The Test Flight

Space Perspective’s goal is to give passengers a serene journey to the edge of space, without the intense speed, heavy G-forces, or tough training that come with rocket launches. The pressurized capsule, launched from the MS Voyager, slowly rose at 12 miles per hour, taking two hours to reach the stratosphere. It then floated at peak altitude for another two hours before making a controlled descent, landing softly in the ocean after a six-hour flight. A quick boat and crane were ready to retrieve the capsule, demonstrating the smooth and efficient operation of the space journey.

The success of the test flight was a result of five years of hard work. “Completing Development Flight 2 is a defining moment for Space Perspective,” said Taber MacCallum, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. “I’m so proud of our devoted team who has worked relentlessly to execute this mission, drawing from their deep expertise and designing solutions for never-been-seen technologies. This uncrewed flight not only proves our pioneering technology but also brings us a giant leap closer to making space accessible for everyone and reaffirms our belief in the transformative power of space travel.”

Technology and System Overview

Spaceship Neptune has three main parts: the SpaceBalloon, the pressurized capsule, and a Reserve Descent System―four parachutes between the capsule and balloon—that can activate at once if anything goes wrong, ensuring a safe landing.

The balloon was launched using a special four-roller system, which kept it steady and safe as it climbed into the stratosphere. This system allows them to operate flights year-round from anywhere in the world. The capsule designed to carry eight passengers and a pilot, is spacious with a 16-foot diameter, providing over 2,000 cubic feet of pressurized space. It also has the largest UV-protected windows ever flown into space. At its highest point, the cabin pressure stayed stable, highlighting impressive engineering in spacecraft design.

The capsule’s advanced temperature control systems kept everything comfortable during the flight, even as it faced the freezing cold of the upper atmosphere and the intense heat from the sun. The SpaceBalloon, when fully expanded, has a volume of 18,000,000 cubic feet—large enough to fit an entire football stadium. Standing over 700 feet tall at launch, the SpaceBalloon surpasses the height of the Washington Monument. Hydrogen, used as the lift gas, is both renewable and effective, marking a step toward eco-friendly space travel.

Mission Control closely monitored the operations, testing out their special software and communication systems. The spaceship’s descent is controlled by releasing just enough gas to maintain a comfortable descent speed.

Jane Poynter, co-founder of Space Perspective, shared her excitement, saying, “This flight showed how smooth and accessible the Spaceship Neptune experience is, from the gentle ascent to the splashdown.”

Looking Ahead

Space Perspective has raised $100 million from investors and adheres to safety standards set by the FAA, U.S. Coast Guard, and NASA. Notably, Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, is also one of their investors. On October 17, the company announced that Branson will join co-founders Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum as a co-pilot for the first crewed mission of Spaceship Neptune. Branson has a long history of bold adventures and record-breaking feats in both business and exploration. In ballooning, his memorable achievements are his hot-air balloon flights with Per Lindstrand, crossing the Atlantic in 1987 and the Pacific in 1991.

Space Perspective plans to run a few more test flights before taking people up in 2025, with regular commercial flights starting in 2026. They’ve already sold over 1,800 tickets, each costing $125,000.

According to Jane Poynter, the best views will be during predawn departures, when ‘explorers’ can marvel at the starscape before sunrise, and then watch the Sun light up the Earth’s curvature, highlighting the bright blue line of our atmosphere, and the dark vastness of space. Passengers will have a nearly 360-degree view, stretching 450 miles in every direction through the panoramic windows. The six-hour flight offers many opportunities to take photos, enjoy meals and drinks, and even livestream the journey to share with loved ones on Earth. And for those who need a bathroom break, there’s the ‘Space Spa’ with an unparalleled view of the universe.

