And the tragedy left New Zealand in shock. "It came at a time the relatively young nation was in a crucial period of finding a new narrative for its identity," explains Rowan Light, a historian with Canterbury University. "In the 1960s and 70s the old narrative of being a progressive outpost of the British Empire had fallen to pieces or was just not making sense any more," he says. But the country was trying to find its feet. Technological advances were a big part of that new path, infrastructure was key to the national story of settling, conquering and gaining control over the land. And reaching out to Antarctica, about 4,500km (2,780 miles) to the south, fitted perfectly into that story.