In August 1931, a submarine approaches  the edge of the known world.
It’s about to enter a massive frozen unknown. A part  of the world remains largely unexplored.
On board are a group of daring  explorers determined to uncover the Arctic’s great mysteries.
Setting out to not only reach the top of the world,
but to discover what lies hidden beneath it. In a new kind of exploration machine.
Enduring cramped conditions and frigid  temperatures, they’ll push ahead for thousands
of kilometers under the ice. But as days turn to weeks, the expedition will go horribly wrong.

History

For centuries, explorers tried repeatedly to reach  the top of the world. At first, they used ships,
battling frigid temperatures and treacherous  sea ice. Their vessels often became trapped,
stranding crews with little hope of rescue.  Later, explorers tried with dog sleds or even
on foot, often ending tragically. Over the  centuries hundreds of explorers perished.
So challenging was the Arctic,  that the first undisputed discovery
of the North Pole wasn’t until 1926. And it was only from the air, in a modified
airship that never even touched the ground. So, when accomplished explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins
planned to set foot on the North Pole, he was  convinced there was a better way to do it.
The North Pole doesn’t lie on a continental  land mass like the South Pole. Instead,
it’s located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean  amid waters almost always covered in ice.
Wilkins was convinced that a submarine  would be the ultimate way to reach the
North Pole. And fitted with the latest  scientific equipment, it could help
solve the Arctic’s greatest mysteries.

The Expedition

Wilkins would set off in the summer.
First,  sailing across the Atlantic, then all the way  up to the Arctic Circle. From there, his
expedition would head West, spanning over three  thousand kilometers. Over six weeks, he’d zigzag
underneath the ice, emerging from the deep through  any openings, before finally ending in Alaska.
To fund the expedition, Wilkins put up his  own savings and raised money from wherever
he could. He lectured day and night, and even  wrote a book outlining his ambitions plans.
But it still wasn’t enough. He’d need serious  backing. And one sure way to get it… was to turn
his scientific pursuit into a media sensation. A voyage under the sea ice was the kind of thing
that would sell out newspapers. So  Wilkins made a deal with newspaper
magnate William Randolph Hearst. A man  with a flare for sensationalism.
Hearst would get exclusive publishing rights,  and Wilkins would get his funding.
And to create even more buzz, Hearst  orchestrated for Wilkins to meet up at
the pole with a second expedition. The massive  airship Graf Zeppelin would fly overhead just
as Wilkins emerged from the ice. Captivating  the public with headlines of the pole being
conquered from above and below. If he could pull off the stunt,
Hearst offered Wilkins a one hundred  and fifty thousand dollar prize.
All that was left, was to find a submarine.

The Nautilus

Wilkins planned to reach the North Pole in the  Nautilus. A retired World War One-era attack
sub that had been heavily modified by renowned  naval architect Simon Lake. And it would have to
do what no submarine had ever done before. The voyage would be fraught with danger,
including the risk of a collision with the sea  ice. So Lake reinforced the Nautilus’s bow with
heavy steel plates and concrete, and added a  hydraulic impact absorber to soften the blow.
But the ice above could also prove deadly. So  Lake fitted the topside with sledge runners,
which would allow it to slide along the  bottom of the ice, much like a toboggan.
A hydraulic retractable guide arm would also  keep a safe distance from hazards above.
The Nautilus could be confined under  the ice for days at a time. But it
would eventually need to surface to take  on air and recharge its batteries. A lack
of openings in the ice could doom the crew. So Lake innovated a series of drills capable
of boring through the ice. Allowing  the Nautilus’s crew to drill through
up to twenty feet to reach the surface. In place of the original torpedo tubes,
Lake added a pressurized diving chamber,  where the crew could lower instruments
to the ocean floor, or conduct dives. In all, Simon Lake made dozens of modifications.
Originally built for World War One, the Nautilus  would now have to battle mother nature.