Space tourism is a new frontier for adventurous explorers, but the idea of traveling by a thin polyethylene balloon can make people nervous. A common question is, ‘What if the balloon tears or pops?’ Well, Space Perspective has an answer. They use SpaceBalloon technology, which has been tested over 1,000 times by NASA and other organizations, so it’s proven to be very safe. The balloon is a ‘zero-pressure’ type, meaning there’s no pressure difference between the inside and the outside, so it can’t actually pop. Even if it punctures, the balloon will just slowly descend and land safely, ensuring everyone on board is secure. The backup Reserve Descent System, with parachutes that have brought people and equipment back safely from space over 1,000 times, adds another layer of safety.

Some people are concerned about using hydrogen because it’s highly flammable. Space Perspective explains they had two options for lifting Spaceship Neptune—helium or hydrogen. Helium is safe, but it’s also a non-renewable gas and is in short supply. It’s needed for important medical equipment like MRIs, so using it for space travel would compete with those critical needs.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, is a renewable resource and is now widely used in fuel cells, vehicles, and even airplanes worldwide. Modern balloon technology has come a long way since the Hindenburg airship disaster in 1937. The tragedy happened because the airship wasn’t designed to safely use hydrogen—hydrogen mixed with air, creating a combustible situation, which was then ignited by a spark that led to the fire. Today, however, hydrogen balloons are designed with advanced safety measures, and thousands of flights are conducted safely every year. Hydrogen has become a reliable and proven option for balloon travel.

For those wondering, ‘Is 100,000 feet really space?’ Technically, it’s not. The official boundary, called the Kármán line, is at 328,084 feet, or 100 kilometers, above sea level. But at 100,000 feet, you’re already above 99% of Earth’s atmosphere, and for practical purposes—like the breathtaking view, the conditions for human safety, and the sense of being beyond Earth—you are in space. Passengers get to experience an incredible, otherworldly view that very few have seen before. Plus, at that altitude, the flight meets U.S. regulations to be classified as a spacecraft.

In addition to tourism, the company supports scientific research by planning to carry research equipment alongside passengers in future flights. The largely unexplored stratosphere offers numerous opportunities for new experiments and discoveries. Their team has been part of developing every U.S. human spacecraft over the past 40 years. They use patented technologies based on designs tested by NASA and other organizations—proven to handle payloads even heavier than the Spaceship Neptune capsule.

Space Perspective, based on Florida’s Space Coast, was founded by Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, veterans of human spaceflight and original members of the Biosphere 2 project. Their background includes developing environmental control systems for the International Space Station (ISS) through their company, Paragon Space Development Corporation. In 2014, their StratEx team launched Alan Eustace to 135,908 feet under a space balloon, breaking the Red Bull Stratos record for the highest space dive. With decades of experience, the Space Perspective team is pushing the boundaries of space tourism, making it accessible to more people than ever before.

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Now, Sir David Hempleman-Adams is poised for his most audacious adventure yet—a trans-Atlantic balloon crossing aboard the Torabhaig Atlantic Explorer Gas Balloon, which is a hydrogen balloon with an open basket for a gondola. This exhilarating expedition will see him co-piloting the balloon with America’s distinguished balloon manufacturer and pilot, Bert Padelt. Accompanying them on this remarkable journey is the acclaimed Swiss explorer, scientist, and entrepreneur, Dr. Frederik Paulsen. The take off and success of their journey hinges on the temperament of the weather, both at the launch site in Presque Isle, Maine, United States, and throughout their voyage across the vast Atlantic Ocean.

In an era dominated by advanced communication and technology, the Atlantic Ocean remains a formidable adversary to even the most seasoned balloon pilots. Here, the winds and weather hold sway, and the elements are unpredictable. Yet, despite the odds, Sir David Hempleman-Adams and his illustrious companions are poised to etch their names in the annals of aerial exploration.

At LTA-Flight Magazine, we believe it’s only fitting to embark on a journey that delves into Sir David’s epic exploits, which are synonymous with courage, resilience, and the unyielding pursuit of new horizons.

