Speaker 1: Ah beat Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to soft up Radio special operations,
Speaker 1: military news, and straight talk with the guys and the community. Well,
Speaker 1: hello out there, internets, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: soft Up Radio. My name is Alex Hollings, and as
Speaker 1: you may have already guessed, I am not the regular
Speaker 1: host of this show. Brandon Webb, the guy who usually
Speaker 1: hosts this program, as well as Big Phil Campion, who
Speaker 1: will be hosting some future episodes, are both off doing
Speaker 1: the kinds of badass things that badass guys like them
Speaker 1: tend to do, and they asked me if i'd fill
Speaker 1: in this week, give you guys something a little out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary, and then you'll get back to your
Speaker 1: regularly scheduled programming with them next week. So before we
Speaker 1: jump into the weird stuff I've got planned, I want
Speaker 1: to make sure you guys know who I am again.
Speaker 1: My name is Alex Hollings. I was the senior staff
Speaker 1: writer for a very long time at soft rep dot
Speaker 1: com and then the news Rep dot Com. I've also
Speaker 1: spent some time working for the company's sister sites. For instance,
Speaker 1: I'm currently the managing editor over at the load out room.
Speaker 1: I've also spent time working for Fight or Sweep, and
Speaker 1: you can find my work really all over the internet.
Speaker 1: I'm a frequent contributor for Popular Mechanics. I'm also regularly
Speaker 1: on websites like We Are, the Mighty Business Insider, Yahoo News.
Speaker 1: You can really find my name just about anywhere. People
Speaker 1: are swearing in a comment section right. A lot of
Speaker 1: you guys may have heard my voice before because I've
Speaker 1: been a frequent guest on this program, and I've even
Speaker 1: hosted it once or twice in the past. But that's
Speaker 1: all over now. Now we're on this week, and this
Speaker 1: week's episode is about something really cool in my book,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping cool in yours. I'm interested to hear
Speaker 1: how you guys feel about this because I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: going with more of a narrative as opposed to a
Speaker 1: discussion in this week's episode. Today, I'm gonna be telling
Speaker 1: you guys more of a story, something that I've scripted
Speaker 1: ahead of time, and I'm really hoping that you guys
Speaker 1: dig it. If you do dig it, it will not
Speaker 1: be the format for software radio in the future, but
Speaker 1: it could feasibly be the format for something else that
Speaker 1: I work on down the road. So with further ado,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what this week's subject is. And this
Speaker 1: week's subject is the Andre Expedition, which is an early
Speaker 1: polar expedition. And I really really love researching and writing
Speaker 1: about the early days of the polar expeditions, and very
Speaker 1: much the same way that I so much love writing
Speaker 1: about the Gemini and the Apollo programs from NASA's heyday,
Speaker 1: and what it really is that it's not the technology,
Speaker 1: it's really about the indomitable human will. You know, our
Speaker 1: willingness to to keep pushing to see what's over that
Speaker 1: next horizon, even if for all intents and purposes we
Speaker 1: really shouldn't have anything left in the tank. You know,
Speaker 1: this human desire to go a little bit further, even
Speaker 1: if it means losing my health, even if it means
Speaker 1: getting injured, even if it means losing my life. This
Speaker 1: drive that humanity has to push the horizons of what
Speaker 1: we can see, what we can understand, what we can
Speaker 1: touch just a little bit further, if not for us,
Speaker 1: but for the next guy, is really, I think one
Speaker 1: of the best parts of humanity. If you know me,
Speaker 1: you know that I don't have a whole lot of
Speaker 1: faith and the humanity as a whole. Right, I'm a
Speaker 1: paranoid guy. That's the reason why I like gear. I
Speaker 1: like to be prepared, and I don't really trust many people.
Speaker 1: So when I find something that I can really genuinely admire,
Speaker 1: something I can really appreciate, something that gives me that warm,
Speaker 1: fuzzy feeling inside that goes maybe, just maybe humanity is
Speaker 1: worth keeping around for a little bit longer. I try
Speaker 1: my best to claim to those things. And it's important
Speaker 1: to note that victory isn't really the requirement here, right.
Speaker 1: You don't have to actually succeed in order to be great.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is try, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's really it's in the try that you earn my
Speaker 1: respect and admiration. It's not so much in the accomplishment.
Speaker 1: Plenty of dumbasses, plenty of idiots, plenty of assholes have
Speaker 1: accidentally accomplished something great, and that doesn't take away from
Speaker 1: their acomplishment necessarily. But I don't admire you for stumbling
Speaker 1: upon greatness. I actually do admire you if you fail
Speaker 1: in the effort, if you fail in the pursuit of it.
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot more respectable, and that is
Speaker 1: really what the story of Solomon august Andre is all about.
Speaker 1: You See, it can be easy to lose perspective when
Speaker 1: we're talking about historical events. Once timeline stretch a bit
Speaker 1: beyond the horizon of our own memory, they tend to
Speaker 1: get fuzzy. Most people would be surprised to know, for instance,
Speaker 1: that Cleopatra's lifetime was actually closer to ours than it
Speaker 1: was to the construction of the Pyramids, or that the
Speaker 1: Tyrannosaurus rex is further separated from the Stegosaurus than it
Speaker 1: is from us on the you know, the length of
Speaker 1: history's timeline. It's because of this weakness that we have
Speaker 1: when it comes to memory that we tend to lose
Speaker 1: sight of how recent a development mankind's dominance of this
Speaker 1: globe really really is. Because you see, back in and
Speaker 1: we're talking us seventy two years before Neil Armstrong walked
Speaker 1: on the Moon, we weren't even sure if it was
Speaker 1: possible to reach the North Pole. See, at the time,
Speaker 1: our species was still regulated to exploring the furthest reaches
Speaker 1: of the planet the old fashioned way. The only way
Speaker 1: to get places was by ship, on foot, maybe on
Speaker 1: horseback or by dog sled, but that was about it.
Speaker 1: But then this one guy had this crazy idea, what
Speaker 1: if we tried exploring the world by air instead, now
Speaker 1: here in the future from our vantage point of satellite reconnaissance.
Speaker 1: And you know, the YouTube spy plane is fifty years old.
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine a world that didn't do its
Speaker 1: exploration from above. But it wasn't all that long ago
Speaker 1: that that's the only way we knew how to do it.
Speaker 1: So Solomon august Andre was a Swedish explorer that was
Speaker 1: well aware of previous efforts to reach the North Pole,
Speaker 1: and he was further that are well aware that they
Speaker 1: had all ailed. He had this crazy idea. He envisioned
Speaker 1: coasting across the Arctic skies in a hot air balloon.
Speaker 1: He figured he'd reached the North Pole and whatever state
Speaker 1: it might be, because to be honest, at that time,
Speaker 1: we had no idea if the North Pole was on
Speaker 1: a sheet of ice, if it was on a piece
Speaker 1: of land, or maybe it was just empty ocean, but
Speaker 1: whatever it was, he hoped to find it via hot
Speaker 1: air balloon and then return, you know, with awesome stories
Speaker 1: about this incredible voyage he took in the sky. Now,
Speaker 1: it wasn't totally unheard of at the time. Hot air
Speaker 1: balloons had already been used in aviation for years. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are stories of hot air balloons dating back to
Speaker 1: the Civil War, right, where like you'd fly up to
Speaker 1: get a good look at the battle space. But no
Speaker 1: hot air balloon had ever remained aloft for more than
Speaker 1: fifteen days. And the reason why that fifteen daymark is
Speaker 1: really important is because, by Andre's own math, he would
Speaker 1: need at least thirty days in the air in order
Speaker 1: to reach the North Pole and come back. Now, way
Speaker 1: up in the frigid Arctic, it's not like he could land,
Speaker 1: resupply and take off again. He needed to literally complete
Speaker 1: this entire expedition in the balloon and airborne. So in
Speaker 1: order to do that, he came up with a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of new contraptions that he claimed would allow this
Speaker 1: new balloon ship he was building to travel even against
Speaker 1: the wind. Now, you don't have to have ever traveled
Speaker 1: in a hot air balloon to know that they tend
Speaker 1: to be kinda at the will of the wind. It is,
