WEBVTT - How can you drive across Antarctica?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com

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<v Speaker 1>where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,

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<v Speaker 1>how is it possible to drive across Antarctica given that

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<v Speaker 1>it's thousands of miles and there's not a single gas

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<v Speaker 1>station along the way. Once upon a time, like about

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<v Speaker 1>a hundred years ago, getting to the South Pole in

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<v Speaker 1>deepest Antarctica was hard, very very hard. An expedition in

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen oh seven failed to reach the South Pole. It

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<v Speaker 1>was finally reached in nineteen eleven, and it was an

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<v Speaker 1>incredibly daunting project. Fast forward to two thousand and ten.

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<v Speaker 1>In the same way that Mount Everest was once unconquerable

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<v Speaker 1>but is now nearly a tourist attraction and has cell

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<v Speaker 1>phone coverage all the way to the top, Antarctica is

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<v Speaker 1>now being traversed in Toyota pickup trucks. It's still a

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<v Speaker 1>bit arduous, yes, but it would appear that anyone with

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<v Speaker 1>enough money can make it to the South Pole as

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<v Speaker 1>part of a vacation package. How do you do it?

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<v Speaker 1>You ride in highly modified trucks and you carry the

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<v Speaker 1>hundreds of gallons of fuel that you need in a

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<v Speaker 1>trailer that you toe behind the truck. In two thousand

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<v Speaker 1>and ten, a convoy of these Toyota trucks drove nearly

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<v Speaker 1>three thousand miles to reach the South Pole and then

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<v Speaker 1>come back. Now, it used to be that if you

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<v Speaker 1>wanted to drive around the South Pole, you did it

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<v Speaker 1>in highly customized, super expensive tracked vehicles that took years

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<v Speaker 1>to develop. How are they able to do it in

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<v Speaker 1>a normal pickup truck. The main modification that they've made

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<v Speaker 1>is they've taken diesel engines in these trucks and they've

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<v Speaker 1>converted them to run on jet fuel. The reason for

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<v Speaker 1>the jet fuel is because jet fuel is formulated to

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<v Speaker 1>work at low temperatures. Anyway, when jets are flying at

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<v Speaker 1>thirty two feet it's minus forty degrees fahrenheit up there,

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<v Speaker 1>so the fuel has to be able to flow at

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<v Speaker 1>very low temperatures. So by modifying the trucks to run

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<v Speaker 1>on jet fuel, they get rid of the problem with

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<v Speaker 1>diesel fuel turning to jelly and cold temperatures. They make

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<v Speaker 1>some other modifications as well. For example, they put thirty

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<v Speaker 1>eight inch tires think about a tire that's over a

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<v Speaker 1>yard in diameter and very wide on these trucks, and

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<v Speaker 1>they run them at low pressure so that they don't

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<v Speaker 1>sink into the snow and ice of Antarctica. They also

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<v Speaker 1>put rails on the truck in case it falls into

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<v Speaker 1>a crevasse, and they have amountable crane so that they

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<v Speaker 1>can take the tanks of fuel. They bring the fuel

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<v Speaker 1>in normal steel barrels. They have to be able to

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<v Speaker 1>lift those off the trailer and move them into positions

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<v Speaker 1>so that they can do refueling, so they have a

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<v Speaker 1>portable crane that mounts on the front of the truck

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<v Speaker 1>to help them do that. Obviously, they also beef up

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<v Speaker 1>the heating system, do some work on the suspension, reduce

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<v Speaker 1>the cooling capacity, things like that so that it can

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<v Speaker 1>adapt to the extremely cold temperatures. And then when they stop,

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<v Speaker 1>they just leave the engines running so that they don't

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<v Speaker 1>have to start them at minus forty degrees. The company

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<v Speaker 1>that did the modifications is called Arctic Trucks, and if

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<v Speaker 1>you go to Arctic Trucks dot com you can see

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<v Speaker 1>the kinds of modifications they're making in some of their

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<v Speaker 1>future thinking in the Arctic and Antarctic Truck realm for

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<v Speaker 1>more on this and thousands of other topics. Does that

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