Wilkins Concerns

On March 16, 1931, as the expedition prepared  to set off, Wilkins put on a brave face for
reporters. “The men are just having things  on board now for the final inspection before
leaving the dockyard. We expect in about  six or eight months to have made the trip
two thousand miles under the ice. Starting from  Spitsbergen somewhere about the first of July”.
But deep down, Wilkins was worried.  He feared many of the sub’s novel
features were unnecessary. Even dangerous. He had reservations about the sledge runners,
the ice drills, and the shock absorber Which he  worried would actually lodge itself into the ice,
trapping the Nautilus beneath the surface. Wilkins insisted on installing a photosensitive
electrical cell to measure the thickness  of the ice above so he’d know where to
surface. But Simon Lake denied the request. The Nautilus was Lake’s submarine. He’s the one
who leased it from the U.S. Navy, and he had  the final word on any modifications. Wilkins
merely sub-chartered it for the expedition. There was little he could do, but accept the
submarine as it was. But the wonder gadgets  would cause headaches before the expedition
even began. Repeatedly forcing the sub back into  port for repairs. It was one thing to invent
novel features. Trying to retrofit them onto  a tired old sub, created all kinds of issues.
Confirming Wilkins’s worst fears, the ice  drills didn’t even work during testing,
and a separate engineering firm was  called in to try to figure it all out.
The weeks turned into months, and Wilkins  was beginning to feel the pressure.
If the Nautilus was to meet the Graf Zeppelin at  the North pole, time was of the essence. Otherwise
Wilkins would lose out on Hearst’s prize money. By June, Wilkins had had enough. Mechanical
issues be damned, it was time to get going.

The Journey

The journey across the Atlantic was grueling.
The tiny sub was easily tossed around by fierce  North Atlantic storms.The crew were also beginning
to learn just how uncomfortable the Nautilus was. The submarine was cramped and claustrophobic to
begin with. Now loaded up for the expedition,  there was even less space. For twenty men
there was just a single toilet out in the  open between two roaring diesel engines.
The crew would have to spend their entire day  standing. Because there wasn’t anywhere to sit.
Only a handful of bunks shared  amongst the men provided any relief.
Wilkins sent Hearst daily radio updates  documenting harrowing journey.
“This morning an extra heavy wave swept the deck  and carried away the screen before the bridge”
Nearly everyone aboard was seasick. And  when the Nautilus’s bilge pump failed,
sewage, oil, and vomit began to swill around  the crew’s feet. But as the tiny sub battled
the fierce Atlantic, things only got worse. “The fourth cylinder of our starboard engine is
badly cracked.” Forced to shut down one of its two  engines, the Nautilus could only limp forward.
On June 13th, a week into the journey, the  Nautilus stopped sending radio updates.
And for several days, no one had any idea  about the fate of the sub and its crew.
On June 15, the Battleship Wyoming found  the Nautilus drifting aimlessly about
a thousand kilometers northeast of the  Azores, both engines had failed and the
batteries were dead. Wilkins would now face  the humiliation of having his sub towed the
rest of the way across the Atlantic. Worse still, four crew members quit,
and the Nautilus once again needed major  repairs. It would take weeks for replacement
parts to arrive from the United States. It meant, there was no longer enough time
to catch up with the Graf Zeppelin.  And In a stunning blow, Wilkins could
no longer claim Hearst’s prize money. The media also turned against him, running
headlines that openly mocked his expedition. Wilkins was under mounting pressure. His
submarine didn’t work. His crew was demoralized  and winter was fast approaching. At this point,
just about anyone else would have thrown in  the towel. But this was Sir Hubert Wilkins.

The North Pole

Even months behind schedule,  Wilkins pressed ahead. On July 28th,
the expedition finally left for the North Pole. The Nautilus was still riddled with problems,
but the crew had gotten used to making  repairs on the go, and any major issues
were fixed during scheduled stops. By August 15th, the Nautilus had reached
the last inhabited land before the Arctic.  And Wilkins was finally sending out upbeat
progress reports. And on the 19th, the  Nautilus reached the first ice flows.
To celebrate, the men were given a  break from the cramped conditions,
and began collecting scientific data. Back home,  Hearst relayed fascinating new discoveries, like
a warmer layer of water deep below the surface,  thought to be vital for predicting weather.
After traveling a week in the ice, the Nautilus  reached 82 degrees north. Further than any
vessel had ever made it under its own power. It looked like Wilkins would actually do it,
he would travel a thousand  kilometers under the ice.