David Hempleman-Adams is the only individual to have graced both the magnetic and geographic North and South Poles and has climbed the seven highest mountain peaks across seven continents. In 1998, he was the first individual to complete this challenge and earn the esteemed title of achieving the ‘Explorer’s Grand Slam.’

The story of Sir David’s remarkable life starts in his early years. As a young student, he participated in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, a humble beginning that planted the seeds of his future adventures.  His foray into the world of high-altitude exploration began with the conquest of Mount McKinley in Alaska in 1980, followed swiftly by scaling Mount Kilimanjaro in 1981, and summiting Mount Everest in 1993.

What sets Sir David apart is not just his mountaineering prowess but also his audacity and ingenuity. In 1984, he embarked on a solo expedition to the Magnetic North Pole, a journey that defied convention as he ventured without dogs, snowmobiles, or air supplies. This pioneering spirit continued in 1992 when he led the first team to walk unsupported to the Geomagnetic North Pole—an endeavor chronicled in the thrilling book “A Race Against Time.”

The year 1996 was even more astounding, as he accomplished a trifecta of polar feats. In a solo unsupported expedition, he reached the South Pole on January 5, sailed to the South Magnetic Pole on February 19, and even led a team of novices to ski to the Magnetic North Pole on May 15. The book “Toughing it Out” encapsulates Sir David’s first two decades of adventure—a story of determination and grit.

In 1998, he joined Norwegian Rune Gjeldnes in a quest to reach the Geographical North Pole, the final leg of his Grand Slam attempt, which he described in the book “Walking on Thin Ice.”

While he is celebrated for his mountaineering prowess, his journey into the world of aviation is equally awe-inspiring. In 1998, with just 30 hours of flying, he achieved the remarkable feat of becoming the first person to navigate a hot air balloon across the formidable Andes Mountains, reaching 32,000 feet.

One of his most iconic achievements came in 2000 when he became the first and, to date, the only person to fly a balloon over the North Pole ― a monumental achievement that had eluded adventurers for over a century. Inspired by the ill-fated 1897 expedition of Salomon Auguste Andrée, he embarked on a daring mission to reach the North Pole in a Rozière balloon,  built by Cameron.

 He took off in the wicker basket of his balloon from Spitsbergen, navigated through Russian airspace, and steadily closed the gap towards the elusive North Pole. With precision that would impress even the most seasoned balloonists, Hempleman-Adams soared to within a mere eight miles of the North Pole before making the return journey to Spitsbergen. To put this incredible achievement into perspective, the polar circle itself measures 60 miles around the Pole. For those familiar with ballooning, the sheer difficulty of achieving such precise navigation at these extreme latitudes cannot be overstated. This epic odyssey, lasting an astonishing 132 hours and 22 minutes, serves as a testament to his unwavering determination and indomitable spirit. His gripping account of this voyage is documented in the book “At the Mercy of the Winds.”

Unlike many contemporary aviators, Hempleman-Adams prefers the simplicity of an open wicker basket for his gas ballooning adventures. He finds solace in the low-tech allure of gas balloons and cherishes the sense of camaraderie within the aviation community, which he describes as “very close, very supportive.”

In a historic journey on September 22, 2003, he became the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the open wicker basket Rozière balloon. With Bert Padelt as the launch director, Hempleman-Adams piloted this balloon over a distance of 4427.4 kilometers in 83 hours 17 minutes, setting from New Brunswick, Canada, and touching down in a field near Blackpool, in the United Kingdom.

For his second crossing of the Atlantic in 2007, Sir David piloted the smallest helium gas balloon system (a mere 37,000 cubic feet!) to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean. Padelt had built this balloon and also served as launch director for the flight. Sir David flew the helium gas balloon from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Nolay, France, covering 4,227 kilometers in 89 hours and 20 minutes. According to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), this flight etched six records in distance and duration into the history books.  

