Co-hosts Tom Hill and Eleanor O’Rangers had the opportunity to interview Rich Overbeck, who is currently wintering over at South Pole Station!

As many of our listeners may know, expeditions to our planet’s polar regions are considered to be extreme environmental analogs, not unlike what would be encountered on the surface of Mars, for example. Indeed, as Rich will tell us, part of his motivation for wintering over in Antarctica was because it’s the closest he can come to traveling to Mars in this lifetime.

This is part 3 and our conclusion of our conversation with Rich Overbeck. We’ll chat about astronaut visits to the Pole, whether missions have patches or service medals associated with them, searching for elusive Martian meteorites in the ice, and some surprisingly interesting “mundane” details regarding the water supply and dealing with waste disposal. We’ll conclude with Rich’s final thoughts on Antarctica and his time “on the ice.”

This episode was recorded via Zoom on February 12, 2022. Rich will remain in Antarctica until November, 2022. By the time this episode goes live in late May 2022, Rich will experience full darkness, something which he has been eagerly anticipating because of the incredible views of the night sky that he will be able to enjoy.