Moon Regan TransAntarctic Expedition

From 03.11.2010 to - Status: success

From Partiot Hills to McMurdo reasearch station, 3 600 miles accross Antarctica

This expedition will travel from the west coast of Antarctica at Patriot Hills to the South Pole (retracing the steps of the famous Fuchs and Hillary crossing), and then head north to McMurdo through the Trans-Antarctic Mountain Range. The adventure is expected to spend some 40 days on the ice and travel some 3 600 miles.

This expedition is a 10 man team. Andrew Regan (43, british entrepreneur and businessman, Chief Executive of Corvus Capital Inc, based in Geneva) Andrew Moon (a lawyer based in Cayman Islands and keen sailor) are in the lead.

Andrew Regan has been to both the North Pole, including an expedition with three of his children, and the South Pole. In 2005, he led the Ice Challenger Expedition, a world record attempt for the fastest overland crossing to the South Pole. The expedition aimed to increase awareness of global warming. The entire team wanted to highlight the impact of climate change on the Antarctic, to the rest of the world.

Andrew Moon's interest in Antarctica has led him to carry out a comprehensive study of Polar history and exploration, as well as the routes across Antarctica.

The other members of the expedition are :

Paul Sciefersten (competent cross-country skier and good at first aid skills),
Vern Tejas (mountain guide, known for his Denali's first solo winter ascent),
Jamie Bligh (keen downhill skier, he will be the chief communicator during the voyage),
George Pagliero (expeditions's cameraman and experienced documentary writer),
Pete Ash (one of the mechanics of the expedition),
Gunnar Egilsson (experienced driver over snow and ice terrain),
Astvaldur Gudmundsson (member of Air Ground Rescue of Iceland and experienced snow and ice driver),
Ray Thompson (Research Associate from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London).

To achieve this crossing, the will use three vehicles : the Winston Wong Bio-Inspired Ice Vehicle (BIV, named after professor Winston Wong, the expedition sponsor and leading Taiwanese businessman) and two six-wheel drive Science Support Vehicles (SSVs) which will act as mobile laboratories.

The objectives of the expedition :

The researchers accompanying the team will provide a network of mobile wireless sensors, developed at the College, which will continuously monitor the health of the members, assess the environmental impact of their vehicles, monitor the environment, check satellite positioning and navigation systems to characterise their performance and solar power technology to melt snow to provide drinking water for the team.

The wireless sensors will continuously transmit the data to a computer that will be stored on one of the six-wheeled drive Science Support Vehicles (SSVs), which are mobile laboratories that are the size of a mini bus, so that the scientists and explorers can access information about the expedition in real time. The computer will also be connected to a satellite phone so that information from the sensors can be beamed back to the UK for further analysis by researchers based at the College.

One of the aims of the expedition is to evaluate the performance of biofuel, which will be used to power the WWBIV. The scientists will also assess the energy efficiency and environmental impact of the SSVs, which the team believe could provide a viable alternative to light aircraft that emit high levels of CO₂.

Researchers from the Centre for Transport Studies (CTS) at the College will provide mobile pollution sensors, which can measure multiple types of vehicle pollutants at once. The mobile pollution sensors will be fitted to the exhaust pipes of the SSVs to monitor their emissions.