Matthew's Journal

Greetings to everyone from the western Caribbean! Currently, the closest land is 4000m beneath my feet.

Today I thought that I would share a little bit more information about life here on the Ronald Brown by telling you about what I've dubbed Science Village, in the spirit of the Olympic Village, or the Ronald Brown's hidden community.

Follow up:

Not all the scientists on the Ronald Brown spend their time working in the main lab. There are smaller special purpose labs scattered around the ship. Additionally, several research groups have brought their offices with them built into what are called seatainers. A seatainer is basically a mini shipping container inside of which you can build a workspace and a place to house your instruments all in one neat portable package. Your definition of portable may be a little different the the seatainer owners. Think cranes and big trucks.

The O2 level on the Ronald Brown (2 levels higher than the main deck) currently contains seven seatainers, five of which are clustered on the forward O2 weather deck near the bow of the ship. This cluster of five seatainers, which you can see in the pictures below looks like a little metal village. Many of the scientists on the ship hole up in their respective seatainers and work diligently and monitor the status of their instruments. The only time you see these scientists is at meals or if you go knocking on their door; hence, a hidden community.

A cluster on seatainters on the forward O2 weather deck

Science Village

As you can see from the picture, the seatainers are bristling with instruments. There's a lidar; a radar; a radiometer; a cornucopia of wind, rain and measuring devices; and so many GPS antennas that this boat may be the most positionally aware place on the planet. Now the inside of these containers can vary. In the picture below is the interior of the seatainer that houses the body and control computer for NOAA's W-band vertically pointing radar. The radar transmitter/receiver sits on a support frame that corrects for the pitch and roll of the ship. As you can see the inside of this container is pretty spartan with just the workstation for the radar and a workstation for some radiometers that I wasn't able to fit in the frame.

Some of the other seatainers have more elaborate interiors. The inside of the seatainer housing NOAA's lidar is like the inside of an RV save for the giant metal box in the back that belches out an infrared laser beam into an mirror targeting system that sits on the top on the container that you can see in the pictures above. The container is comfortable. They have lots of cabinets for organized storage, a TV, and the walls are carpeted so you can affix something with velcro anywhere you please. There is an air chemistry container on the port side of the O2 deck aftward from the main village that contains a brightly lit and rather cheery chemistry lab. I would post a picture, but I dare say that the residents on that container and even more reclusive than the rest.

Interior of the NOAA W-band radar seatainer

Again, if anyone has any requests for an aspect of the work on the Brown that you would like to see or if you have a question, just put it in a comment and I'll put something together for you.