Speaker 1: after all, a balloon, right, you can control your ascent,
Speaker 1: you can control your descent, and to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: you can try to manage where you're headed, but ultimately
Speaker 1: a strong gust of wind is really going to be
Speaker 1: the deciding factor and where you go. But according to
Speaker 1: Solomon august Andre, he had developed a way to make
Speaker 1: his balloon fly against the wind so that he could
Speaker 1: be in total control of his balloon expedition throughout the
Speaker 1: length of it. And now that of course was essential
Speaker 1: because if it was gonna take thirty days for him
Speaker 1: to make this venture, of this journey, that's the best
Speaker 1: case scenario. And if he managed to get lost, he
Speaker 1: would outlast the flying time of his balloon. So you
Speaker 1: might not be surprised to learn that this plan had
Speaker 1: plenty of critics. Right aside from the fact that most
Speaker 1: people weren't sure you could even reach the North Pole,
Speaker 1: they certainly weren't confident that you could do it in
Speaker 1: a hot air balloon. But this plan did also garner
Speaker 1: some pretty significant support. You know, one guy who was
Speaker 1: really down for this cause was Alfred Nobel, who, aside
Speaker 1: from being the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, was
Speaker 1: also the inventor of dynamite. One thing really led to
Speaker 1: the other. There another guy that was really interested in
Speaker 1: this plan was the king of Sweden, this dude named
Speaker 1: Oscar of the Second. And the reason why that was
Speaker 1: so important is because this was going to be a
Speaker 1: very expensive undertaking, and it really helped to have the
Speaker 1: backing of a king in order to make this happen.
Speaker 1: So Andre's hydrogen balloon, talking about expensive, was made in Paris,
Speaker 1: and they used layers of varnished silk to put this
Speaker 1: balloon together all told. Also together all of the silk
Speaker 1: measured nearly a hundred feet high and it weighed a
Speaker 1: ton and a half. Now we're talking about a ton
Speaker 1: and a half of silk. This is not a cheap enterprise.
Speaker 1: The next part was working on the hydrogen right, because
Speaker 1: now that you have a balloon, you need to fill
Speaker 1: it with something, something that's lighter than air. The problem is,
Speaker 1: of course, that hydrogen is highly explosive, as you may
Speaker 1: have learned. But from watching videos of the Hindenburg disaster
Speaker 1: and school growing up right, Andre believed though that he
Speaker 1: could mitigate the risks of using hydrogen for his journey
Speaker 1: by doing some little things like mounting the airship's cook
Speaker 1: stove outside the basket that he and his crew would
Speaker 1: ride in. He didn't do a whole lot else to
Speaker 1: try to prevent this balloon from explode voting somewhere over
Speaker 1: the North Pole. But in his defense, it didn't, so
Speaker 1: maybe he was right. As impossible as this school really
Speaker 1: did seem at first glance, he and his two crew
Speaker 1: mates that he picked out. One guy's name was I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna miss pronounce this, but I'll be honest with you, guys.
Speaker 1: It looks like his name is Nut k and Ut
Speaker 1: Nut Frankel, who's a twenty six year old civil engineer,
Speaker 1: and this other dude named Nils Strandberg, who was a
Speaker 1: physics professor. These guys were just crazy enough to come
Speaker 1: on this history making journey. They wanted to be the
Speaker 1: first human beings ever to reach the North Pole. And
Speaker 1: it's important to note that that's the same reason why
Speaker 1: the Swedish king was on board, because, just like the
Speaker 1: space race, just like trying to reach the Moon, being
Speaker 1: the first human beings to reach the North Pole was
Speaker 1: about more than just exploration. It was about pride, national pride. Really,
Speaker 1: it was about accomplishing something great under someone's banner, and
Speaker 1: King Oscar the second was all about making sure this
Speaker 1: happened under his banner. And you know, for better or worse,
Speaker 1: it did because on July eleven, the three man crew
Speaker 1: in their silk balloon took off from an island in
Speaker 1: this vall Bird Archipelago. And that day a lot of
Speaker 1: the people on the crown seemed really optimistic about their chances.
