I followed some of Mike Horn's trip last year. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the differences between these attempts and Horn's trip. Wasn't Horn's trip last year the first unsupported crossing of Antarctica?
Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
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Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#12If they are two men, they aren't alone. They have the presence of each other.
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#13I just find it really inspiring to know we have the presence of such adventurous explorers. Once we find ways to travel to other stars, we'll need these men to explore once again.
Travelling to other planets will have to suffice for a while.
Agreed. I doubt we'll see interstellar travel until we can affordably make a bunch of sealed tunnels in an asteroid, get it spinning for artificial gravity and turn it into a self-sustaining colony.
Then we'd need to figure out the best way to propel it, and to where, and oh yeah, find a bunch of people who are willing to live the rest of their lives on it and raise a second generation (with an unknown future) there. It would take a lot for that all to come together, and any other plan you could currently devise would probably require fictional technology.
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#14the current HN title doesn't make any sense: "Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone"
two men can by definition not be alone.
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#15the current HN title doesn't make any sense: "Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone" two men can by definition not be alone.
point taken, but they're each trying independently yet at the same time to become the first.
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#16the current HN title doesn't make any sense: "Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone" two men can by definition not be alone.
As discussed in the article, two men are independently making the attempt, at the same time. The grammar works out, but it catches your eye, which is often a goal of a headline writer.
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#17I just find it really inspiring to know we have the presence of such adventurous explorers. Once we find ways to travel to other stars, we'll need these men to explore once again.
> Once we find ways to travel to other stars, we'll need these men to explore once again.
You'd want an entirely different sort of person if the idea is to travel interstellar distances inside an asteroid, like slfnflctd suggested below.
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#18I followed some of Mike Horn's trip last year. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the differences between these attempts and Horn's trip. Wasn't Horn's trip last year the first unsupported crossing of Antarctica?
> Wasn't Horn's trip last year the first unsupported crossing of Antarctica?
It may depend on the specific definitions ("unsupported" vs "solo unsupported"), but the first unsupported crossing I'm aware of was that by Ranulph Fiennes and Mike Stroud in the Antarctic summer of 1992/1993. It was documented in two books, "Mind Over Matter"[0] by Finnes and "Shadows on the the Wasteland"[1] by Stroud. Both were very entertaining and interesting reads.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Mind-over-Matter-Ranulph-Fiennes/dp/0...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Wasteland-Crossing-Antarctica...
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#19The closest I've ever come to getting a glimpse of what these two are going through is a 1100 mile trek through the Appalachian mountains one winter. It was fun, but I don't think I ever want to do that again. When the temperature drops below about 0* F, there are only two things you can do: Move, or get in your sleeping bag. After a couple months of 14 hours a day alone in the frigid darkness, you start to lose your sanity a little bit. You start to forget what your body looks like. And when you do get a chance to check yourself when you cross civilization, you look almost unrecognizable from the weight loss.
And this is all in the continental United States, a few hours from civilization. It's almost incomprehensible to me to do what these two are doing.
Re: Two men are trying to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone
#20I know we're talking about Antarctica, but this story reminded me of the incredible book from Hampton Sides called, "In The Kingdom of Ice" (https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Ice-Terrible-Voyage-Jeannette...).
It takes in the 1880s, when the general population believed that the North Pole was an open polar sea. The book tells the story of the USS Jeannette, which tries to sail up there.