anthony: the airport shuttle ivan the terra bus a road warrior -looking behemoth that takes us slowly towards our destination. bus driver: we re driving ivan. 40-feet long 67,000 pounds, 23 years old, made out of good canadian steel. sometimes the heat actually works. this year it does. anthony: it s no short hop to antarctica, and no easy thing to see it the way it should be seen. the last un-[ bleep ] up place on earth. bus driver: here we are. try to get plenty of rest and enjoy the antarctic. anthony: mcmurdo station, the largest u.s. base on the
don t want to hit with your snowmobile. people climb around on those things? ryan: the mountaineers here you know have drills to practice extricating somebody. anthony: there s a steep learning curve to flying down here, skillfully handle gale force winds, reduced control at high altitudes and the unpredictability of extreme turbulence around mountains and active volcanoes. ryan: slowly but surely climbing and it s minus 20 outside. anthony: erebus and that s ryan: mount terror. anthony: vo this is mount erebus, the southernmost active volcano on earth. antarctica was a great mystery for most of human history. only a theory, a great white space at the bottom of the world. ryan: we re just
those same types of missions with a c-130, which is unusual. female pilot: everything that built the station actually came on one of these c-130 s. they had to build it with trusses and pieces that could fit in the confines of an lc-130. male pilot: it s a fun job, and it s important to scientists, it s fantastic. anthony: in just a few hours, we cross the ross ice shelf, fly up the beardmore glacier into the heart of antarctica the polar plateau. how many miles from mcmurdo to the pole? around female pilot: 735 miles. anthony: scott walked that? what was going through his mind? male pilot: they loved to suffer. anthony: the first explorers who got here or came close, raced across the continent, striving to be the first.
shanghai have to plan for. anthony: antarctica, for all too obvious reasons, remained free of any sustained human contact until the mid-20th century when the u.s. navy launched operation deep freeze an enormous logistical enterprise that established the first permanent base here at mcmurdo in 1955. man: deep down in the ice, caves were cut, and here the supplies were packed away in a natural fridge. frozen meat, perfectly preserved, but where s that axe? let s have a bit of 15-year-old ham. anthony: since the national science foundation took over from the navy, things have gotten a lot less wild west around here. it feels like dorm life at college. bathrooms are communal,