The Ice Balloon – A doomed journey in the Arctic (2010)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/04/19/the-ice-balloon

by danso • 12 years ago

21 4 12 years ago

Damn interesting made a great podcast on this. You can listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/damn-interesting/andree-and-the-aeron...

tjradcliffe• 12 years ago

There's no real explanation of why they landed and abandoned the balloon, which seemed to be in good working order at the time and was moving them well, if not exactly in the direction of the pole.

The article says simply, "Early on the morning of the fourteenth, the fog thickened and the car began to hit the ice again. Then the balloon rose 'to a great height,' Andrée wrote. They released some of the gas to lower themselves, then, a little after eight, apparently resigned to disappointment, they landed and 'jumped out of the balloon . . . worn out and famished.' They had been aloft for sixty-five hours and thirty-three minutes, had travelled five hundred and seventeen miles, and were about three hundred miles north of where they had started; that is, about three hundred miles south of the Pole."

So the balloon was still fully functional, and the rest of the account makes clear they had plenty of provisions left (and after all had only been in the air for a few days) so why did they embark on their perilous and ultimately deadly journey across the ice?

hyp0• 12 years ago

I'm guessing that if the balloon was often scraping ground, and they let gas out, it would be even worse. But the article could have clarified this, and at least spent a little more time on this pivotal moment of the narrative.

Johnythree• 12 years ago

Yes, Balloons control their height by dropping ballast and/or releasing gas. When they eventually run out of ballast, they can no longer control the balloon.

The Ice Balloon – A doomed journey in the Arctic (2010)

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