But, the benefit of using water for plant growth outweigh the use of energy to melt it. The Station’s water supply is low and conservation is important: using water requires ice to be melted. In addition, each staff member is allowed only two showers per week, each two minutes long. Relative humidity at the South Pole is in the single digits in the chamber, it’s 60 percent. A humid environment, even if in a small chamber, is a welcome relief for chapped lips and dry skin. Some even reserve the room for dinner dates (there is a small table and couch in the foyer to the chamber). Staff also enjoy going into the chamber to read, relax or hang out with others. It provides us with a green environment - something that we miss for the eight months of being isolated as a researcher or someone who supports a researcher here at the South Pole.” It provides us with high humidity in the dry environment. “It provides us with bright light in the dark winter. The chamber provides other benefits besides nutritious vegetables. He communicates remotely with an assistant who maintains the greenhouse in-person at the Pole, and visits once every year or so to check on it. Patterson can control the conditions inside the chamber, including temperature, light and even the hydroponic solution in which the plants grow. The chamber grows edible plants in a soil-less hydroponics system of nutrient-rich water cantaloupe, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, chives fresh herbs, leafy green vegetables like kale and lettuce, sunflowers, nasturtiums and other edibles thrive here throughout the year. “Through a computer and camera, I’m able to access the chamber and assist with questions that the operator might have,” he said. Lane Patterson manages the South Pole greenhouse from his office at the University of Arizona, with help from a team of horticulturalists and engineers. ![]() ![]() The growth chamber will feed crew members again this winter. Since 2005, this remotely-operated chamber has provided countless fresh vegetables, light and humidity to over 200 winter-over staff and scientists who have spent Southern Hemisphere winters at the coldest, darkest place on Earth. On the first floor of the station, near the end of hallway is a small greenhouse. ![]() South Pole Greenhouse Feeds Winter Crew, Simulates Lunar ChamberĪt the bottom of the Earth, atop a land mass covered with a two mile-thick slab of ice, sits the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station where 40 to 60 people live and work during each long, dark, bitter-cold winter. Broadcast meteorologist Dan Satterfield tours the greenhouse.
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