tonight on "the communicators," former senior advisor to fcc chair tom wheeler and patrick hallie talk about the recent d.c. appeals court decision on net neutrality. >> what the court said was that the fcc's decision to regulate broadband internet access as an information service as it largely has been outside of the last 20 years was permissible. >> when the fcc deregulated broadband, reclassified broadband internet access as an information service rather than telecommunication service and also said that another part of the telecommunications act section 706 does not provide authority for regulation, it washed its hands, it abdicated its ability to oversee the broadband market. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. coming up, our look at rapid city continues as we hear about

the first manned flight into the earth's stratosphere. >> in 1935, two army captains named anderson and stevens sailed off from the south dakota plains to a record-breaking 72,000 feet. >> we're really lucky in rammpi city. we have some interesting history that goes just beyond the culture of the area. we're talking about the stratobowl and the stratosphere flights. in sending man up above the stratosphere. essentially rapid city area is the home of the first space flight. so what the national geographic and u.s. army air corps did was they decided to work together to make this happen. and they wanted to find a natural shape to rest the balloon and gondola in. so they were looking for a bowl

area. that bowl shape protects the gondola as it goes up so they scoured all of north america for a place. they had a couple of different decisions that they could have made, places they could have chosen. essentially they chose rapid city because of how kind the people were and how welcoming we are. the perfect shape of the bowl was nice too, but it did come down to the people of the area that was the reasoning behind choosing it. the first attempt happened in 1934, and so there were three men on that first flight. it was captain orville anderson, major william kepner and captain albert stevens. and what happened was they got into the gondola and they went up and hit about 60,000 feet and they think that the friction between the metal and the canvas of the balloon ignited the hydrogen that was inside the balloon, and so the balloon

failed. it busts up completely and they fell into a freefall. they started exiting the gondola. you know, they had parachutes. first man got out just fine. the second man got stuck in the gondola itself. and we don't know who was first and who was second and who was third. but the first man got out. he had to kick the second man out of the gondola to get him free and then major kepner we do know is actually last. he ended up getting out of the gondola at about 500 feet above the ground. so the second flight happened in 1935. the national geographic and the u.s. army air corps, they did change how the balloon was created. so what they did was they actually used helium instead of hydrogen, and that allowed the balloon to not ignite, which is fabulous for the people in the

gondola. two of the men came back, that was orville anderson and albert stevens. they did both come back for this second flight. and they hit a height of 72,395 feet. they took measurements about the stratosphere and about cosmic radiation and about anything they could possibly measure, they attempted to while they were up in the gondola. they took an image of the curvature of the earth, which had never been done. they were recognized for their efforts. they were, you know, given medals by fdr. it was just a success, an all-around success. but what makes it even better for rapid city is that it happened in the black hills. it was here. it was local. and so it was just a great community involved piece of history. >> our city tour staff traveled

to rapid city, south carolina, to learn about its rich history. to watch more video from rapid city and other stops on our tour visit cspan.org/citiestour. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. artist harvey pratt shares his vision for the national native american veterans memorial in a conversation about kevin gover, the director of the national museum of the american indian. mr. pratt discusses his background as an artist as well as his own experience as a former u.s. marine in vietnam. this event was hosted by the smithsonian national museum of the american indian. >> all right. well, good afternoon. it's good to see you all here. my name is kevin gover. i'm the director of the national museum of the american indian. we're here this afternoon