Today, we watch a heroic failure. The University of
Houston's College of Engineering presents this
series about the machines that make our
civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity
created them.
Other Engines episodes have
linked California gold to the dream of flight. Most
early American dirigible attempts hovered around
California like moths about a flame. The wildest of
them all was made in a vacant lot near Berkeley
High School.
It was 1908, only four years after America's first
successful dirigible ascents were made just a few
miles away. John Morrel, an inventor from Chicago,
wanted to set up dirigible service between San
Francisco and the East. The idea wasn't new. It was
an obsession that'd destroyed inventors for 60
years.
Here's one of Morrel's pamphlets. It shows a huge
pencil-straight powered balloon a quarter-mile
long. It's driven by eight 400 HP engines. It
promises to carry 500 passengers and 40 tons of
mail across America in just one day.
Morrel's first balloon had broken away from its
moorings with no one in it and drifted twenty
miles. Now he readies his second airship. It's only
a third as long as the one promised in the
pamphlet. It's just a step on the way. But its
485-foot length makes it a remarkable beast by any
standard.
We find old photos of that flight. The
pencil-straight intention of the design is warped
in its execution. We see a horrible parody of what
it was to have been. The gigantic gas bag looks for
all the world like a sand worm from the movie
Dune. It twists in the sky at the end
of restraining ropes.
Morrel and twenty others board the monster as it
writhes on its ropes. An inexperienced ground crew
releases the balloon unevenly. It lurches 300 feet
into the air, and the crowds cheer, but one end
rises faster than the other. Gas rushes up through
the unpartitioned bag and bursts it open. Morrel's
dream flutters to earth and badly injures nine
people.
By now Zeppelin had learned to make a really good
dirigible. Now you could easily get to California
on a train. And, in any case, her gold fields were
no longer productive. The game was already over
when Morrel built his quixotic machine.
Morrel seemed unruffled by failure. He was ready to
build his quarter-mile-long model. But his backers
had had enough. They deserted him, and he faded
into oblivion.
And we're left to wonder: how many wacky
experiments did it take to produce flight, or the
computer, or space travel? The answer is, "Far more
than we'd wish." I wonder: how many grand failed
experiments have you watched in your life? The
answer is: "Not enough! Not enough to change
tommorrow the way our great- grandfathers changed
their world."
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
work.
(Theme music)
