Citation Needed - Andree's Arctic Balloon Expedition

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 was an effort to reach the North Pole in which all three expedition members perished. S. A. Andrée, the first Swedish balloonist, proposed a voyage by hydrogen balloon from Svalbard to either Russia or Canada, which was to pass, with luck, straight over the North Pole on the way. The scheme was received with patriotic enthusiasm in Sweden, a northern nation that had fallen behind in the race for the North Pole.

The worst part was the face nuke. What? I love that part. When they drove their sub faster than an explosion. You're watching a movie about giant lizards. You want subs to go just realistic speeds? Yes, I would. Damn it, the studio door is locked. Hold on a second.

My key doesn't work. Oh, Jesus. Hey guys! You like, you know what's going on with the studio? Yeah, I do, because I got us a new studio. It is so awesome. It has the best view. You guys are gonna...

You got us a new one? Yeah. This week is the Arctic balloon expedition. And I thought, what better way to be a top podcast than, do you know, be a literal top podcast? I want my old studio. Let me finish. So I took all the European tour money that we saved up so we could go to Europe.

Wait, what? Yeah, and I subletted out the studio to two really great guys. They're gonna keep that name, Gloria Holstudios too, which is cool. Were they nice, those guys? Yeah, one of them sucked my dick, so yes. Right.

Okay, okay, but where is the new studio? I bought a hydrogen balloon. I want my old studio. You what? Isn't it amazing? It's literally a deflated canvas bag. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Okay, we are never gonna be a top podcast with that attitude, mister.

How are we going to get power related? I want my old studio. Well, I have a plan. I rigged up a series of mirrors that you can position. And if you look through them, you can see the power strip I have plugged in on the ground. Yeah, truly the greatest engineering feat mankind has ever witnessed. Thank you, Keith.

I want my old studio. And, and, and, don't ask now, if you step, little to the left, and you look into the mirror, you can see the microwave, and the router, so we will have Wi-Fi and Noah as many hot pockets as we want up there. Yeah, cheer up, C. So it could be worse. Two votes, there we go. I mean at least he didn't meet us at the door with a balloon filled with hydrogen. There's that. Do you have to fill this? I want my old studio. You don't have to fill it.

Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we are experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be flying high this week but not without my other aviators. First up the calm pilot that assures us nothing is on the wing, and that thing on the wing, no way anyway. Okay, well, what if I just assure you that that's the best place for? Look, it was Southwestern the wing. I made the right choice.

You did, you did. You did. Also joining us tonight, the drunk guy in coach, and the drunk guy in business class, having a loud cross plane conversation, Heath and Tom. Okay, somebody in first class just switch with me, and this is all solved. We're still gonna yell, but not a cross.

Impossible, Cecil, I'd never talk to somebody in coach. That's, you're talking to me right now, deal with it. This counts. Can't even hear you. You're basically poor now. Yeah. Non patrons, think of this podcast as an almost certainly doomed expedition. Without your help, we are going to die of exposure, which means something totally different

when Eli is part of your podcast. So if you'd like to help us resupply, be sure to stick around till the end of the show and we'll tell you how. And with that out of the way, tell us Eli what, what person place thing, concept, phenomenon, or event? Will we be talking about today? We'll be talking about the doomed Arctic balloon expedition of Solomon August, Andre. And Tom, you spent a few minutes trying to find a hilarious

wave that people die. Are you ready to lift off? I'm all gassed up and ready to plumber. All right, Tom, tell us about Andre's doomed Arctic balloon expedition. Okay, but to understand the story, you have to first understand a little of the historical backdrop that was it's set.

Boom! That's terrible. There's a lot of trust in the world. I can't trust the audience. Oh my God. Okay, I deserve that. That's very, it's time to prepare. Murder.

That's on me. That's okay. You got, the 19th century was the age of exploration. All right, as parts of the world were explored by brave white people willing to shoot and stuff and catalog whatever was native to the new worlds that opened up to them. The interests of the public and international reputations ramped up.

