Osa and Martin Johnson
WINGS OVER TANZANIA
Long
before the very first wildlife documentary, an American couple named
Martin and Osa Johnson captured the public's imagination from 1917-1937
through their films and books of adventure in exotic and far-away lands.
The Johnsons were the quintessential models of the golden age of
exploration. They were cut from the same cloth as the boldest of
innovators, explorers and entrepreneurs. They were people with big ideas
and the courage to make those ideas reality.
Through
years of work in the field they innovated wildlife film techniques and
made documentary movies that were superior to others at the time. It's
estimated that they exposed about a million feet of film during their
lives and they believed their footage would be an irreplaceable record
of our "unspoiled" natural world.
In
1933, Osa and Martin Johnson took two Explorers Air Yachts (Sikorsky
S-39 and S-38) to Africa to create the first flying safari documentary
of the continent. They flew from Cape Town to Cairo over the course of
two years. Most of their time was spent in East Africa, capturing the
very first aerial and some of the first conservation footage of Mt.
Kilimanjaro, Serengeti, and many areas of Tanganyika (Tanzania).
A modern-day filmmaker will recreate the Johnson's flights throughout Tanzania.
Fast
forward to today: director and explorer, Haley Jackson of Delta,
Colorado, will lead a team of explorers and filmmakers on a modern day
flying expedition to retrace the Johnson's flights of the 1930's
throughout Tanzania. Using the replica Sikorsky aircraft from the
original flying safari, the team will film an aerial expedition of
Tanzania's 16 National Parks. The 10-week effort is scheduled to begin
in 2020.
Using
the pilot's journals and the Johnson's footage and photos, the team
will film the same landmarks, landscapes, and animal herds that the
Johnsons filmed nearly one hundred years ago.
Using IMAX's large-format 3D camera equipment, they will create unparalleled images of the wildlife, landscape and people that call it home. By juxtaposing new footage with the matching shots from the Johnsons, the project, called "Wings Over Tanzania," will create a doorway into the past, to experience the abundant wildlife, landscape, and people as it was in the 1930's. The flying safari will accomplish four objectives; help wildlife conservation, inspire science and aviation, boost wildlife sanctuaries, and ignite hope.
Using IMAX's large-format 3D camera equipment, they will create unparalleled images of the wildlife, landscape and people that call it home. By juxtaposing new footage with the matching shots from the Johnsons, the project, called "Wings Over Tanzania," will create a doorway into the past, to experience the abundant wildlife, landscape, and people as it was in the 1930's. The flying safari will accomplish four objectives; help wildlife conservation, inspire science and aviation, boost wildlife sanctuaries, and ignite hope.
The $5 million project is seeking sponsorship. For more information and to watch early Johnson film footage, view http://www.haleyjackson.com/tanzania-beyond-the-wild/
EXPEDITION UPDATE
Reid Stowe
Marathon Sailor/Artist Back in the News
Reid Stowe, the marathon sailor and artist we've been covering for
20 years, is back in the news. Credited with the longest nonstop ocean
voyage in recorded history (1,152 days), today Stowe is raising a family
in suburban North Carolina and driving a 2005 Chevy Malibu. But he has
also obsessively been making giant abstract paintings, most of them
using the weather-beaten sails that carried his schooner across the
globe (See
EN, July 2010).
He was recently back in New York to visit the Chelsea gallery that is showing his art, according to the New York Times story by Alex Vadukul (Oct. 27).
"All
this time later, I'm still trying to tell the world the story of what I
went through," said Stowe, 67, during his recent stay in Manhattan.
"I've departed the touch of earth longer than anyone else. All my
paintings carry the vibrations and significance of that journey."
In
2007, he and his girlfriend departed from Hoboken on a boat stocked
with six tons of nonperishable provisions and a sprout garden. On Day
15, a freighter hit their schooner. Around Day 300, his partner, Soanya
Ahmad started feeling sick, and a boat picked her up near the coast of
Australia. Communicating by a satellite phone, Stowe soon learned that
she was pregnant. On Day 457, Soanya gave birth to Darshen in New York.
Mr. Stowe met his son for the first time when he arrived on the Hudson
two years later.
Currently,
while residing in Greenboro, N.C., he takes care of his father who has
Alzheimer's and is also trying to publish a memoir.
