The May 1937 explosion of the German airship Hindenburg is one of the most memorable disasters of the twentieth century, outshining other more serious and costly catastrophes. Of the ninety-seven passengers and crew on board, thirty-six lost their lives in the conflagration. Images of its fiery denouement would make their way through the pop culture pantheon, onto T-shirts and album covers (most famously, the eponymous debut of Led Zeppelin), while the mystery of the Hindenburg's final flight would inspire a feature film (1975) and numerous documentaries. Various theories on the cause of the explosion blame a hydrogen leak, electrostatic discharges in the air igniting the ship's highly flammable fabric covering, or an anti-Nazi act of sabotage. A NASA scientist claimed to have resolved the dispute in favor of the flammable covering thesis in 1997, but doubters remained. "For reasons which are not clear to me even now, however...