It's nearly 2 a.m., only four hours before the "Ampato Maiden" and artifacts found with her are scheduled to begin their two-day journey from Arequipa, Peru to Washington, D.C. for a widely publicized exhibit in the National Geographic Society's Explorers Hall.
It has been a hectic, tense week in Peru for Ferguson, Stopyra and Dr. Charles Bullock, leader of the Carrier team that designed, built and brought to Peru a refrigerated display case for the mummy as well as the insulated box in which she would travel. But Peru apparently was calm compared to the week spent by two dozen engineers, technicians and craftsmen back in Syracuse racing to assemble the second display case, take it apart, drive it to Washington and reassemble it in time for the mummy's arrival.
Racing against time marked the project from the beginning.
In late January, Dale A. Petroskey, senior vice president of the National Geographic Society, said the Society hoped to bring the "Ampato Maiden" to the U.S. for an exhibit to coincide with the May publication of its magazine's article on the mummy.
" . . . but we lack the technical experience to provide the temperature and humidity conditions critical to preserving her, including her flesh and DNA, on the trip from Peru and while on display here at National Geographic," Petroskey wrote.
"The requirements are unique and require a special, custom-designed compartment. This is why we have sought the highly respected knowledge and expertise of Carrier."
In the few months since her September discovery the "Ampato Maiden" had become a Peruvian national treasure. The likelihood of her being allowed outside the country was slim unless her preservation could be assured. National Geographic's own conservators even suggested there might not be enough time for testing such an important piece of equipment.
The Carrier team, essentially reached the same conclusion , unless, Bullock said, an existing product could be modified to fit the task.
"We considered several options, but rejected them all for a variety of reasons," Bullock says. "For example, thermo-electric cooling was very attractive because it has no moving parts. Small portable coolers operating on this principle and powered by an automobile cigarette lighter are commercially available, but we determined a thermo-electric system as large as we needed would have been prohibitively expensive and taken too long to deliver. It also wouldn't have been a Carrier-made product.
"We decided on the PTAC because it already existed, it was reliable, it was easy to service in any part of the world and it would allow us to produce the display cases in the short time we had."
But if the sophisticated controls and attention of up to 50 people seem like overkill, they are not. For a piece of equipment that looks like a high-class convenience store ice cream freezer, the stakes are much higher.
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