In December 2010, a team of explorers and scientists completed the first there-and-back crossing of Antarctica in wheeled vehicles

Imperial was the scientific partner to the moon Regan Trans-Antarctic Expedition team, which travelled across Antarctica via the South Pole in state-of-the-art six-wheel-drive science support vehicles that doubled up as mobile laboratories (image centre and right). The Winston Wong BioInspired Ice Vehicle (image left) was powered by biofuel and named after the expedition’s main sponsor, triple alumnus professor Winston Wong (Physics 1971, MSc 1972, PhD Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology 1976).The red radar device in the foreground was used to detect dangerous ice crevasses. The explorers used wireless sensor technology developed at Imperial to monitor in real time how their bodies were responding to the extreme conditions in Antarctica. The technology recorded how the environment and temperatures of around minus 4.3 degrees Celsius affected their stress levels over their 20-day journey.

Ray Thompson, Senior Research Associate at the institute of Biomedical Engineering, was one of the team: “It was amazing to see how my body coped in such extreme conditions, using the wireless sensors. A simple 500-metre walk at the South Pole was the equivalent of me doing 10 laps around an Olympic cycle track at 25 kilometres per hour. The most inspiring part of [the] expedition was the 3,000-metre descent down Leverett glacier, where clouds of ice surrounded our vehicles, making navigation really difficult. Ten times more people have been into space than to that part of the world.”

Photo credit: George Pagliero/Moon Regan Transantarctic Expedition

This article first appeared in Imperial Magazine, Issue 36. You can view and download a whole copy of the magazine, from www.imperial.ac.uk/imperialmagazine.