Crossing Antarctica (At 84 MPH)
A few months from now, at the height of Antarctica’s very short summer, riders aboard one “bad-ass” snowmobile will attempt to cross the seventh continent.
A so-called “Bio-Inspired Ice Vehicle” designed by Lotus will pace a team of eleven researchers hoping to make the fastest “crossing” of Antarctica. As is required of all expeditions these days, whether they mean it or not, there is an environmental message attached. The Moon-Regan Transantarctic Expedition says it wants to “examine the impact of climate change on the continent and raise awareness of the issue.”
(I’m not 100 percent convinced that driving across Antarctica is the best way to do that, despite its testing of how bio-fuels stand up in the cold. Northern Minnesota and the Northwest Territories are both pretty fricking chilly in January ….)
Novel forms of transport are hardly new to Antarctica. Ernest Shackleton took both horses and the first car to the seventh continent; Australian Douglas Mawson was responsible for shipping the first airplane to Antarctica (it never successfully flew), as well as a classic Volkswagen Beetle, in 1910.
(For the rest of my dispatch go to takepart.com)
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