Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Showering at the South Pole

brr.fyi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 101 posts

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#71

Post by benttoothpaste »

yayachiken wrote: post #57
thinking4real wrote: post #24

Heh, I read “mega shower” as “merge shower” and was expected a joke about showering with a colleague to expand time

Yes, this is the most obvious omission of the article. It really made me think about the kind of social dynamics that must be going on in an international and culturally-diverse research station like this one. Obviously, you will try to keep social friction low, and there might be some kind of "no co-showering" policy going on to avoid conflicts. I come from a country that is generally considered very open-minded abo…

South Pole station seems to be nudity friendly. They have saunas and 300 degree club: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_Club

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#72

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

amarant wrote: post #37
_boffin_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone ever engineer the shower heads to reduce the GPM and thus, increase their shower time?

Someone made an even better solution, surprised it's not used at the South pole actually! Originally developed for the ISS, this shower system filters and recycles shower water, saving both water and energy! https://orbital-systems.com/

"Use with Alexa" No thanks, guess I'll have to build my own, dumbed down manual version; A graywater catchment, with cyclone bin, settlement barrel, and solar evaporator, perhaps. Or just a standard garden-variety graywater harvesting setup.

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#73

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

LoveMortuus wrote: post #40

"Every 14 days: 480.2 seconds. That’s 8 minutes (!!!), 0.2 seconds. Congratulations! You’ve scrounged and saved, and you’ve managed to accrue enough shower-seconds to take an average American shower! You’ve sacrificed your health, well-being, social life, and potential future job prospects, but you can enjoy a truly obscene amount of shower, guilt-free." I'm a bit sceptical about the "sacrificed your health" part, I…

Every 14 days, two weeks pass. Together we can stop this!

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#74

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

atemerev wrote: post #49
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"why not just use a nuclear reactor" might be the most insane "why not just" I've ever seen in my life. :D

Come on, nuclear is not black magic. There are nuclear reactors in submarines and carriers, so why not at the polar station.

Why not just use a lithium-water furnace?

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#75

Post by 4gotunameagain »

pard68 wrote: post #67

I remember an episode of Dirty Jobs and they were discussing that after a month of not bathing the bacteria and other microscopic life on our skin hits a peak and is able, to some extent, to improve body odor. Maybe accrue all your minutes for a single massive year end shower.

Ah, this must be why homeless people smell like chamomile !

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#76

Post by eigenhombre »

pottertheotter wrote: post #20
eigenhombre wrote: post #6

Am tickled to see this here, having done these calculations myself in the same place several years running (due to summer visits at the Pole for work from 1997-2011). The author doesn't mention workouts. There are good gym facilities at the Pole, and there's nothing like a half-minute shower (the author's "Option 2") after using them. Now that I know there is an appetite for shower recipes, I'll share mine from 2011[…

Thanks for sharing. In the picture of Gary, what is the contraption in front of his mouth?

If I recall correctly, Gary made a little funnel apparatus to keep his goggles from fogging up.

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#77

Post by dctoedt »

lawlorino wrote: post #25

Quite enjoyed the writing and it’s a fun topic to think about. Would doing a daily “submarine shower” [0] be the best strategy here for maximising cleanliness? This would be use fifteen seconds with water on to get as wet as possible all over, turn water off and apply soap and shampoo, then water on for the last 15 seconds. (Note I’ve never actually tried this so ymmv) [0] https://sketchplanations.com/submarine-showe…

Those are generally known as "Navy showers," as opposed to "Hollywood showers."

(In one scene in The Hunt for Red October the sonarman Jones aboard the USS Dallas was told to take a Hollywood shower when he went off-watch as a reward for having detected and tracked the Red October.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_shower

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#78

Post by eigenhombre »

jiehong wrote: post #41

As water is the actual metered resource at 0.74 gallons per day, I’d prefer having it all poured into a bucket and use that to shower along with a glass or a sponge. It’s much easier to manage, and is pretty common practice in India (albeit with maybe 2 or 3 gallons buckets)

I wish I'd thought of that when I was at the Pole!

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#79

Post by eigenhombre »

metadat wrote: post #35

With water being so scarce, what are the toilet bowls filled with? I'm not clear whether all water is rationed down there, or only hot water.

The men's urinals are water-free toilets. The sit-down toilets are low volume-per-flush, I expect.

Water isn't exactly rationed -- people are just asked to minimize.

To be clear, there is a LOT of water (the station sits atop two miles/3km of the purest ice). What's really being rationed is energy, which is very, very expensive there (the rough calculation I've heard is 10x non-Ice prices, others would know better).

Re: Showering at the South Pole

#80

Post by chordalkeyboard »

iudqnolq wrote: post #13

> You’ve sacrificed your health, well-being, social life, and potential future job prospects, but you can enjoy a truly obscene amount of shower, guilt-free. I'd be interested in if there's actually health issues here. Anecdotally, from backpacking, it's no big deal to go that long.

it depends on a number of factors including the individual's age and health, and the environment. Skin infections are a possibility.
Post reply on HN