Notably, in 2004, he took off from Greeley in the US in an AM-8, Rozière balloon and reached an altitude of 41,197.5 feet. What’s even more impressive is that he flew in an open wicker basket seated on a fishing stool. His flight broke the altitude record of 38,732 feet held by Breitling Orbiter’s 1999 round the world flight, which had a pressurized capsule.

Sir David Hempleman-Adams’ boasts a career punctuated by numerous ‘firsts,’ surpassing the achievements of many seasoned pilots. His list of accomplishments includes an impressive 47 records recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).

His records span various aircraft categories, including AA, AM, AX, BX, and fixed-wing aircraft, with achievements in altitude, distance, and duration.

Sir David’s contributions extend beyond aviation. In 2016, he successfully completed the Polar Ocean Challenge, a groundbreaking expedition circumnavigating the North Pole and sailing through the Northeast and Northwest Passages. The mission aimed at raising awareness about climate change and the vanishing Arctic ice.

In 2019, he sailed solo across the Atlantic, further demonstrating his commitment to exploring and raising awareness of our planet’s challenges.

In addition to his ballooning achievements, Hempleman-Adams also accomplished speed world record flights in Cessna airplanes and embarked on an airplane journey covering the entire length of North and South America.

Sir David Hempleman-Adams’ extraordinary contributions have earned him several honors and awards, including the Polar Medal and bar awarded by Queen Elizabeth II for his polar research efforts. He was honored with the MBE in 1995 (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and the OBE in 1998 (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for services to Arctic Exploration.

 In 2017, he was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) for his dedication to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. In 2022, he received the Royal Geographical Society Founder’s Medal for his role in enabling science through expeditions and inspiring younger generations of geographers.

David Hempleman-Adams’ legacy in aviation and exploration will continue to inspire generations of adventurers to reach for the skies and explore the farthest corners of our extraordinary planet.

Below is a list of Sir David Hempleman-Adams’ major aviation achievements.

Source:  Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI)

1. December 2000: A Rozière balloon flight from Alberta, Canada to Montana, USA, covering 536.43 km in 6 hours and 29 minutes.
2. September 2003: An open wicker basket Atlantic crossing, covering 4,427.4 km in 83 hours and 17 minutes.
3. December 2003: A world speed record of 25.71 km/hour in a Cameron DP-70 hot-air airship.
4. March 2004: An altitude record of 12,557 meters in AM-8, achieved in Greeley, USA.
5. October and December 2004: An absolute BX record of 6,614 meters in Drumheller, Canada, with separate flights covering 95.89 km and lasting 4 hours.
6. January 2007: An AX-5 altitude record of 9,900 meters, starting from Red Deer, Canada.
7. July 2007: A solo Atlantic crossing in an open basket from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Nolay, France, setting AA-6 records covering 4,227 km in 89 hours and 20 minutes.
8. October 2008: Victory, alongside Jonathan Mason, in the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett.
9. September 2009: A duration record of 14 hours and 15 minutes in AA-1.
10. October 2011: Winning the Americas Challenge Balloon race with Jonathon Mason, making them the only pilots to have secured both this race and the Gordon Bennett cup.

Please look for updates and track the awaited Atlantic balloon crossing at the links below.
Updates: https://torabhaig-atlantic-explorer.com/TORABHAIG-DIARY
Track Flight: https://torabhaig-atlantic-explorer.com/

By Sitara Maruf

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Kittinger was a great believer in strict discipline and “no short-cuts.” He considered himself fortunate to have received the guidance in his early years that allowed him to pursue his dreams. “Those formative years are everything: parents, companions, education, experiences. That’s when you acquire the discipline. If you don’t have it by the time you’re twenty, it’s probably already too late,” wrote Kittinger in his book, “Come Up and Get Me.” 