Speaker 1: Not everybody was, though, and one witness wrote, as they
Speaker 1: drifted off for a moment, then between two hills, we
Speaker 1: perceive a gray speck over the sea, very very far away,
Speaker 1: and then finally it disappears. Now that quote wouldn't be
Speaker 1: so ominous if it weren't for the fact that that
Speaker 1: was the last time anyone ever saw those three men alive.
Speaker 1: They would not succeed in finding the North Pole and
Speaker 1: returning with incredible stories about their adventures. But in a way,
Speaker 1: therein really lies the heroism. You see. There is no
Speaker 1: victory without the chance for defeat. In a way, there's
Speaker 1: no victory without defeat at all. And while the Entree
Speaker 1: expedition did end in failure, the odds were stacked against
Speaker 1: them and they chose to try instead, and that is
Speaker 1: real heroism. So more than thirty years later, a Norwegian
Speaker 1: sloop now a sloop is a single masted sailing ship
Speaker 1: that they just decided to give a funny name to. Now,
Speaker 1: this sloop was called the brat Vague and it stopped
Speaker 1: a remote Arctic island called White Island. The ship was
Speaker 1: splitting duty between seal hunting and a geological expedition that
Speaker 1: was headed by a dude named Doctor gunner Horn. Now,
Speaker 1: surprisingly enough, on the second day at White Island, it
Speaker 1: wasn't Dr gunner Horn, but actually the hunters that came
Speaker 1: back to the ship with a noteworthy discovery. They had
Speaker 1: found a handwritten diary with the ominous title The Sledge Journey. Now,
Speaker 1: the seal hunters reported finding the diary after coming across
Speaker 1: an aluminum lid in a stream. They hadn't expected to
Speaker 1: find any signs of humanity on this island. It was
Speaker 1: incredibly remote, and further, it was incredibly unforgiving. But as
Speaker 1: they continued along their way, they came across the campus
Speaker 1: boat adorned with a stamp that said Andre's Pole X
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety six. Now that pole and X, of course,
Speaker 1: were abbreviations for Polar Expedition. They had found a boat
Speaker 1: stamped Andre's Polar Expedition. Now again, it's important to note
Speaker 1: that this is thirty years after the last time any
Speaker 1: of the three men and this expedition we're seen alive.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long, however, before they found the body of
Speaker 1: Solomon August Andre. He was leaning against a rock and
Speaker 1: he was partially submerged in snow. His head was missing,
Speaker 1: but inside his jacket they found a large monogram an
Speaker 1: a for Andre. It wouldn't be long before they'd find
Speaker 1: accounts from all three of the expedition's explorers for counting
Speaker 1: their tragic ends. Frankel's notes were mostly scientific, recording things
Speaker 1: like meteorological observations. Strindberg also recorded scientific observations, but his
Speaker 1: were mostly about the night sky. But he also wrote
Speaker 1: letters to his fiance, a woman named Anna Sharliere. In
Speaker 1: those letters, Strottenberg seemed tragically certain that they were going
Speaker 1: to get through this, that they were going to survive,
Speaker 1: and that he would get back there tour Andre himself
Speaker 1: kept two journals, which are really the most thorough accounts
Speaker 1: of the events that led to their death. Early in
Speaker 1: the journey, he wrote, it is not a little strange
Speaker 1: to be floating here above the polar Sea, to be
Speaker 1: the first to have floated here in a balloon. How soon,
Speaker 1: I wonder, shall we have successors? We think we can
Speaker 1: well face death having done what we have done, isn't
Speaker 1: it at all? Perhaps the expression of an extremely strong
Speaker 1: sense of individuality which cannot bear the thought of living
Speaker 1: and dying like a man in the ranks, forgotten by
Speaker 1: coming generations? Is this ambition? Thanks to those records, we
Speaker 1: learned that it was only sixty five hours after they
Speaker 1: first departed, but the crew finally had to choose to
Speaker 1: abandon their hot air balloon. It had taken them really
Speaker 1: far off course. Repeatedly it had soared to heights that
Speaker 1: most of them felt for too dangerous to fly in
Speaker 1: a balloon, while other times it had flown so low
Speaker 1: that it was literally dragging along the ice. Exhausted and hungry,
Speaker 1: their journey behind balloon ended only five hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: miles from where they started, but only three hundred of
Speaker 1: those miles had actually been in the right direction. They
Speaker 1: found themselves stranded some three hundred miles from where they started,
Speaker 1: three hundred miles from the north pole, and with next
Speaker 1: to no hope at all for rescue. Now, these guys
Speaker 1: were no quitters, so they strapped sledges which are like
Speaker 1: heavy duty sleds, to their backs, and loaded each and
Speaker 1: one up with three or four hundred pounds of gear
Speaker 1: and equipment and supplies and start of dragging them to
Speaker 1: the southeast. You see, in the event of some sort
Speaker 1: of a disaster, a disaster much like this, they had
Speaker 1: chartered a ship to drop off an emergency supply crate
Speaker 1: on Franz Joseph Island. Their plan was to drag their
Speaker 1: gear there, resupply there, and start working on rescue from
Speaker 1: that point. The problem was is that they were in
Speaker 1: perhaps the most inhospitable environment imaginable, and they were hungry. So,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, this small crew of two engineers
Speaker 1: and a physics professor actually managed to hunt and kill
Speaker 1: a polar bear, which they then made into a pretty
Speaker 1: hearty meal. They walked for upwards of ten hours a day,
Speaker 1: but the terrain was so bad the gear was so
Speaker 1: heavy that they still managed to only cover about three
Speaker 1: miles on the best of them. Through it all, though,
Speaker 1: Andre continued to capture the beauty of his surroundings, and
Speaker 1: he kept doing that even as their health began to fade.
Speaker 1: He really seemed to appreciate the fact that this small
Speaker 1: crew were the only men to ever see some of
Speaker 1: these environments that they were trudging through, and despite the
Speaker 1: misery of the circumstances, he still really seemed to appreciate
Speaker 1: the magic of that. On August thirty one, more than
Speaker 1: a month and a half after they had departed, he
Speaker 1: wrote of what they saw when he said the sun
Speaker 1: touched the horizon at midnight, the landscape on fire, the
Speaker 1: snow a sea of flame. Things were only going to
Speaker 1: get worse from there, however, and on September there had
Speaker 1: finally been enough snowfall for them to start working on
Speaker 1: a makeshift shelter. They piled up as much snow as
Speaker 1: they could, and then they had poured water over it
Speaker 1: to harden it, and eventually they had managed to make
Speaker 1: a sort of igloo that they were able to climb
Speaker 1: into and get a little bit of shelter from the elements.
Speaker 1: They slept in the zigloo for less than a week
Speaker 1: before on October two, the ice shelf that the shelter
Speaker 1: was on cracked and flooded their little space with ice
Speaker 1: and water. They did manage to escape, and then they
Speaker 1: set about the hard process of trying to fish out
Speaker 1: as much of their gear and supplies as they could,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it's still managed to drift away,
Speaker 1: even still when they had no right to still be alive.
Speaker 1: Their journals showed that the men maintained pretty high spirits.
Speaker 1: Andrea wrote at the time, no one had lost courage.
Speaker 1: With such comrades, one should be able to manage under
Speaker 1: I may say, any circumstances. His last entry came only
Speaker 1: six days later. The crew had made their way onto
Speaker 1: an island, constructed another shelter, and for a brief moment,
Speaker 1: felt relief. That last entry, Andre wrote reads, it feels
Speaker 1: fine to be able to sleep here on fast Land
Speaker 1: as a contrast with the drifting ice out upon the ocean,
Speaker 1: where we constantly heard the cracking, grinding and din. We
Speaker 1: shall have to gather drift wood and bones of whales,
Speaker 1: and have to do some more moving around when the
Speaker 1: weather permits, and that's it. To this day, no one
Speaker 1: knows exactly how the men died. Some have postulated that
Speaker 1: they died one by one from different dangers presented by
Speaker 1: the harsh Arctic Drowning injuries, infections are just the cold.
Speaker 1: Others a theorize that their poor diet and their failing
Speaker 1: health and the exhaustion may have all made them turn
Speaker 1: on each other. Others attribute their ends to simple exhaustion
Speaker 1: and exposure. One of their ton nails, recovered from inside
Speaker 1: a sock, revealed high levels of lead in their systems,
Speaker 1: but not enough to account for poisoning. Likewise, Andre seemed
Speaker 1: to take effort to save his diaries for posterity before
Speaker 1: he died, suggesting that he was not in a state
Speaker 1: of panic, but rather one of somber acceptance as the
Speaker 1: last bits of life left him. On October five, thirty
Speaker 1: three years after they first departed, the remains of Solomon,
Speaker 1: August Andre, Nutt Frankel, and Nil Strandberg finally made it home.
Speaker 1: Five planes and five destroyers escorted them for the final
Speaker 1: leg of their journey. Once to remain did reach Stockholm,
Speaker 1: King Gustaf the Fifth said, in the name of the
Speaker 1: Swedish nation, I here greet the dust of the polar explorers, who,
Speaker 1: more than three decades ago left their native land to
Speaker 1: find an answer to a question of unparalleled difficulty. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: although the endeavor was a failure, the courage and the
Speaker 1: determination of these three men in the face of insurmountable
Speaker 1: odds really does represent the best of us. Victory isn't
Speaker 1: the only standard by which we can grade heroism, especially
Speaker 1: through the lens of hindsight. Strength of will, camaraderie, and
Speaker 1: a willingness to sacrifice for something that's bigger than you
Speaker 1: are are all really important factors and what we consider
Speaker 1: a hero. It really isn't about whether you win or lose.
Speaker 1: In so many ways, heroism is about whether or not
Speaker 1: you're willing to try. Now, the Andrea Expedition represents so
Speaker 1: much of the best of us, and these men that
Speaker 1: were willing to try something new, something untested. They were
Speaker 1: willing to do something dangerous to advance our understanding of
Speaker 1: the world for all of mankind. You know, those early
Speaker 1: astronauts in the Gemini program didn't actually have a whole
Speaker 1: lot to do in their space capsules. In effect, they
Speaker 1: were really kind of just monkeys being sent up into
Speaker 1: space to see if they'd survive, to see if we
Speaker 1: could build a spaceship that would keep a human being alive.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make them less heroic. In a weird way,
Speaker 1: it makes them more heroic. They weren't up there to
Speaker 1: to do something incredibly technical, They weren't up there to
Speaker 1: lean on their expertise or their brilliance or their genius.
Speaker 1: They were up there, literally just to put their lives
Speaker 1: on the line to advance something bigger than themselves, and
Speaker 1: that's what the Andrea Expedition was. But it's also important
Speaker 1: to remember that for all the ways, Andrea was right,
Speaker 1: and he was right about a lot of things. He
Speaker 1: was right that eventually we would explore this earth from
Speaker 1: above rather than by sea or on foot. He was
Speaker 1: also right that hot air balloons were capable of so
Speaker 1: much more than they were being utilized for at the time.
Speaker 1: But it despite all the ways he was right, he
Speaker 1: was also wrong in all the most important ways, like
Speaker 1: knowing that they could achieve this incredible goal getting them
Speaker 1: back home safely. But that's also an incredibly important part
Speaker 1: of heroism, of the picture of a hero that we
Speaker 1: develop in our minds, Failure is integral to the hero. Now,
Speaker 1: in the case of Andre, that failure cost him in
Speaker 1: his team his life, but we still gain from it.
Speaker 1: We gain from looking back at that story and understanding
Speaker 1: that great men, and I count Andre among great men,
Speaker 1: are ultimately just dudes. The founding fathers Amerigo Vesputi, Christopher Columbus, Socrates,
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. The one thing they all have in common
Speaker 1: is that they were all just guys. Guys that had flaws,
Speaker 1: Guys that failed, guys that fell on their face. We
Speaker 1: remember them for their victories, but they had more than
Speaker 1: their fair share of failures as well. That's how they
Speaker 1: got to be who they were through trying, through failing.
Speaker 1: Now today, the Andrea expedition has been all but forgotten
Speaker 1: by history, and to be honest, that's in large part
Speaker 1: because they did fail. They did not reach the North Pole.
