Designed to tackle the most difficult and unacceptable place on Earth, five explorers would live, work and sleep alone in the machine as they ventured into the uncharted regions of Antarctica. Seventeen meters long, six meters wide and weighing more than 34,000 kg, the Antarctic Snow Cruiser was unlike any expedition vehicle the world had ever seen. Equipped with enough food, fuel and supplies to last an entire year, the Snow Cruiser would carry the latest measuring instruments and tools. The huge land cruiser would even carry a research plane moored to its roof. in 1939, a global race began to claim parts of Antarctica. With the prospect of huge oil, coal and mineral reserves under the ice, Norway, Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand had claimed a large part of the continent for themselves. Concerned about the prospect of territorial claims, U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt founded the United States. Antarctic Service Expedition. It would be the first U.S. government-sponsored expedition in decades and would sail to Antarctica in the fall of 1939. The Antarctic Snow Cruiser would have a special role to play. His main goal will be to reach the South Pole (he had only set foot on two previous expeditions to the South Pole before 1939). During his months-long journey, the Snow Cruiser and aircraft would conduct surveys along his route, and in just a few months, Americans expected to explore Antarctica more than the sum of all previous expeditions combined. This ambitious effort would help the Americans establish their own territorial claims on the continent. But in the race to get to Antarctica in the autumn of 1939, the Snow Cruiser would have to be built in just 11 weeks, an incredibly short time for such an ambitious machine, the first of its kind. It would soon become clear that the Cruiser had been over-engineered and untested, with excessive optimism apparently guiding its design.