BOTTOM OF THE WORLD

e [Music] and now your true adventure host Bill Bird hi there this is Bill burd saying welcome to Adventure true adventure filmed as it happens throughout our fascinating world you know not so long ago most people thought of Adventure in terms of exploring Africa we still call it the Dark Continent but today there's one part of the world that makes Africa seem as well traveled and familiar as the road to the neighborhood Market the Antarctic continent between 5 and 6 million square miles of icy desolation four fifths of the world's ice covers this land it supports hardly any life the birds and penguins that do manage to live on the outer rim of Antarctica have to find their food in the surrounding ocean in 1956 Expeditions flown in by air found whole mountain ranges no one had ever dreamed of before some of the Peaks as high as the Alps or higher winds that reach hurricane Force at the pole itself the ice is over 2 miles thick the night is 6 months long there in the Antarctic it takes man's courage and ability to survive and meet the Supreme challenge now there have been many failures spectacular and heroic but still failures nonetheless almost inch by inch this last unknown continent is surrendering to human conquest and [Music] understanding this is Antarctica the coldest most desolate region on Earth for men it's the most hostile environment short of outer space here the temperature goes down to 120 below zero when the wind dies down you can hear the sound of enormous layers of ice trying to adjust to the billions of t of pressure that they themselves create you have to cross this Wasteland to reach the South Pole the names of the men who've tried it have gone down in the history of exploration and Adventure men like Shackleton who was turned back amonson who succeeded Scott who succeeded and died along with his whole party [Music] this was shackleton's base it's so cold here that the food he left behind is still as good to eat today as it was in 198 but a new era in Antarctic exploration began when Commander Richard E bird of the United States Navy became the first man to fly over the pole in 1929 and he was off officer in charge of the First full scale attack on the mysteries of Antarctica when operation high jump explored 2 million square miles miles of the continent in 1946 and [Music] 47 but even this was only the beginning real knowledge of the ant Artic had to wait for the international geophysical year that began July 1 1957 with rear Admiral George duct in charge of America's South polar investigation and Admiral bird is the program's adviser this would have been the climax of Bird's career as a polar Explorer but he died in March 1957 while preparations were still underway one of America's greatest [Music] explorers but all already a lot had been done for almost a year before Bird's death the military Air transport service had been faing equipment and supplies to the Antarctic by way of New Zealand the adventure that had pitted men like Shackleton amonson and Scot against the elements almost single-handed had become in less than 50 years a matter of organization and Logistics made possible by Douglas aircraft c124s this was history's longest airlift to the bottom of the world here at McMurdo sound the US Navy had built an air strip of ice 20 ft thick [Music] [Music] it's a 2,250 Mi hop from New Zealand to McMurdo sound the last lap from McMurdo to the South Pole itself is 735 Mi no Landing Strip there supplies and equipment had to go in by Parachute [Music] [Music] the planes brought in everything from scientific instruments to Raw Lumber dropped without benefit of parachute to save time and money the scientists from 12 Nations who came here for the igy learned so much that was startling and knew about this apparently lifeless empty region that most of them decided to stay on after the igy was over the geophysical year Spirit of international cooperation continued America's operation deep freeze under rear Admiral David M Tyrie was part of an unusually successful experiment in international relations as well as a Cooperative attack on the scientific Mysteries of the South polar region and what lone man started not so very long ago was being continued with a thoroughness never dreamed of in the days of Shackleton and Scott compare this scene with that one loone cabin that was shackleton's base back in 1908 from September to October of 1959 planes brought in nearly 1,500 tons of cargo plus passengers to the Deep Freeze base at MCM o sound and this is work that the first man to reach the pole Norway's amonson had to do by dog sled this generator the size of an automobile was actually airlifted to bird station deep in the Antarctic [Music] he [Music] a month after amonson first reached the South Pole the Englishman Richard Scott got there too he wrote in his notebook and I quote one knows that there is neither tree nor shrub nor any living thing nothing but this terrible Limitless expanse of snow oddly enough he was wrong on several counts in that description though he didn't live to learn it but I suspect that uh he would have been thrilled to know that the Frozen continent he tried to conquer could ever be subdued like this even just a few hundred square yards at a time [Music] [Applause] [Music] and it is being conquered here at