The second half of the 19th century is sometimes referred to as the, quote, heroic age of Antarctic exploration, and while Antarctic only covers the South Pole by name, the North Pole was of equal or greater interest to the world at large. You took a ride at the equator? Fuck! Well, we're here. We might as well look around, I guess. No, what the hell? I don't know how heroic it,

but like at a certain point, they're just trying to knock dip theory out of the top 10 causes of death, right? Right? And by the way, listen, if you're wondering why Tom said brave white people, that's because all the brave brown people in the 19th century were in those places fighting

off the white people. They had other stuff going on. As long as we get agreed that there were good people on both sides. All right. So in fact, speculation about what may lay in the great icy beyond of the north was kind of fucking insane. So remember, this was a time when people knew just enough to get in trouble and not enough to know that they were fucking fools.

So, I guess times haven't really changed from that anyway. No, yeah. Famous authors of the day from Shelley to Edgar Allan Poe, they set their stories against an Arctic backdrop, because that was a place where anything might happen. Reputable sources at the time thought a lost race of giants lived in the great white north. And seriously, no less than the very president of Boston University thought that Atlantis, King Arthur's Avalon and the Garden of Eden were all located somewhere around the north. Now crazily quote these ideas were taken very seriously and no one could refute them because no one

had ever been there. And that's according to guy named DJ Kappa Lenny. That's an anthropology professor and associate at the Polar Center at Penn State University. So obviously people had to go there, right? It's fucking gardening. QR hero, Salomon August Andre. Admittedly though, if the gardener Eden was a thing and it was in the North Pole,

you would not have to have a very big fig leaf at all. Just a tiny little fig leaf at work. It's like a fig stem. Exactly, a big stem. We find them. Now, the prevailing attitude at the time of manly daring do and a quote like, hey, we just invented using hot water to move stuff.

So we can do anything. I combined with the aforementioned international exploration fever and this produced this man, this Andre. He was an engineer at the patent office in Stockholm. He had a passion for ballooning. I don't get excited. He's not that kind of ballooning.

Just, not air ballooning. What? What's ballooning? Everyone's playing. No, you guys always do this. Look it up for him. Come on. Come on. One life.

Is it a sex thing? I feel like you're a writer. I mean, everything's a sex thing. Oh yeah. Do you use a balloon? Like, in the, just everything can be a sex thing. All right, so where does it go? Andre was obsessed with this new fangled high technology world of hydrogen

Beluning. Ah, the humanity. And he proposed a scheme wherein he would set off in a hydrogen balloon from Svalbard. Float up and over the North Pole and land, maybe in Canada or Russia, we'll see which comes first. Balloons are not an exact science. Well, you go in front of the Royal Court of Sweden, trying to explain it. He's like, all right, here's my plan.

Uh, and then he just lets go of an open balloon it flies around the room. Hahaha. Somebody hold up a globe. Do you got it? All right, any questions? Hahaha. Also, can someone get that? I need like a pole or something.

It's in the corner. That's going to be there forever. So at 1893, Andre bought his first very own balloon. This is Vey, which took out a nine voyages, just himself. None of these should have given them confidence to take a party favor as his transportation method across an unknown frozen wasteland. All right. Combined from the nine trips in the Svay, Andre traveled 930 miles, but the prevailing winds had the rather unfortunate habit of taking them out and across the Baltic

Sea, sometimes pushing his balloon low enough that the baskets skimmed across the surface of the icy water and bounced and slammed him against the rocky islas of the Stockholm archipelago. On one occasion, it blew him across the entire Baltic Sea and all the way to Finland. Um, it's pronounced Japan. Thank you. Thank Japan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. The longest trip he took, he didn't even understand that he had taken. Blown wildly off course, he drifted across the breadth of Sweden out over the Baltic to the island of Gotland. And even though he saw breakers and the ocean and a lighthouse, Andre remained convinced the whole time that he was overland and maybe the occasional lake.