Under the Ice

But as the world read about Wilkins’s  achievements, onboard the Nautilus
things were not as they seemed. Wilkins had  once again, merely put on a brave face.
In reality, the crew were exhausted and freezing.  The Nautilus had no heat or insulation. Nothing
but bare metal separated them from the frigid  arctic waters. The crew were constantly sickened
with food poisoning and dosed with lead from  the soldering in the submarine’s pipes.
Attempting the Pole this late in the season would  be extremely dangerous, and without exception,
everyone wanted to turn around and head home. Everyone, except Wilkins
On August 22nd he gave the order to dive  beneath the ice. But the Nautilus refused.
The diving rudder, the mechanism  that controls vertical motion
underwater, just wouldn’t respond. Wilkins sent a diver to investigate
and he soon returned with a stunning discovery.  The rudder had simply disappeared. Maybe it had
fallen off and somehow no one noticed? Or maybe  as Wilkins suspected, the crew had sabotaged the
sub in an attempt to end the expedition. By this point, even Hearst was publicly
urging Wilkins to return home. But again, things weren’t what they
seemed. In a private message, the Hearst  corporation pressured Wilkins to continue
to the Pole …reminding him of their agreement. And that left Wilkins with an impossible decision.
Return home to certain failure and financial  ruin, or press on and risk the lives of the crew.
On August 31st Wilkins ordered the  ballast tanks flooded and trim set
two degrees down. He would force the Nautilus  to submerge by ramming under the ice.
The sound of the sledge runners scraping  against the ice reverberated right through
the superstructure, as if the  Nautilus was being torn apart.
It’s as though Wilkins had  lost his mind. He couldn’t
possibly reach the pole in the crippled sub. But faced with an endless string of setbacks,
Wilkins seemed determined to prove a point. They pushed on for several kilometers before
Wilkins ordered a test of the ice drills. For hours the crew tried in vain to bore
through just a few feet of ice. Each time,  Simon Lake’s patented drill would only go
so far before jamming. It was hopeless. On September 6th, Wilkins finally sent
out the radio transmission that by  now, everyone was hoping for.
“Our Arctic trip is over…”

Polar Crossing

Wilkins had taken the Nautilus where
no submarine had ever gone before. But it would be  another three decades before anyone successfully
traversed the arctic underneath the ice. Sharing the same name the nuclear-powered
USS Nautilus could stay submerged for weeks at a  time. It made its first Polar crossing in 1958,
returning home to huge fanfare. By that point  Wilkins’s attempt had long been forgotten.
The original Nautilus now lies sunk on the  ocean floor off the coast of Norway. After
the crew returned from the Arctic, the sub  was deemed too worn and damaged to be worth
saving. And it was deliberately sunk. Prior to the nautilus expedition, Wilkins
was considered among the greatest explorers of the  20th century. Having made immense contributions to
our understanding of the North and South Poles. But his final expedition left him financially
ruined and largely forgotten by history. After passing away at the age of seventy,
Wilkins’s final wishes were fulfilled,  when the crew of the U.S.S. Skate scattered
his ashes at the North Pole.

Cosmic Spotlights

In the dying days of the U.S.S.R.,
the Soviets begin working on a mysterious  project straight out of science fiction.
They’re preparing to launch the  first in a series of artificial suns.
Massive orbital satellites with the power to turn  night into day. Illuminating large areas of the
planet to generate power, light up entire  cities, and grow plants in the far north.
“They will transform perpetual night into  daylight. There could eventually be a whole
network of those cosmic spotlights. You’re  talking about something which is several
miles across. It’s the last vestige of the  old Soviet dream of industrializing space.”
This is the little known story  of one of the most bizarre and
fascinating space projects in history. And you can learn more about it in my
feature coming next month to Nebula. Nebula is where you can watch hours of

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