Re:One word: Raytheon (Score 1)

Here's their take on the subject http://www.bigdeadplace.com/state_of_the_station.h tml Mainbody 2003-04 An Australian who was flying a small plane around Antarctica (drawing minor interest from a few grunts lunching near the windows as he flew over the South Pole) ran out of fuel and so landed at McMurdo Station, where his status as an Antarctic bum was quickly established by U.S. and New Zealand agencies that engage in international scientific cooperation for the good of humanity and who would not sell him 104 gallons of diesel from their stash of over 6,000,000 gallons. While the BBC stressed the Ross Island Gang's refusal to sell the "adventurer" enough fuel to fly himself back to New Zealand, a National Science Foundation press release headline read, "U.S. and New Zealand Offer Australian Pilot Safe Passage Home from Antarctica", which sounds to Joe Public like a warm wagontrain escort through a land full of hostile injuns instead of extortion. Rather than selling the no-good bum what he needed (fuel) for a handsome profit (let's say $100 a gallon) so he could take care of himself, the paternal government agency insisted on caring for him (a seat on a military flight) in order to teach the lesson of how dearly such custodial concern would cost him (depending on how NSF spins it, anywhere from $1000 to $100,000). Bad children will have the snot whipped from them, but we are doing them a favor, says the NSF press release. [This just in from a McMurdo correspondent: "...U.S./Kiwi management [are] like sullen security guards standing in front of a vacant lot, but one thing I wanted you to understand about it all: The plane is tinier than a dinner plate, and the guy has balls. They can't be big balls, because the cockpit has no room for them. You are taller than the plane, the wandering albatross has a greater wingspan, and we could move it with a pickle if need be. [The pilot reminds me of] Cool Hand Luke in solitary confinement. This guy flew 26 hours from Dunedin, with a single engine, propeller flapping in front of his nose, over the worst seas in the world, in a white plane to the Pole, only to land in McMurdo and get his tiny tires stuck in two inches of snow on the runway."]