Read the entire story here:
EXPEDITION NOTES
Kelvin Kent image by Jim Pisarowicz
Kelvin Kent Talks About Being at Altitude
Kelvin
Kent, a member of Chris Bonington's British teams for Annapurna (1970)
and Everest (1972) spoke to an Explorers Club chapter in Montrose,
Colorado, last month about his climbing career. Kent considers the 1970
Annaurna climb, "the last of an era of logistical sieges," and believes
there are phenomenal climbers today who are almost like ballet dancers.
In regards to the rigors of climbing above 8000 meters, Kent said,
"After being at altitude for long periods of time, no one can tell me
this isn't doing damage to one's brain cells."
He
recalls how team members had to warm their Mallory batteries in
saucepans to get a few minutes of radio broadcast time out of them.
In
regards to the unspeakable weather experienced in the Himalayas, he
said, "Human beings can withstand wind and can withstand cold, but they
can't withstand both .... but regardless, human beings will always try
to do things they haven't done before."
In
1971, Kent was deputy leader of the British Trans Americas Expedition
which took two Range Rovers from Anchorage to Terra Del Fuego in
southern Chile. Kent is a charter council member of the Scientific
Exploration Society and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is
the author of five books and remains active on five boards in the
Montrose/Ouray/Ridgway areas, including the nonprofit Western Colorado
Friends of the Himalayas (westerncoloradofriends.wordpress.com/mission).
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams."
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), Columbian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist.
EXPEDITION FOCUS
EN Travels to Iceland in the Footsteps of Apollo Astronauts
Neil
Armstrong worked hard and played hard during Apollo geology field
exercises in Iceland. (Photo by Sverrir Palsson courtesy of the
Exploration Museum).
On
one of the world's most remote island nations, in a windswept North
Iceland town of 2,300 hardy souls 30 miles south of the Arctic Circle, a
small private museum devoted to exploration is making a name for itself
honoring space exploration.
The
idea behind The Exploration Museum dates to 2009 when Husavik locals
realized the role Iceland's otherworldly lava flows in the country's
Highlands played in training almost three dozen Apollo astronauts. NASA
had found a parallel lunar landscape: no vegetation, no life, no colors,
no landmarks.
Last month EN was privileged to be part of the annual
Explorers Festival which brings explorers and adventurers together for a
series of talks by explorers, art and photo exhibitions, poetry
readings, concerts, and film screenings.
Over
the years since its inception in 2014, the tiny museum at the top of
the world has hosted presentations about the Jeff Bezos-funded recovery
of the Apollo 11 rocket engines; awarded astronaut Scott Parazynski
(veteran of five Space Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks) and
Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17) its Leif Erikson Exploration Award; and
also hosted Walter Cunningham (Apollo 7), William Anders (Apollo 8),
Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9), and Charlie Duke (Apollo 16).
Through the efforts of its founder, Orlygur Hnefill Orlygsson, a monument honoring
the Apollo astronauts that trained in Iceland in 1965 and 1967 is
located outside the museum, unveiled in 2015 by the grandchildren of
Neil Armstrong.
Orly Orlygsson (l) and Explorers Festival director Francesco Perini are dressed for success Iceland-style.
Orlygsson
is an expert in exploration history and a space exploration
enthusiast, with a range of experiences including journalist,
photographer, filmmaker and parliamentary assistant, as well as his
current ownership of the Húsavík Cape Hotel. Turn on the hot water in
the rooms and it smells of sulfur; flip the handle to "cold" and the
water is the world's best-tasting, the same liquid bottlers ship to the
states and sell for $3 a throw.
Orly,
as he is affectionately called, is the director, writer and star of a
quirky, charmingly eccentric Icelandic film called Cosmic Birth about
space exploration that premieres at The Explorers Club on Nov. 15, 2019
(see below).
Mark
Armstrong and son Andrew in the Exploration Museum holding a sweater
worn by Neil Armstrong during a visit to the North Pole with Sir Edmund
Hillary in 1985.
In
a talkback after a screening in Reykjavik, Mark Armstrong, 56, son of
Neil, explained how he consulted on the 2018 film First Man,
particularly the dining room scene where his father, played by Ryan
Gosling, discussed the risks involved in his space mission.