That's hot. Man, that hill sure seemed to be in a hurry with that. Yeah, that's hot. I love this. This is the I feel lucky Google button of transportation. This is like an amazing. It is. And like obviously steering a balloon

is about as hard to do as like steering a balloon. So Andre engineered and put like a crazy inordinate amount of faith in what he called drag ropes. The idea of drag ropes is that these enormous, massive heavy ropes would act as ballast and also as friction. And this would slow the balloon down enough that the sails would be useful for steering. What?

Best case scenario, according to Andre, if everything worked great, was that the combination of sails and drag ropes would give Andre about 10 degrees of control in deviation from the direction of the wind. 10 degrees. What? Okay. So that's 340 degrees of failure built in the end. That's pretty cool, man.

Yep. I wonder how many degrees he thought there were, just total. And how important he thought denominators were. Right. Joseph's been a professional. I'm a numerator's guy. I'm not really big enough. So it is that I feel like numerator's guy. I'm not really thinking. So it is the I feel lucky Google button,

but with Flintstone's breaking. It's about as useful as our foreign policy, you know? Indiregible. All right, now to give you some idea of modern balloonists, reject the idea that Andre would have been able to deviate at all from the wind's direction with drag ropes or sales, which is why no one uses this shit. And they chalked up his claims to wishful thinking and a lack of competence. Drag ropes have a tendency to snap and twist together

and like fall off the balloon. And even when none of that shit goes wrong, they're still wholly ineffective. They don't do anything. So naturally Andre decided to risk his life and his expedition on a rope based technology. Ah, well, okay, wait, wait. So the one in 18 chance of not dying was, was wishful thinking?

Damn! Hey everybody I'm pretty sure every time I roll a four on this D20 I gain control of my balloon. So I'm gonna try and fly it into a volcano. Who's in? Two people? Awesome. I'm loving the one. Don't forget the champagne.

Sure, sure. All right, so Sweden, for its part, was not having much luck in the Arctic exploration game, and they were becoming kind of embarrassed by all the successes that Norway was having. And Norway, in other general arenas was considered to be something of a lesser nation. So it's embarrassing for Sweden. Andre was all fucking jazzed up about his balloon idea and he found it easy to gain the enthusiasm

and support of the Swedes claiming that to be successful on Arctic balloon voyage need only satisfy four conditions. So this is already, this is wrong. It's definitely the right one for you. I got just four things. So this is already, this is wrong. It's definitely a nine and a four. I got just four things. It's fucking naysayer. Number one, it must have enough lifting power to carry three people.

And all their scientific equipment, advanced cameras for aerial photography, provisions for four months and ballast, altogether about six thousand, six hundred pounds of shit. So that's, that's the first minor check. Go to your, to just, all right, to throw that up on any list. Yep.

Yeah. It must retain the gas well enough to stay aloft for 30 days. Sure. Yep. Yep. Three, the hydrogen gas must be manufactured and the balloon filled at the Arctic launch site. Very popular. Obviously.

I got to buy domestic, right? Yeah. Oh, meal fashion, but when I buy a giant ball of exploding vapor, I buy it local. Sir, you're allowed to check two bags. This is 83,000. I will fit this into the overhead. I will fit it into the overhead. I can do this.

Get away from me. Stop helping me. Under your seat. No, my feet, I need room for my feet. I'm getting it in the overhead. I can do this. Get away from me. Stop helping me. Under your seat. Put it under your seat, sir. No, my feet, I need room for my feet. I'm getting this in. I'm gonna fit four months of provisions in the overhead, guys.

That's it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, go back out. And finally, it must be at least somewhat steerable. This seems important. Okay, somewhat steerable. If you're checklist for success, for literally any project, has the phrase at least somewhat, you waste the money on a checklist. That was dumb. All right, fine. I won't help you make a tender profile. Sorry for being realistic. I know Andre believed that all four conditions were easily met with technologies available from balloons in France, which had the gas retention needed.

And we're of sufficient size to carry the equipment from mobile, hydrogen filling equipment and from his own crazy delusions that he could steer a hydrogen balloon. At a lecture in 1895 in front of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Andre also got, well I guess he got everything else wrong is what he got. He's standing front everybody and when we get to the Arctic, we'll fill up on hydrogen in Abelone at the gas station.

