På 1920-tallet ønsket Fridtjof Nansen
å fly et tyskbygd luftskip over polområdene, fra Europa til Nord-Amerika.
I den biografiske litteraturen har dette blitt beskrevet som en polfarers
siste forsøk på å nå sitt store mål, Nordpolen. Men biografer glemmer
ofte at Nansen var vitenskapsmann hele livet – og hadde store ambisjoner
og uløste oppgaver innen oseanografien. En stor del av Nansens vitenskapelige
virke ble i denne perioden kanalisert inn i det såkalte Aeroarctic-selskapet,
hvor Nansen ble utnevnt til første president høsten 1924.
Fridtjof Nansen and the Aeroarctic
Society, 1924–1930
In 1924, Fridtjof Nansen was appointed president of the newly
established Aeroarctic Society – The International Society for the
Study of the Arctic by Means of Airship. Aeroarctic was founded
on the initiative of German engineers and natural scientists, its
primary objective being organization of a transpolar zeppelin flight
from Europe to America, while conducting a broad geophysical research programme.
Moreover, the society was to establish a circumpolar network of meteorological
stations that could serve as a platform for increased international cooperation
in Arctic geophysical research. It had close links with the International
Meteorological Committee and the first International Polar Year,
and among its members had a number of leading scientists from Germany,
Scandinavia, the USA and the Soviet Union.
The history of the society has been given little attention by
historians, probably because it failed to conduct the transpolar
expedition planned for the summer of 1930. In Nansen’s biography,
the 1920s are described as a decade when he let slip his scientific
ambitions and concentrated instead on political and humanitarian
issues. The Aeroarctic project has been dismissed as unrealistic
and an airy dream, and Nansen’s role reduced to that of a minor
figure talked into it by nationalistically minded Germans with commercial
interests in the project, and used as a galleon figure. Nansen’s
own Aeroarctic archive gives us a quite different story: During
the last six years of his life, he used his international fame to
draw leading geophysicists into the project. In the late 1920s,
Aeroarctic had members in 21 countries, had organized two international
scientific congresses, both chaired by Nansen, and published the
first volumes of the journal Arktis. It is more than obvious that
Nansen played a key role in the society, representing a driving force
in efforts to realize the expedition.