The
younger Armstrong remembers, "We were confident because our father
seemed so very confident in the mission." Later he said, "Our mother was
the true actor. She must have been terrified but didn't let on to us."
Mark
believes the U.S. was letting space slip away. "The country's
leadership in space exploration came at tremendous cost in terms of
dollars and lives. The space program has been languishing but it's
starting to pick up - there's a lot of cause for optimism right now."
In
reference to the Apollo program, he said, "Apollo proved that if we
apply ourselves, amazing things can happen. Apollo gave people hope that
achievements are possible beyond our dreams if work at it together."
The
festival included presentations by the Iceland Space Agency (ISA)
regarding efforts by the Ohio-sized country to join the European Space
Agency (ESA).
"Sure,
we have an inflated sense of self, but we realize how insignificant we
are," says space strategist Thor Fanndal. "But we punch well about our
weight considering we only have 350,000 citizens. What kind of country
our size would be this well known everywhere? We want to become part of
something grander than ourselves."
Iceland
is back in the space training business: this past summer NASA returned
to the country to test the prototype of a self-driving rover truck set
to explore Mars in 2021.
Learn more about the Exploration Museum at: https://www.explorersfest.com/the-exploration-museum
Cold as Ice
Colorado
Explorers Club members broke out their polar expedition gear on Nov. 1,
2019, to visit the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility in
Denver, the world's largest such facility which stores, curates and
studies ice cores recovered from the planet's polar ice sheets. Over
21,000 meters (about 13 miles) of core samples are stored from
Antarctica, Greenland and the high mountain glaciers of the world. The
laboratory provides the opportunity for scientists to examine ice cores
without having to travel to remote field sites.
13 miles of ice cores are stored in Denver
The
Denver Federal Center repository was dedicated in August 1993 and is
one of only three such facilities in the world. Some of the cores being
stored were extracted from as far down as 3,000 meters (9,842 ft.) and
date back 2-1/2 million years. The frigid samples are used for
scientific research related to climate change and other disciplines.
Interestingly, once cores are extracted, they are protected for shipment
in the kind of plastic wine bottle netting used by your local wine
retailer.
The lab uses a specially designed keyboard to accommodate heavy gloves.
The
tour was conducted in both the "warm" exam room (minus 10 degrees F.),
and the main storage room chilled down to minus 32 degrees F., which was
for many visitors, including about 25 local schoolchildren, the coldest
temperatures they've ever experienced.
By the time ice cores arrive for study, it's estimated that each meter of ice is valued at approximately $25,000. Outdoor gear companies often test their cold weather apparel within the space.
Mr. Freeze with assistant curator Richard Nunn. The 1997 Batman
& Robin movie character, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is the
lab's mascot.
"It takes a special kind of crazy to work in these temperatures," admits assistant curator and tour guide
Richard Nunn. "By studying ice cores, we can start piecing together
what's happening to our planet. It provides information on the rate of
change which can help us better understand climate."
MEDIA MATTERS
South slope of the Grandes Jorasses, with the Planpincieux Glacier on the left.
Glacier Collapse Would be Size of Four Epcot Spaceship Earth Spheres
The
Italian side of a Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapsing due to
increased ice melt linked to climate change, scientists and local
officials warn. A massive chunk of the Planpincieux Glacier on Grande
Jorasses peak of the Mont Blanc massif is the cause of concern. About
two feet of its ice melts per day due to high temperatures.
According to a radio interview with Peter O'Dowd of public radio's Here & Now (Sept. 27), if the popular hiking spot collapsed, 250,000 cubic feet of ice could launch down the mountain.
Glaciologist
and Colorado College visiting professor Ulyana Horodyskyj climbed Mont
Blanc in summer 2018 and says, "If you've ever been to Walt Disney
World, there's the Epcot Spaceship Earth, you know that golf ball
structure. Imagine four of those," Horodyskyj says. "That's how big this
volume of ice is."
Although
it's nearly impossible to predict just how imminent the collapse of
Mont Blanc is, Horodyskyj says scientists are doing what they can to
monitor just how quickly ice is slipping down the slopes. She says
scientists can utilize radar, satellite images and even time-lapse
cameras to keep a close watch on the ice melt.
An
"alarmingly wide" crack was detected in the glacier this year, she
says. The glacier's fracture is common during the high heat of summer,
she explains, but was wider than usual this year.
