Andrée's Arctic Balloon Expedition

In Sweden this has long been portrayed as a foolish, nationalistic enterprise by someone who should have known better, sacrificing lives for no reason. (Combined with a bit of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

I wonder if it wouldn't have been (previously) portrayed as primarily courageous in the US, had it all taken place with people from there?

... related, while there is a lot of new excitement about human spaceflight in the US now, almost every single piece of ~current mainstream TV/film drama (with the notable exception The Orville) focusing on space/scifi is dystopic and/or really negatively focusing on the human/family costs of the main characters (example: For All Mankind), to the point where it's getting a bit silly.

"the polar balloon Örnen (Eagle) was delivered directly to Svalbard from its manufacturer in Paris without being tested"

I see some parallel with testing my code in production.

There was a movie made about it, with Max von Sydow as Andreé. I liked it a lot, quite realistic.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084136/

Also, a book about it, The Expedition, is fantastic.

https://www.amazon.com/Expedition-Bea-Uusma/dp/1781859639/re...

There is an interesting footnote to the story. One of the team members, Nils Strindberg, was an early believer in cremation, and belonged to a cremation club. When his body was found, he was cremated according to his will.

In his absence, his fiancé had long since married another man. When she died, she asked that her heart be cremated. It ashes were then secretly buried by Nil's friends alongside his ashes.

Funny thing was that they could have used kites like Børge Ousland, who sometimes moved hundred kilometers per day. There is nothing radically different in modern kites. Especially if they had visited Japan. Rokkaku-kite is just few bamboo sticks and canvas and scales up to 10 square meters. And you can chain them, if you want more speed.