Research activities in Antarctica of the Division of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation (NSF) are provided logistics support from NSF facilities in Christchurch, New Zealand. Components of this logistics support are the U.S. Naval Support Force, Antarctica and its subordinate commands, an NSF civilian U.S. contractor, and smaller contractors and vendors in New Zealand. In order to ensure that all required resources are in place and operational when needed, NSF is seeking a study to review and analyze the current support arrangements and costs and to determine the optimal mix of resources and the probable costs of that mix. In addition, the study will recommend feasible trade-offs between various means or sources of logistics support. This action provides the first incremental funding for this study.
