In January 2013,
the
US
WISSARD programme
measured and sampled Lake Whillans, a subglacial
water body at the edge of West Antarctica, in a clean and environmentally sensitive manner,
proving the existence of
microbial
life beneath this part of the ice sheet.
The success of WISSARD
represented ben
chmark in the exploration of Antarctica, made possible by a rich and diverse
history of events, discoveries and discussions over the past 60 years
; ranging from geophysical
measurement of subglacial lakes, to the development of scientific hypotheses concer
ning these
environments and the engineering solutions required to
test
them
. In this article, I provide a
personal account of this history, from
the published literature and
my own involvement in
subglacial lake exploration over the last 20 years. I show
t
hat
our ability to directly measure and
sample subglacial water bodies in Antarctica has been made possible by a strong theme of
international collaboration, at odds with the media representation of a scientific ‘race’ between
nations. I also
consider
plan
s
for subglacial lake exploration
and discuss how such collaboration is
likely to be key
to success of future
research in this field.