the pole itself men are finding out more and more about the world we live on and the universe around [Music] us here we're pushing forward our understanding of cosmic rays Magnetic storms radio blackouts sunspot activity the strange lights known as the Aurora geology the weather all this and more [Music] one of the dedicated scientists to come to the polar station was Henry morumi of Japan the first Japanese citizen by the way ever to set foot in Antarctica a treaty signed by the United States and 11 other nations preserves the continent for peaceful purposes and Promises the continuation of a great advant Venture in scientific [Music] progress today the South Pole is where a man can walk around the world in 4 and A2 [Music] seconds this is Ben marble who photographed our true adventure at the bottom of the world [Music] setting up a base at Muro sound building comfortable quarters and scientific installations at the South Pole itself were only the beginning of this adventure in Antarctic exploration even today there is still a million square miles of Antarctica that no one has ever laid eyes on [Music] and no doubt the Pioneer explorers of the early 1900s would have been pleased to know that even operation deep freeze couldn't do without dog sled [Music] teams on the surface of the ice cap though the real workhorses were the snow cap and [Music] weasel for the first time here were well travel roads on the south Polar Ice [Music] still even with operation deep freeze the human race got little more than a good tow hole on the Antarctic but seals managed to make a pretty good living on the coast and then of course there are the [Music] penuins these little adelay Penguins make nests of Pebbles and when the nesting season starts there's a lot of frantic scurrying around finding Pebbles they even steal stones from each other like wild-eyed kleptomaniacs and formal clothes it's a wonder the nests ever get built but somehow they always do oh [Music] then there are the emperor penguins now these fellas are quite a bit bigger than the adeles that Evolution hasn't changed them in Long ages they always seem very much on their dignity well almost always [Music] now let's see what it's like inside the ice camp this is a natural ice cave an environment so weird and different it might be on another planet [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] and helicopters revealed many startling facts about Antarctica this frozen lake for instance for part of the summer it's completely ice free and operation deep free explorers discovered that the land Scott called a terrible Limitless expans of snow contains a chain of mountains 2,000 mil long and the low bare Peaks that here and there stick out above the surface of the ice are often the tops of mountains that rise as much as 15,000 ft above sea level there are even Barren Mountain sides from which the glaciers have retreated completely apparently gone for good and where Scott said that there was no living thing scientists find algae Moss leion clinging to the Rocks even microscopic animals and insects that spend most of their lives frozen solid but they are alive now here's a man examining ice crystals checking them for age and deterioration crystals dug up from 85 ft below the surface were found to be 600 years old and the ice cap at the pole is many thousands of feet [Music] thick it almost looks as though the man of operation deep freeze have solved the problem of [Music] survival because to get full value from them these scientific outposts must be manned all year round there's still so much to learn so many scientific Frontiers to push [Music] back it now appears that the South Polar Ice is diminishing but how fast and fossils prove that the heart of Antarctica this empty waste was once covered by great prehistoric forests will it be habitable again except for outposts like McMurdo what about the mineral wealth that may be waiting for man under that [Music] ice not far from McMurdo sound there's even a volcano Trail in Steam from the edge of its crater this is just one more strange facet of a continent we're just beginning to know it's larger than the United States twice the size of Australia under the ice there's Sandstone its fossils provide clues to Antarctica's past there even layers of coal Coal seems 20 to 40 ft thick today planes are flying in with supplies for the Last Frontier on Earth these men are 20th century Pioneers armed with the skills and Equipment of today and the courage and drive that have belonged to Pioneers all through history [Applause] [Music] these modern explorers are Paving the way for man's next great step into the last unknown the Last Frontier outer space [Music] [Music] we're on our way there every day that passes gets us closer to the time when knowledge gained by scientists at the bottom of the world may mean the difference between life and death in space or on another world [Music] so the planes keep coming in the expanse of ice 5 million square miles of it just an Uncharted mystery a couple of generations ago is now the world's biggest laboratory it's the coldest place on Earth the most hostile place on Earth as deadly as it ever was but what's going on here now isn't primarily an adventure in survival it's an adventure in scientific discovery and another step into the future [Music]