Amateur cyclist and debt-ridden father join neuro-diverse team on madcap quest to achieve human-powered flight, winning | dG1fWDd0OGlBUW5VTHc
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00:00Brian, why are you doing this?
00:05Jeez, that's kind of like asking what life is all about. I don't know.
00:10I was obsessive about flying.
00:14So, here we have you in a younger form.
00:17Pretty handsome, right?
00:19Scene one.
00:20They're doing what?
00:21Building a human-powered plane.
00:23Just for kicks?
00:24No, no, no. There's a prize. $100,000?
00:27I'm coming for the crown.
00:29The team, each one of them was very unique and not in any way ordinary.
00:35We all had our problems and we all had our superpowers.
00:40Cause I'm coming for the crown.
00:42Brian was an extremely good hang glider pilot.
00:47I had like 75 crashes.
00:51Paul was kind of like a visionary.
00:53I've calculated that we can bring down the weight.
00:56And what are we going to call it?
00:57The Gossamer Penguin.
00:58But what?
00:59Penguins don't fly.
01:01Man throughout history has been seized with this symbolic compulsion to fly.
01:07It's spiritual. It's elemental.
01:11And usually terribly unsuccessful.
01:15It was definitely a race. It was definitely a competition.
01:18France built the Aviette and Japan also had their eye on the prize.
01:23We've got to get this done as soon as we can.
01:26We are definitely not ready to actually achieve this.
01:30Word has gone out to every major television station in the world.
01:35The plane is going to fly across the English Channel to the coast of France.
01:39Oh, it's about 22 miles.
01:41We've never flown a plane over water.
01:43What kind of safety mechanisms were in place?
01:46Basically nothing.
01:50If I go in the water, I'm going to go instantaneously into thermal shock.
01:55Looking at the weather, it's going to be a real crapshoot.
01:58I'm a terrible swimmer.
02:00Go ahead.
02:01You'll never do it.
02:20NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology