(wind howling) (wind howling) -[Howard] Sometimes you couldn't hardly see across your yard, just so dense with dust.

(wind howling) You kind of wondered, how did we exist?

(wind howling) (wind howling) -[Nathan] In the early 1930s, there's a proto space race that has emerged between the Soviets, the United States and independent French aviators to reach the highest levels of the stratosphere and prove that human beings can ultimately survive at high altitude, and then eventually space.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) The Explorer I project was a collaboration between the National Geographic Society and the Army Air Corps, the precursor to the Air Force today.

The National Geographic Society paid for the construction of the gondola, the balloon, the scientific equipment.

(ambient music) The Army Air Corps would provide the infrastructure, the pilots, the technical know-how to actually operate this balloon.

(ambient music) This private-public partnership between these two entities (ambient music) allowed for an expensive and successful expedition to happen in the middle of the Depression.

(ambient music) (ambient music) (ambient music) They needed a place that would have ideal weather conditions, (ambient music) but then also, on the ground, you needed something that would protect the balloon as they were inflating it.

(ambient music) You can't have that thing flailing around, 'cause it takes a while to get all the hydrogen into the balloon.

(birds chirping) (ambient music) They ultimately settle on the Stratobowl outside Rapid City, South Dakota.

(ambient music) They built a military base at the Stratobowl.

Had a hospital, two radio stations, barracks, and then thousands of hydrogen containers (ambient music) just lining the rims of the Stratobowl.

(ambient music) Miles upon miles of rope that is required to control the balloon.

(ambient music) The balloon itself requires under three acres of fabric, (ambient music) which took five months to fabricate it.

(ambient music) It was linen that was rubberized and then produced by hand by the Goodyear Zeppelin Company.

(ambient music) The gondola itself was produced by the Dow Chemical Corporation.

It was a magnesium alloy and it weighed 700 pounds.

(ambient music) (ambient music) They picked some of the most talented men in the Army Air Corps.

(ambient music) One of the men has the parachute record at this point in time, 24,000 feet.

(ambient music) You've got the first human being to photograph and see the curvature of the earth.

(ambient music) You've got men who have been in the air, (ambient music) who have been in balloons, high-altitude situations.

(ambient music) Some have combat experience in the First World War.

(ambient music) (ambient music) These are men who are trained, who are experts.

(ambient music) They know what they're doing.

(ambient music) They're very well aware of the dangers of what could happen.

(soft music) (soft music) Hydrogen, like helium, is a lighter-than-air gas.

(soft music) Very abundant, but has the unfortunate side effect of being very explosive, as we all know from the Hindenburg explosion, which happens a couple of years later.

(soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) They are constantly checking the weather.

They work all through the day and then all through the night.

They've got to put all the pieces together.

They've got to get the batteries in, as well as radio equipment, all sorts of different sensors.

They load cold-weather clothing because this is not an insulated gondola.

They are going to pass through some very, very cold portions of the atmosphere.

(soft music) They are getting everything prepped and ready to go.

(soft music) (soft music) (soft music) And they just lift and lift and lift.

(soft music) They begin to drift south.

(soft music) They're going over northwestern Nebraska.

There are spotter airplanes that are following them.

(soft music) The equipment is working, they're making their observations and everything is going real fine.

(soft music) There's suddenly a shutter.

(soft music) A tear forms in the envelope, and they realize that they're not going to be able to make it to the 75,000 feet that they wanted.

(soft music) They need to slowly and have a very controlled descent if they're going to survive.

(soft music) (machine whirring) They're about 5,000 feet above Loomis, Nebraska.

(machine whirring) They are in preparation to jump.

(soft music) Somebody steps on Captain Anderson's parachute and releases the parachute in the gondola.

And so he has it bunched up in his arms and is at the top of the parachute, and he and Major Kepner are having a debate about whether he can just heave his parachute out and will it catch?

Will it land?

Will he survive?

(soft music) The balloon explodes, and the gondola just becomes a bomb.

(soft music) Captain Anderson just heaves his parachute out.

It catches.

(soft music) Major Kepner kicks Captain Stevens out one of the portholes.

(soft music) (soft music) and then Kepner is the last one to land.

(soft music) The gondola lands about 150 feet before them, just exploding all over Reuben Johnson's cornfield.

(soft music) At the time, everyone in the nation was glued to their radio sets listening to this live.

(soft music) After the crash happens, Major Kepner makes his way to the Johnson farmhouse, gets on the phone and calls headquarters.

He's talking with headquarters, and then a voice breaks in and says, "It's NBC.

You're going live.

Tell everybody what's going on."

(twangy music) And in this moment, thousands of people are descending upon this cornfield north of Loomis.

(twangy music) Everybody in central Nebraska wants to be a part of it.

(upbeat twangy music) There's no crowd control.

(upbeat twangy music) People are pocketing pieces of the envelope.

(upbeat twangy music) There's a gentleman who takes an entire hatch and later donates it to the State Historical Society in Lincoln where it remains.

(upbeat twangy music) They're taking the scientific equipment, they're taking really whatever they can get their hands on 'cause they want to be part of this event.

They want to have a souvenir.

(upbeat twangy music) (upbeat twangy music) This becomes a problem.

(upbeat twangy music) The National Geographic Society and the Army Air Corps want everything back so they can figure out what happened.

(upbeat twangy music) There are calls that are put out in all of the local papers saying, "Did you take something?"

The "Kearney Hub" leads this effort, and locals are sending things back to the National Geographic Society.

(upbeat twangy music) The cause of the crash is ultimately determined fault with the envelope.

That it froze, opened, it cracked and tore, and the National Geographic Society sends stuff back.

(upbeat twangy music) Today, the Nebraska Prairie Museum, Fort Kearney Museum in Kearney, as well as History Nebraska all have artifacts from this expedition.

(upbeat twangy music) (upbeat twangy music) -[Howard] My dad was a souvenir seeker.

He took something that he shouldn't have, but at the same time, we, today, get to share in what it was.

This is little tiny pellets of lead, and this was used as ballast in the balloon.

I was four years old and my parents, they were out observing.

I thought, "What would cause them to be looking up at the sky for something?"

They had gotten news by the radio about this balloon coming across from South Dakota, and I remember, finally I said, "Oh, I can see that white spot up there."

(soft music) We were four miles northwest of the crash site, (soft music) so my dad went to the site, came home, he put it in the bottle.

(soft music) It's been in his bottle for 90 years.

(soft music) (soft music) But I also remember days in that period of time, we had severe dust storms.

(soft music) Some days it'd last for days and days, (soft music) and sometimes almost blackouts, just dust.

(soft music) -[Nathan] It was a media sensation.

It has been forgotten and remembered and forgotten and remembered.

People in central Nebraska, in the darkest of their days, finding support or comfort or connection into a wider world that they could be part of something, they could be part of something greater.

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