It could be easier guys. It's real easy easier, guys. It's real easy. The stop and shop. I hit the garden of you. It's like, yeah, it's a circle K there. It's really nice. Circle K.

We get those roller dogs, it's really fun. Really, really fun. Light lunch. Light lunch. Yeah. Bring more champagne. What the fuck? So Andre claimed that a summer Arctic voyage would be ideal.

He thought the balloon would be easily steered by use of these drag ropes. And that since it was basically light out all the time, they could travel around the clock. And that would have the time they needed for the voyage because they wouldn't have to tie down at night. So he also thought that because summer is a word that means warmer and not evidently understanding that Arctic is a word which means yeah, but not actually warm stupid. He thought that the balloon would not lose buoyancy at night due to low temperatures.

He also thought that there would be little to no precipitation in the Arctic summer. And he would thus not have to contend with ice and snow and rain weighing down on his balloon. And the only parts of this that he got wrong were all of the parts of it. All right. So as long as the Arctic is warm and free of snow and ice, this should be entirely survivable, provided you can steer a balloon with beefed up anal beans. So nonetheless the Academy decided to give him the equivalent of a million dollars for this balloon. Alfred Noble also kicked in a bunch of cash because a

million dollars was the press in the international community was fully on board with this thing. They saw this trip as a testimony to the power of modern scientific exploratory efforts in advancement. And once word got out about his plan, well, balloon is in France and Germany expressed some concerns that this plan was literally impossible in every way. I think there's no chance this was going to work. This failed entirely to dampen Swedish enthusiasm

or to deter Andre in the least. Yeah, Swedes aren't huge on stopping you from killing yourself with or without a balloon. So they're like, there you go. So they said about building their death trap or balloon of great price, whatever they were calling it. They had overcome some pretty serious technical hurdles like where were three people gonna sleep?

Spoiler, they wouldn't. Right, because it would be day the whole time they would have. They wouldn't have. I'm not even tired when it's day time, so I won't be tired the whole trip. And they also had to figure out like how are they gonna cook food on a 30 day hydrogen balloon voyage?

Seeing as how hydrogen is just insanely fucking flammable. So for that one they created a special stove that they dangled 26 feet under the basket. That's amazing. That's amazing. Not 25 because that would be fucking crazy. Yeah It's amazing, it's amazing. Not 25, because that would be fucking crazy. Yeah, gosh, dangerous. Yeah. There was a series of angled mirrors they could look at to make sure it was working. They were sighing so hard at this point.

I have so many questions. Did they have to light it when it was 26 feet under me? Did they have to lower the food down into it? Like the crane game? What's it was on? I have so many questions. He's got rotisserie chickens on a spit just spinning around and a fucking lighter.

Spinning like a fucking dreidel on that thing. He's just kind of like crazy. But just in general, what the fuck are they doing? Make some trail mix? No, are you serious? Yes? Your vehicle is literally a hydrogen bomb don't have a stove. Oh Sorry, Dave are we supposed to not have warm soup? We're going to the Arctic you Have an oven because we're near hydrogen. That's you that's what you sell Now give me a million dollars. So in 1896 he decides he's gonna give this thing a go.

He selected Nils Gustoff at home and Nils Strinberg to be his playmates on the stupid fucking voyage at home was an experienced Arctic meteorological researcher and Strenberg was a brilliant nope student researcher in physics and chemistry and if neither of these guys like sound like bear girls that's because they were all described as quote indoor types which nerds. Which if like my indoor type kids are a template, that means they could survive a brisk fall day on their own. Unfazed, they decided to rely on mostly good luck as their primary means of getting to their desire. And they thought the voyage would be like a cozy Arctic balloon-fort sleepover. That's fun.

Alright guys, fuck Mary Kill, ready? Our selves, ourselves, ourselves. Yes. What order? All right. So the gas up their balloon they set off. And immediately, immediately, first thing the wind blew straight at them in the opposite direction they wanted to go because it's wind.

