It is honor for US-Japan Live Forum members to introduce a message received from Ph D. Kentaro Watanabe, Chief of the 46th Antarctic Observation Wintering Team as follows:
To Mr. Masahiro Kimura:
Thank you for inviting us yesterday to the Antarctica live project. I hope the image from Syowa station gave the audience some ideas that how we are working on our observation of Antarctica. I am honored to be a part of this project. I have just delivered an e-mail that you sent me to my teammates.
This project made it possible to connect with not only Antarctica and Japan, but also with the US and broadcast the live image to the world on the Internet.
Such project was a first time experience not only for the 46th observation team, but also for all of our previous observation teams.
I remember that I requested five years ago an Internet connection to Minister of Education in Japan to access the most advanced resources of studies in the world after I spent a year at Antarctica.
The National Institute of Polar Research also had been planning introduction of Intelsat and we were very glad that our request was being accepted and became reality during the 45th observation team period.I appreciate you and others who achieved this live project by adapting a new technology.
I was informed that we received some e-mails, reporting that families and friends of the observation team watched the Antarctica live on the Internet and were able to see how the team is doing.
Our team had worked on a preparation for this live project until midnight (11:00 pm or later) and started very early morning (6:00 am) on the real day. We are happy that this project made a success.
We hope everyone a good luck.
Kentaro Watanabe
From Syowa Station