"Glaciers,
in general, are highly sensitive to rising temperatures and when you're
talking about temperate glaciers, it means the glacier [is] already at
its melting point," she says.
As
the potential for a catastrophic collapse looms and the urgency
surrounding climate change action grows, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe
Conte warned world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly
recently that Mont Blanc's future "must shake us all and force us to
mobilize."
Listen to the five-minute interview here:
Like Electronic Crack on Kilimanjaro
We're all addicted to our technology, even more so on expeditions.
Relatively easy climbs on Mt. Kilimanjaro are no exception according to
the story by Anupreeta Das in the
Wall Street Journal (Nov. 9-10, 2019). The writer asks whether she can survive on the mountain if her phone died.
To
fight the cold she snuggled her smartwatch, AirPods, two digital
cameras, a headlamp, charging cables, three power banks and several
dozen spare batteries inside her bag.
She
writes, "Gadgets, especially smartphones and devices powered by
lithium-ion batteries, respond poorly to extreme cold. They can freeze
or develop glitches. Batteries drain alarmingly fast. (On day two, as we
climbed from 11,550 feet to 12,540 feet, my phone's battery went from
100% to 72%. In airplane mode.)
Eddie
Frank, a longtime Kilimanjaro guide writes in a blog post advising
climbers on ways to stay connected, including buying a local SIM card,
"We're addicted to our personal technology so let's not have a
philosophical discussion about going cold turkey on technology while on
our Kilimanjaro climb."
Das
adds, "But here's why I couldn't let my iPhone die. It was my main
camera, my alarm clock, my mirror in selfie mode, my flashlight, my
electronic diary - and as I discovered, my pedometer even without a
connection, allowing me to track my progress in miles walked, steps
taken and floors climbed."
Read the story here:
OUT THERE
Alan Stern says Pluto is everyone's favorite planet.
12 Questions for Alan Stern
S. Alan Stern, 61, is an American engineer and planetary scientist and principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto
and beyond. Stern has been involved in 29 suborbital, orbital, and
planetary space missions, including 14 for which he was a principal
investigator.
It was Stern you saw on a worldwide feed last December 31 when the New Horizons interplanetary space probe,
launched in 2006, closed in on the Kuiper Belt object known as 2014
MU69, which was recently given the Native American name of Arrokoth.
It's
the now familiar snowman-shaped object four billion miles from the sun
that has been extensively studied. While Voyager and Pioneer had a head
start and are the furthest manmade objects from Earth, thanks to New
Horizons, Arrokoth is the furthest world ever explored.
He and David Grinspoon are co-authors of Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto (Picador, 2018).
We recently caught up with Stern for dinner near his home in Gunbarrel, Colorado, and posed a few brief questions.
EN: What was your dream growing up?
SAS: I
wanted to be an astronaut since probably age four. While I was named to
NASA's short list, I'm disappointed that I never made the final cut. I
feel sorry for NASA (ed. note: he says in jest).
EN: So who is your favorite astronaut?
SAS: Hand's
down, the late John Young, the astronauts' astronaut. He did it all:
piloted and commanded four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the
Apollo Command and Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the
Space Shuttle. Oh yeah, he also flew twice to the moon and walked on it.
EN: There hasn't been a moon landing since 1972. What's up with that?
SAS: I find it unbelievable, but that dry spell is going to end soon.
EN: How soon?
SAS: Certainly
in the 2020s. In fact, I'd bet the next decade is going to be another
Roaring 20s as far as space exploration is concerned.
EN: Why even return to the moon? Why not go straight to Mars?
SAS: Because the moon is our training ground. Considering no landings for almost 50 years, we're out of practice.
EN: Will Mars eventually be colonized?
SAS: It's going to happen, just wait and see, and with some people who are alive today.
We need to provide this kind of inspiration to children today, exciting
them about science and engineering careers, and the sheer audacity of
exploration of all kinds.
The
most detailed images of Arrokoth (MU69) obtained just minutes before
the New Horizons spacecraft's closest approach at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan.
1, 2019. It's said to be the most primitive object ever encountered by a
spacecraft (NASA photo).
EN: If
Voyager and Pioneer satellites are the furthest manmade objects from
Earth, how is Arrokoth the furthest world ever discovered?