Yep. And that's it. They just kind of hovered there tied to the ground for a while until they gave up. They came down and they just let all the gas out of the balloon. I'm just scribbling down notes. He's like, okay, notes for the next time. One, going up is a direction. Two, untie balloon.

I got this, guys, I got this. I got this. We are gonna fucking crush this. Our spinnaker is facing up. I don't know what the fuck's happening. I feel like that would put a damper on the start of the journey, wouldn't it? Our spinners facing up. I don't know what the fuck's happened Feel like that would put a damper on the start of the journey, wouldn't it? Yeah, right Three two one

Damn it shit sorry one second one second everybody Okay, okay, here we go here we go. No, are you know what that's not fucking doing what did you try to do? Fuck okay, uh, just bring me down bring me down. We got to do it over got it We got to take out all the air and do it over Lift off shut the fuck up Greg Lift off, shut the fuck up, Greg! Lift off. I'm gonna fuck you in that basket. Jesus. Now, at home became skeptical that the balloon was gonna retain its buoyancy.

It calculated, no shit, that the 8 million stitching holes in the bone were going to be something of a problem and that no amount of duct tape was going to help this problem so not that big right how big is hydrogen I feel like it's pretty big it's, how much is one hydrogen? It's the first one. It's the first one. It's the vet, fuck. Okay. It's the lightest thing.

Damn it. Damn it. You guys want to use vapor uranium? No. And I'll stay right in there. We're dead for different reasons. So when he ran the numbers, he figured that the balloon had 17 days tops of lift given their load of equipment.

Now Andre, Andre disagreed. And by disagreed, what he actually did was he hid from Atcom the fact that he was regularly topping off the balloon with hydrogen before his tests were run. Why? So it was worse than Atcom had calculated. Oh, look at this. Hey, buddy. Is that a giant ball of hydrogen in your mouth? It was worse than at Coleman calculated. Oh, no. Hey, buddy.

Is that a giant ball of hydrogen in your mouth? Mo. No. You sure? Did you just cough a fireball? That was real. OK. OK.

All right, so the 1896 voyage is a total fucking bust, but Andre was determined to die in the cold. So he fired at home with his stupid math and he found Newt Fronkel. Now, Newt's primary recommendation for the job, no shit, was that he was really good at hiking in the mountains. That was like what he did. Putz super good.

So on July 11th, 1897, Frankel Strenberg and Andre climbed into a huge hydrogen balloon and decided to let the winds take them to glory. And so they set off into the sky. When he before he gets in, he looks at the camera, he says, hi, my name's Andre and this is Jackass. All right, so this is going to gonna end well I could just feel it so before we get to the sunshine and rainbows of a happy ending of this story let's take a little break for app boi

nothing what do you say guys. Hi, hello, hi, everyone. I'm Salomon, super excited to be here today at the Swedish Academy of Sciences. Talking about my big balloon trip to the Arctic. Did you have an accent? So here's the plan and some plan. That's why. I'm going to take a balloon and some dudes and I'm going to fly it to the top of the earth in a question. Yes, how you're going to steer? Great question. I'm glad you asked with

ropes on the ground. Ropes on the ground? Yes, ground ropes. Yes. Yeah, how are you gonna account for the elements of the architect? Again, great question. I'm going to wear coat, so you know, should be fine. I think we have time for one last question. Yes, I missed a Nobel. Me? Me? Yeah. Can I give you a million dollars? Me too. Don't forget me. Awesome, this went great! Hahaha! Well, when we last left off, three guys with a dangling oven on a leaky balloon, thought they could no prop their way into the most unforgiving places on earth. So, Tom, what happened next? Well, what happened is things went poorly, immediately, like it almost as soon as the ropes were cut,

shit went south. I hate to be this guy, but as we learned before the break, before the ropes were cut, shit went south. All right, so those great drag ropes, well, they became immediately twisted and tangled and they dragged the basket so low that it dipped into the water of the ocean and the ropes, which had a safety feature that allowed them to detach if they got tangled, well, they fucking detached. So 1170 pounds of rope immediately came unmoored from the basket. And then the frantic explorers desperate not to drown in the first half hour dumped 400 pounds of sandbags overboard as well.

