Steve Fossett set over 100 world records across five sports, circled the globe solo in a balloon, and survived a five-mile plunge into the ocean. A routine Nevada flight in 2007 ended his life.

This episode examines the calculating mind behind the feats, a man with no natural athletic gifts who methodically engineered his wealth, his machines, and his own endurance.

• Building a fortune on commodities clearing fees to fund his records
• Six balloon attempts and the 1998 Coral Sea crash
• The unrefueled solo global flights in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer
• A crowdsourced satellite search that overwhelmed rescuers
• The density-altitude and downdraft crash the NTSB identified