Terry came in to see how I was doing... "oh I'm just finishing up" "Good," he says, "lets bring the data to have Mahesh look at it...the winds are dying down..." That's when it hits me... he is thinking about a possible launch tonight... its -50F and its cold, no not just cold, f**king cold. Ok, I'm thinking, this is bad. Just go with it for now, he's not going to find anything and its way too cold. Wrong. Things just continue to go downhill from there, next thing I know, I'm in the lab preparing an ozonesonde and they are getting one of the big instruments ready. So it was a big launch, not a small ozonesonde balloon but a huge balloon that is hard to hold and manage as it is. Then Leslie walks in the lab because she was in the room showering since we were supposed to be snuggling into our beds. She tries convincing him that it is cold. Nothing, we still are preparing for a launch. So its about 10 pm, everything is ready (after several things went wrong and had to be fixed) and it is time to decide if the winds are low enough and if we are crazy enough to do this. Of course the gods being against us, its starting to warm up and the winds are fairly low (warm as in -40F now). Damn... it was a little tense for awhile... then Leslie and I state our concerns about the weather and wind chill (-65F). This can't happen we say, its just not safe... Finally... finally we convince Terry this is a bad idea... crisis averted for now. So instead, we are going to get up early and decide see if we can launch it in the morning... oh warm bed how I love thee and don't want to leave in the morning...
6 am the next morning (Fri), Leslie and I up, ready and heading to breakfast, then the lab. We are going to launch this morning, we have some help today and the weather is warmer (-20s), winds are calm. Fine lets do this. I'm pooped. Ok, jam to Micheal Jackson, get pumped, dance a little, beat it, get the van, load up and head to the launch site. Thankfully, everything went well on the ground. We filled the balloon, which is heavy (and I'm super sore from holding it today), spread out everything, turn on all the instruments and "up, up and away". No we are not done, time to run to the van, drive up the hill and make sure the data is coming in. Ok, moving antennas, fixing wires and watching data for the next 2 hours. Great... until the balloon is not following the right trajectory and going too far north. Since this is a big instrument, it is one that we go recover eventually but if it falls in the ocean, its gone forever. So it falls, we don't know where it is but we have hope. We have to wait until morning to get an email from the instrument with its location, if we get one 'Yay its not in the ocean', if we don't, damn. Lets go get some lunch.
By this time, its like walking zombies around here and Leslie and I decide that its nap time. We nap, I take a shower since it has been 2.5 days by now and I smell really bad. Back to the lab, get some more ozonesondes ready. Ok finally dinner time and after one moment of panic that we might try to launch again tonight, its off to bed. Thank heaven!!
So here I am Friday morning, I'm super tired, sore and cold. By the way, we did get an email with the location of the instrument so it is not in the ocean and we can go get it later. Woo two weeks down!
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