So the eagle, which was supposed to be a steerable hyper modern aircraft was now what it, what it always was. It was a giant audit control balloon with three idiots in it, blown about at the mercy of the winds, wherever this nature decided they should go. Question was the safety feature for releasing the ropes called giant sword in the tiny basket with three idiots, all getting tossed around by the winds. That should have been, but no, the balloon now unencumbered by ballast rose to 2200 feet. This was far higher than they had intended to go. They got the sword dangling 26.

So as they went up here, the lesser pressure allowed more of their precious hydrogen to escape from the eight million tiny stitching holes in the balloon. And this sounds really bad, but they had two really great ways to communicate if and when things went wrong. You see, no shit, they had homing pigeons and buoys oh sh** this was this was this was it guys

so the buoys were basically um... they were messages in a bottle that you throw at the ocean with notes written in them like oh help we've made a terrible mistake i would right on the first one and then the pigeons

the pigeons guys because you're making this seem stupid. The pigeons were birds that if everything went swimmingly, would fly to where they were bred, and that was Norway, not Sweden, interestingly enough. So then somebody in Norway would have to capture the pigeon, then take the message container off the bird and follow the instructions to bring that message to somebody in Sweden. So, yeah. And then 40 days container off the bird and follow the instructions to bring that message to somebody in Sweden.

So, yeah. And then 40 days later, the bird returns with a not-at-this-address stamp on it. That's not a native pigeon environment, uh, man. All right, so of the buoys, uh, two were actually found. The messages were basically nonsense. You just amounted a quote. I remember. I remember. I remember. I remember. All right, so of the buoys, two were actually found. The messages were basically nonsense.

You just amounted to coordinates and a bit of what I can only assume was pun-based hyperbole, claiming that, quote, spirits were high. All right. Give it up. Give it up. Come on. And of the pigeons, one pigeon was found when it landed on a steamer ship and was promptly shot.

And that message was similarly pointless, so. It's so much better than I thought the pigeons went to. Okay, we're one of the directions from these coordinates. Come save us. Or at least we were. directions from these coordinates Save us if you're reading this and have a stable giant hot air balloon Read section beef not never mind All right now Andre kept a pretty detailed diary which is how we actually know what happens next. And his diary was rather more honest

than his light-hearted pigeon recipes that he was sending out. Recipes? The balloon was completely out of control. This is amazing. It was behaving much like you might imagine an uncontrolled balloon might behave completely out of equilibrium.

So it has no battleist, nothing to keep it stable. So the balloon alternately rose to incredible heights, where in it lost massive amounts of hydrogen, fell crashing back down to the earth to skim across the sea and bounce across the waves and the ice. Then as the cold said in, it rose again just as quickly. It's actually a ride at Action Park. Yeah. Yes. And despite it being summer, it was as you may recall, summer in the Arctic. So the balloon was fucking constantly soaked with rain. The total actual free flight of their balloon lasted only 10 hours and 29 minutes.

That's air time They then spent the next no shit 41 hours just skimming and crashing across the land Into the ground unable to stop until the eagle Evnevutably crashed and came to a halt That's a local areas. There's no one there to see it. That's such a One penguin turns to the other I came to a halt. That jumped a little hilarious. There's no one there to see it. That's such a shit. You know it. One penguin turns to the other. Hehehehe.

Now they're in the South Pole. There's just you. Yeah, that's it. It was worth the commute just to see this. Thank you, other penguin. Now we make perfect sense. Why don't we swim over to Finland? Oh wait, we can't.

Hehehehe. Why don't we swim over to Finland? Oh wait, we can't. Alright, so it's now July 14th and they're stranded on the ice. Their equipment, which was supposed to be used for science, became instead used to catalog their misery and misfortunes. The men kept meticulous record of their activities. They're over 200 photographs, which are sort of amazing to look at in in a sort of I know something you don't know kind of a way. Jesus yeah. Ah, day 47. Today we learned that inhaling hydrogen makes your voice funny. Only in the sense that projectile vomiting makes your voice funny. Which it does. Sure, hope we end up on a podcast.

