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Posted by: PhilCo126 Jul 5 2008, 09:12 AM

Just found a nice overview of manned high altitude ballon flights:



For those not familiar with the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger
Well, Joe Kittinger is almost celebrating his 80th birthday

Although I've posted this in "Manned" spaceflight, we could also discuss unmanned probes and equipment flown on Stratospheric balloons

Posted by: David Jul 5 2008, 04:51 PM

Nice graphic, but it's a pity about the truncation of the first thirty years or so of high-altitude balloon flight. If the graphic's time axis were properly scaled, and if a few other attempts at high-altitude flights (by heavier-than-air craft, rockets, etc.) were shown, it would point out just how completely balloons had the upper atmosphere to themselves from the 1920s to the 1940s, and how their altitude ceiling was also the ceiling of our knowledge of the atmosphere. Despite Dr. Goddard's billing of rockets as a way to sound "extreme altitudes", none of his rockets could go higher than a balloon; it wasn't until 1942 that a rocket was launched that could reach to (and through) the stratosphere; and not until after the war that real scientific research was done at those altitudes. So if you were interested in high-altitude atmosphere research, from the 1920s to 1946, balloons were your only real choice. And anything above the maximum that a balloon could do in those days (about 23 km) was a complete mystery.

Posted by: Paolo Amoroso Jul 5 2008, 06:56 PM

I highly recommend the German documentary Die ersten Raumfahrer (http://www.brera.unimi.it/film/en/index.php?arg1=0&arg2=12&arg3=0000000038&arg4=9&arg6=913), which includes a lot of rare footage of Manhigh/Excelsior flights (no, not "never seen before"), features interviews to Kittinger and Simons, and is well done. Kittinger still flies planes and balloons.


Paolo Amoroso

Posted by: Paolo Jul 5 2008, 07:37 PM

What I find most interesting about balloon flights of the inter-war period is the use of "balloon-sondes", carrying telemetering devices, to make scientific observations (namely on cosmic rays by CalTech's Millikan). These devices are the real ancestors of UMSF!
See for ecample http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/HistoryTechnology/sc_RecordSingle.cfm?filename=SSHT-0053