The US Antarctic Science Program never had a sensible mission. The policy that created the Antarctic Program was a US tactical decision made in 1960. The science program was an excuse for a US presence, has scientific results that are never checked or examined by any other agency, and since its inception has been severely corrupted by outside influences.
Ronald Reagan wanted to abolish NSF, and perhaps he had his reasons. One of them might have been the corrupted Polar Program. The Antarctic program is a good example of a government program that has no purpose, is strongly influenced by groups anti-alined with US interests, and never ends. Could Iraq continue for 50 years like the Antarctic Science program? Possibly.
Can we rely on scientific findings from Antarctica? Peter Jennings said it succinctly something like this : "They are telling us it is cooling and the ice is thickening, and they are also telling us that it is warming and the ice is thinning. What in the hell is going on here?" Peter died before he got an answer. A Congressional committee looked into this same matter. Scott Borg from NSF, when faced with stark contradictions between NSF and NASA results said something to the effect that this was what his observers had told him. They all scratched their heads. Concern about an Antarctic datasets was unusual.
The Soviets began the exploration of Antarctica in the modern era. They began in 1955, to explore the environment, and to search for resources. Their primary interests were mining and fishing. They occupied the terra firma, that is the part of the Antarctic that was underlain by continental crust, i.e. above sea level.
As Johnny come lately, the US strategy was to thwart all territorial claims, so tactically they occupied the South Pole and established an air route to maintain station resupply, something the US has done ever since. The primary utility for this station has been establishing satellite orbits. Most of the region occupied by the US groups is underlain by ocean or oceanic crust, i.e. below sea level.
NSF established a Polar Programs office in order to coordinate and support US activities in Antarctica. A man responsible for passing nuclear monitoring technology to the Soviets, was put in charge of the program, I would presume, largely as an oversight. This same individual was connected to Soviet agents and spies in the US, involved in passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets in the 1940's. Spies also accompanied Admiral Byrd to the ice. It was their intention, apparently, to monitor all military activity and to curtail or arrest all commercial interests of the US in Antarctica.
This strange arrangement has continued to this day. In the early 1990's during the Clinton administration, an influx of Soviets scientists again flooded the ranks of NSF and also the Polar Programs. There is no real mission in the Antarctic. There is a contract company not unlike Halliburton that provides logistic support and supplies for the program. The scientists, this contract company, and the Russians are the prime movers in determining what happens to the US Antarctic Program, and this largely is thus, under the control of the Russians. Their sole concern to is maintain this situation for as long as possible, at the US taxpayer expense. While this is taking place, the Russians have been repeatedly accused of resource extraction which they have denied. The US on the other hand, has extracted nothing, has not studied the natural resources of the region, and has been the only country actually held to account in violating the Antarctic Treaty which prohibits commercial development but permits research.
So, then, is it any wonder that Antarctic scientific information is unreliable? Some of these same groups are involved in the global warming debacle. When Congress was checking into discrepancies in reports from Antarctica, was it being sincere? Reagan knew there were problems at both NASA and NSF. He sent Ed Meese to NASA, and James Watt to spook the Russian affiliate scientists in the US Antarctic Program. Although some inroads were made at NASA, NSF basically was left untouched. It makes no sense to alter US policy based on either NSF or NASA results unless they cleanup these programs first, and impart a sensible mission. If America needs to rely on its innovation, we are doomed since our science programs are preplanned to fail. I think the US government is possibly afraid to take on these groups, and the problem in an open society is constant vigilance is necessary. We have lived with this, rather than taking on the challenge. Our government has yet to properly assess blame even for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets back in the 1940's, even though they must have known it had been people connected with the Columbia physics department in New York.
The US Antarctic Program is more poorly organized than McMurdo Base.
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