
The Ice Balloon – A doomed journey in the Arctic (2010) - danso
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/04/19/the-ice-balloon
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tjradcliffe
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?

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hyp0
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
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.

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

