
research proposed would be very expensive yet, despite the political and economic
obstacles, it took place with all the nations working together and in agreement.
It stimulated the space race by suggesting that earth orbit satellites would be very
useful, an objective that persuaded the Soviets to rush to launch Sputnik 1 on 4
October 1957, soon to be followed by American satellites. It also precipitated a long-
held ambition of Vivian Fuchs, then the Director of the Falkland Islands
Dependencies Survey. He wanted to succeed in crossing the continent where
Shackleton had failed. Backed by grants from the British, New Zealand, Australian
and South African governments, as well as by donations from companies and
individuals, the joint British
Byrd expedition and a powerful
New Zealand Trans-Antarctic Expedition, lead by
Vivian Fuchs and Edmund Hillary,
-
finally crossed the surface of the continent
in a traverse of 3472 km in 99 days.
Twelve nations signed up to take part in the Antarctic component of IGY.
Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand and the UK already had
established stations but in some cases decided to build new ones for the IGY.
Japan, Belgium, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union and the United States
had to build their facilities from scratch.
For all the new aspirants the logistics were a serious problem but for the
United States, which elected to build at the South Pole, and for the Soviet Union,
at the Pole of Inaccessibility, the dif
culties were enormous. In both cases military
might was the order of the day with the navy, the army and the air force involved
along with the US Coastguard who supplied the icebreaking capacity. This had
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