Or else this was super dumb. All right, so the men did have some guns and safety equipment, but they also had no experience with exploration and they'd done very little planning for this part of the voyage, probably because there wasn't supposed to be a this part of the voyage, like there weren't supposed to crash in 10 hours.

Their boat, for example, that they brought was a collection of sticks. The idea being that if it was needed, they would be assembled, and then they would haul the sticks with the balloon silk. So do it yourself, boat. Their sleds were heavy and inflexible, and resembled nothing of what anyone successful had ever used.

Their clothes were similarly ill-chosen. None of the men brought furs, relying instead on wool trousers and coats and oil skins. None of this was ideal when dealing with, quote, channels separating ice flows, high ridges, and partially iced over meltpons. Guys, like, okay, guys, I'm ready for our Arctic adventure. I packed 10 cinder blocks in a windbreaker. Oh, and a half gallon of holiday sauce.

Anywhere where I could keep this warm, do we have a place that I could just... Oh, this is perfect. I packed a foreman grill and also 26 feet of mirrors on a rope. We are in sync today. Now, after crashing and before setting off, the men spent a week on the ice packing and preparing for their journey and having already abandoned attempting to get to the North Pole,

the men consulted their maps, which turned out to be faulty maps, to decide between two food depots that they were going to hope to walk to. They chose one, Cape Flora, as their destination, and now headed aside on which of their 1700 pounds of provisions which they packed for a balloon flight rather than an overland track which of these they would take included in these hyper practical choices when packing cases of champagne port and beer well it's good amazing most of the food was heavy cans of meat and cheese and condensed milk. And a bit of lemon juice, hold off the scurvy.

There's a lot more. So they decided on most of it. That's what they were gonna bring. They load up most of their provisions. And each man then had to pull a 400 pound sled of champagne and tin to meat. Yeah, there's no way that lemon juice made the cut there. So this lasted for them about a week before it broke both the sleds and the men's.

They paired down each sled to just 290 pounds each, and they lived off shooting polar bears, seals, and walruses, but mostly polar bears. They shut a lot of polar bears. But man, I hope they didn't know the story or that's going to be really embarrassing for the polar bear, right? Are you fucking idiot here? Really? Jesus.

Where's global warming when you need it? Yeah. I bet if we blow into the polar bears asshole, we can use him to fly. Oh. Ah. Ah. Alright, so as they walked, they discovered that walking across drifting pack ice really sucks. Like, not only is it unimaginably arduous, but the ice itself, well it drips.

And after 10 days of walking, when they accounted for the drift of the ice, they took a reading and found that they'd not gotten any closer to their goal of not dying out here. So they changed their minds, like the fuck it turned around and began heading in the opposite way to the other food depot. And there the terrain was actually even worse. So the men had a crawl on all fours to fight their way across and up these steep ridges, dragging these heavy ass sleds behind them.

They made some headway, but just as they began to make progress, the winds shifted again, and they were now pushed backward. They lost all of the ground of the back breaking weeks of tracking that they had done. Oh shit. God, that sounds like being a Democrat. Ah.

Not that bad. So in September 12th, the men made a hut of snow and ice, and they resigned themselves to letting the ice flow just take them where it would, which was already what was happening, but now with less blisters, right? So the hope was that their ice flow that they were on would take them somewhere where they could live off the food provided by the sea, and perhaps the ice flow would be kinder than the winds that they had trusted their fates to earlier. But... So, their plan went from I can fly a balloon to the top of our planet.