SAS: Voyager
and Pioneer have traveled further than New Horizon, but there's really
nothing out in their area of deep space to visit. It's like driving
through western Kansas!
EN: In
2015 we received our first-ever high definition images of Pluto thanks
to New Horizons. How's the satellite probe doing these days?
SAS: It's
performing perfectly. It's taking data, sending data, and we're making
plans for what we expect it will do next. Stay tuned.
EN: Pluto: Planet or Dwarf Planet?
SAS: It's a planet, and a lot of peoples' fave planet - the Solar System saved the best for last. Next question?
EN: What's this we hear about a space elevator?
SAS: It's b.s. for now. But come back to me in the 22nd century when technologies are more advanced and we'll see what's possible.
EN: How
about High Altitude Platforms Stations (HAPS) that would enable
wireless broadband deployment in remote areas, including in mountainous,
coastal and desert areas?
SAS: This is going to be a huge business. In fact, I'm in a related business myself.
EN: So, tell us, are we alone?
SAS: Very
likely not. And I think it won't be long before we know. Even if all we
find are some extraterrestrial slime or fish, it would be profound
..... and great fodder for late night comics.
In the Nov. 10 Wall Street Journal, Stern says he is
starting to think about another mission to Pluto, one that probably
wouldn't be launched until at least 2027 and thus won't reach its
destination until the mid-2030s.
Read the story here:
BUZZ WORD
You don't need to go to space to experience the Overview Effect.
Overview Effect
When
astronauts have the opportunity to look down on Earth from space they
experience a sensation that can produce a lasting effect on their
psychology. This shift is commonly referred to as the Overview Effect.
Recent
studies suggest that exposure to this vantage point leads to an
overwhelming sense of emotion, a stronger connection to all living
beings, and a greater appreciation for the planet. (Source: Benjamin
Grant, author of Overview: A New Perspective of Earth [Amphoto
Books, 2016] who uses mesmerizing satellite photography to provoke the
same feeling of overwhelming scale and beauty in each of us.
EXPEDITION MAILBAG
Department of Shameless Self-Aggrandizement
Among
the many letters of congratulations we received upon celebration of our
25th anniversary, were these three that humbled us.
"A
quick note to congratulate you on a quarter century of producing the
finest expedition newsletter out there! I hope all's well, and here's to
the next 1.2 million or so words..."
- Ben Saunders, English polar explorer, endurance athlete, and motivational speaker.
"Congratulations
on a quarter century of serving the exploration world through
Expedition News! Having a 'transmission belt' between the explorers and
the public to explain what we do is a vital part of our world."
- Don Walsh, American oceanographer, explorer and marine policy specialist.
"First
of all a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS on your 25th anniversary. Yours is an
amazing story. You have truly created an iconic communications medium
and have every right to be massively proud of your accomplishment. I
greatly appreciate what you do, as obviously do so many thousands of
others. I look forward to every issue and hope to continue to do so for
another decade or two (from my perspective, hopefully much longer from
yours)."
- Chuck Patton, former climber who summited Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and Mount Santis in Switzerland.
ON THE HORIZON
U.S. Premiere of Icelandic film, Cosmic Birth, The Explorers Club, Nov. 15, 2019, 46 East 70th Street, New York
An
Icelandic documentary film about mankind's journey to the Moon and the
experience of viewing the Earth from a quarter of a million miles away.
The film also looks into the role that Iceland played in the training of
the Apollo astronauts for the first manned missions to another world.
It aired nationally on Icelandic TV and appeared in Iceland theaters on
July 20 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing.
EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS
Explore Pitcairn with Pacific Islands Research Institute
Our mission is to explore the most remote islands in the Pacific and discover their secrets.
Due to our long-standing friendships with some of the
residents of Pitcairn Island, we have been invited by the islanders
themselves to spend a month on Pitcairn exploring petroglyph sites and
conducting forensic archaeology. We will be the first to test for DNA at
a historical burial site in Adamstown. We anticipate two teams of two
weeks each, maximum six participants per team, plus guides, researcher
and forensic anthropologist.
Timing: June/July 2020.
This is a self-funded Expedition at $16,900 pp.
For more information: Capt. Lynn Danaher, FN'05, Pacific Islands Research Institute, 808 755 8045, 4islandexplorer@gmail.com
