The author intends to visit U.S. stations in Antarctica to complete a book on Antarctic aviation and especially on the role of U.S. in supporting international science. The work also will emphasize little-known (or small) early expeditions.
The proposed volume would comprehensively document the history and current status of a key element of the logistics network that makes science possible on the southernmost continent and fill a gap in the existing published record on the topic; currently there exists just one book on Antarctic aviation, which is both out-of-print and dated.
A second existing work focuses on one specific Naval-aviation unit and is therefore very limited in scope, relative to the topic of Antarctic aviation generally.
With the support of the NSF, I have been able to gather the images, insight, and interviews to create a book-length response to the question, "How does American aviation help make good science happen?" We owe a lot to the skill and dedication of a variety of military and civilian partnerships at work in the greater Antarctic region. While details continue to evolve, the project will probably be published as both a book and also as an image-intensive website, but is not yet ready for release in either form. Manuscript versions are in circulation now to editors and publishers, and final archive research will take place soon at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. In addition, the project will result in at least one major art museum exhibition, most likely to beheld at the MOAH (Museum of Art and History) in Lancaster, California, but that too, as of this report, is not yet finalized. A smaller, realated show will take place at the Antelope Valley College campus Art Gallery. There have been public talks, newspaper articles, and blogs that have come out of this work. I look forward to seeing all the strands come together into a final grand presentation in the next one to two years.