So, the wind will push us to a TGI Friday in like three days. Little buoy floats up to them with a note. Oh, let's check this out. Please save us. The balloon thing was stupid. Okay, that's awesome. That was awesome. We did that earlier. That's got a funny, but... balloon thing with stupid okay that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's got funny so I love this so instead what happened almost immediately is the ice

flow that they were on broke and it broke right under the hot that they built like that's so the men were forced ashore off the ice flow and onto a small island called white island it took a few days to bring all their stores from the ice flow to the island, but Andre, ever the optimist, remained unmoved, writing in his journal, quote, Morale remains good. With such comrades, one should be able to manage under, I may say, any circumstances.

Spoiler alert, one was not. Yeah. Well, it was at this point that Andre's diary ceases to be coherence. And based on the sudden incoherency and the abrupt stop, it is assumed that the men all perish on that island with a few days of landing on that. Jesus. In 1930, two sealers from Norway and search a freshwater discovered the remains of Andre and his encampment, including the diaries, the menaries the men kept as well as the photos that they took.

The men were celebrated inexplicably as heroes and the remains were presented with solemn fanfare when returned to Sweden. Huh. Well, Tom, if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be? Well, if you first, you don't succeed, that was your fault and you never should have tried

in the first place. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Hey, the old man and the... YEEE! That's what you got actually. Oh, like that. B, around the globe and never mind I'm dead. Or C, Harold and the Purple Euceless Rhyon. Alright, I got to go with C, because that's a kids' book joke and I appreciate that. Thank you. That is correct Harold and the purple useless ran. There you go. All right Tom which song did the crew play over and over again on their voyage?

A, blimp and a easy. B, truth or daregable. C, peaceful breezy feeling by the Eagles. So, D. Blue-sweet cruise. I don't like that one. Blue-sweet works so many ways. They're called, they're dead. It's just amazing.

Or E. E. Anything by Sled Zeppelin. Sled Zeppelin. Okay, it's Sled Zeppelin just because of the double pun. That's just the fucking way. All right, fair. That's fair. All right. All right. Fair. That's fair. All right.

What were some of the other messages found on the, uh, the homing pigeons as the trip got worse and the word play got very lazy. Uh, a, Andre was blowing smoke up my balloon knot. not. B, I guess you could say we're flying balloon not over T-cattle. Repetitive. Ass over T-cattle. You're repetitive. You's it. Well, although I am a fan of the balloon knot, I'm going to have to go with the Loft balloon on this one. That is correct. All right, I can take you down, Tom. Of these failed efforts to reach the North Pole, which is the only one considered to be less successful than Andre's expedition.

A, that time Calvin and Hobbs got mad and tried to run away to the UConn. B, the sequel is to the Santa Claus. C, your drunken effort in college to fuck one of them elves, even if it kills you. Or D, that Jackass who died in one of the Alaskan bus from that movie. Or do that Jackass who died in one of the Alaskan boss from that movie? All right, well that fucking guy from Alaska had a coming so that can't be it see No, I got the elf I got him so it was I

Look Calvin made a valiant attempt. So hey, I don't think it's I don't think it's Calvin. I feel like he I did better than I thought what I'm saying. I'm, sir. It was definitely the sequels to the Santa Claus. I thought I was making that easy. Oh, damn it. Oh, no. Looks like you're the winner this week. All right, well, I'm gonna... What fuck it, you know what, Eli?

Why the hell not? We haven't suffered much. Thank you. You knew, remember how you knew the rabbit story before? Like that, maybe. I know a great thing. Doudful. All right, well, for Tom, Noah, Eli, and Heath,

I'm Cecil, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week. And by then, Eli will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can catch Noah and Eli's podcast. A huge list of things we're not eating. And the sister show, Tom and he's, you're gonna eat that. If you'd like to keep it, I really are you. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave

us the five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation episodes, connect with us on social media you gonna keep the hydrogen inside the balloon? Oh, I was thinking I would just, you know, bring some extra sort of, top it up as we go. Top it up. Yeah, you know, whenever the balloon gets low, just top it up.

Okay, you know what? I'm gonna give you two million dollars. Oh, that's great. Yeah, top it up. Yep, that's good. That's what I'm going to do. Top it right on up. Two million dollars.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, top it up. Yep, that's what I'm going to do. Top it right on up.