Speaker 1: They were not the first to get there and come
Speaker 1: back and tell the story. But they were also something
Speaker 1: more important than that. They were a stepping stone towards
Speaker 1: man's eventual dominance of this planet. They were a cog
Speaker 1: in the greater machine that is mankind's exploration. The will
Speaker 1: that they exhibited is the same sort of will that
Speaker 1: we will see and the first Martian colonists. It's not
Speaker 1: always going to be a happy ending. Not every story
Speaker 1: can end in victory, but these failures are just as important,
Speaker 1: if not as memorable. And as for Andre, in a
Speaker 1: weird way, it seems as though he may have predicted
Speaker 1: his own demise because back in two years before he
Speaker 1: set off on his ill fated expedition, he wrote in
Speaker 1: his journal in the Arctic, the cold only kills And
Speaker 1: that's it, guys. That is the story of the Andrea Expedition.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you bearing with me through this really
Speaker 1: unusual episode of SOFTWAREP Radio. You know, I hope that
Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed it, but don't worry if you did,
Speaker 1: next week it will be right back to SOFTWAREP Radio
Speaker 1: as usual. In the meantime, I want to make sure
Speaker 1: that you guys check out our sponsors at crate Club
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Speaker 1: does occasionally see if its way into News Rep, but
Speaker 1: only by way of how it affects foreign policy right. Mostly,
Speaker 1: what we're focused on there is America's war fighting apparatus,
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Speaker 1: check out load out room dot com. Load out room
Speaker 1: dot com is an awesome place to get all kinds
Speaker 1: of reviews for gear, ranging from camping an adventure to
Speaker 1: this type of special operations equipment that you would see
Speaker 1: Navy seals carrying into the fight. I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of my time over on load out room dot com
Speaker 1: for a good reason, because it is an absolute blast.
Speaker 1: News Rep load out room dot Com both excellent choices,
Speaker 1: but if you want to get the gear sent straight
Speaker 1: to your door, that's great, Club dot us. So what
Speaker 1: do you say we wrapped this whole thing up with
Speaker 1: a little bit of shameless self promotion. My name, once
Speaker 1: again is Alex Hollings. I'm a journalist and a Marine
Speaker 1: Corps veteran that you can find writing every day right
Speaker 1: there on the News Rep. You can also find my
Speaker 1: work on Popular Mechanics. I've got an awesome piece this
Speaker 1: week going up about the You two spy plane, which,
Speaker 1: if you didn't know, was actually the real reason we
Speaker 1: invented Area fifty one. I've also got lots of stuff
Speaker 1: up on We Are the Mighty and a number of
Speaker 1: other outlets. You can find me all over the place
Speaker 1: just by hunting me down on social media. You guys
Speaker 1: can find me on Facebook at facebook dot com slash
Speaker 1: Alex Hollings Writer. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Alex Hollings fifty two, and you can also send me
Speaker 1: an email directly through the contact forum on Alex Hollings
Speaker 1: dot com. I do want to warn you ahead of
Speaker 1: time that I get a lot of correspondence, so although
Speaker 1: I try my best to read every message that I receive,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily respond to them. If you want to
Speaker 1: get a risk as out of me, your best bet
Speaker 1: is to not be an asshole. I know that that
Speaker 1: seems crazy that I'd even need to say that to you,
Speaker 1: but apparently when it comes to correspondence on the Internet,
Speaker 1: most people forget that caps lock is not the best
Speaker 1: way to convey your point. But rest assured, even if
Speaker 1: you are a troll that just really revels in the
Speaker 1: opportunity to say crazy ship to some guy you don't know,
Speaker 1: I will probably read it, and it probably will chip
Speaker 1: just another tiny little chunk off this little black hunk
Speaker 1: of charcoal that I call a heart. But it probably
Speaker 1: won't accomplish much more than that, And for that maybe
Speaker 1: I should say I'm sorry. Until next time, you, guys,
Speaker 1: it has been a blast. I really hope that you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed this really unusual episode of Software Up Radio. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed the story of the Andrea expedition and
Speaker 1: maybe think a little bit harder now about how we
Speaker 1: qualify a hero and what attributes we really want to
Speaker 1: emulate in our life. Until next time, guys, I'm Alex
Speaker 1: Hollings and I really appreciate you wasting some time with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks you've been listening to self Red Radio. New episodes
Speaker 1: up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow the show on Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter at self rep Radio