On 16th August 1960, Captain Kittinger, as he was then , became the first human to dive from near space from 102,800 feet above the Earth and went on to set an altitude record that lasted for 52 years. As the atmosphere thins out with increasing altitude, for human beings, the “death zone” begins at 26,000 feet because the insufficient oxygen cannot sustain life for more than four minutes, so at 102,800 feet Kittinger was surrounded by only 1% of the atmosphere, which means he was in a space vacuum. Kittinger had only his pressure suit and helmet for protection from the deadly space environment. This experiment, third in a series, was part of Project Excelsior designed to test a multistage parachute system, from 100,000 feet above, that would provide a means of escape for pilots forced to eject at high altitudes.

Joseph William Kittinger II was born on July 27, 1928, and grew up in Tampa, Florida. He joined the US Air Force in 1949. Five years later, Kittinger was already making waves at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, as a test pilot and jumper. This led him to two high-altitude projects.  The Manhigh project aimed at raising a human into a near space environment for many hours and monitoring what happens to the body in the near vacuum of the upper stratosphere. It was so dangerous, that the Air Force got approval and funding only after it described it as an experimental design and test of a proposed manned space vehicle, (a balloon with a gondola!) which was equally dangerous but may have relieved some emotional burden for the grantors.

Kittinger was designated the first test pilot, and he went through a grueling battery of physical exams for his balloon flight into the stratosphere. He also needed to get a parachute rating, a balloon pilot’s license, and a twenty-four-hour claustrophobia test among other prerequisites. After conducting a series of test flights onboard with monkeys, guinea pigs, and mice, Kittinger became the first human to soar in a helium balloon to 96,000 feet, (a near space realm). He was also the first one to see the curvature of Earth. Project Manhigh had two other flights with other test pilots and fulfilled many objectives that contributed to the successes of NASA’s Project Mercury.

Later for Project Excelsior, all three flights to the stratosphere involved jumping from extreme altitudes. Kittinger would ascend in a box-like gondola suspended beneath a 200-foot-tall helium balloon. His first dive from 76,000 feet from Excelsior I nearly killed him. On that flight, just before the jump, Kittinger had to struggle his way out of the frozen seat and, in the process, he had accidentally triggered the timer of his stabilization chute, which deployed prematurely during the fall and wrapped around his neck. Research on dummies had shown that, without a stabilization chute, a falling body from an extreme altitude has a dreadful tendency to go into a flat spin up to 200 revolutions per minute (rpm). Now, Kittinger was falling and spinning at 120 rpm. Rendered unconscious, few minutes later, he found himself 3,000 feet above the Earth, coasting down under his reserve parachute.

Undaunted, by the catastrophic experience, he proceeded with Excelsior II, and everything went well with his jump from 75,000 feet.

On Excelsior III, at 40,000 feet, Kittinger’s pressure suit inflated, but his right pressure glove did not inflate. With the exposure to vacuum, his right hand began to swell, yet despite the severe pain, the 32-year-old captain did not report the problem to his team, fearing that they would abort the flight. Having taken a calculated risk, he decided to stay calm and focused.At that peak altitude of 102,800 feet, where only a handful of rocket plane pilots had arced momentarily, Kittinger had eleven long minutes before initiating the jump procedure. He took that opportunity to absorb the panorama of space in detail and described it to his ground crew who was eager to hear about it.

Relieved when his ground crew asked him to go through the checklist for the jump, he unplugged all the monitoring systems connected to him and stood up outside the confines of the gondola becoming the first man to be in space outside of a spacecraft. Just before taking the leap, he informed his doctor that his right hand was twice its normal size and of no use. He wanted them to have the information for documentation. Then he said a silent prayer and jumped in the vacuum. Within seconds he had accelerated to 614 miles per hour. But he had no sense of speed, because there is no wind or sound, and nothing flashes by in the stratosphere.

As he fell to the troposphere below, his speed had decreased to 250 miles per hour due to air resistance, and his pressure suit began to relax. During the long leap, he kept commenting to record his observations. This was his 33rd parachute

jump and third one from extreme altitude. The main canopy opened at 17,000 feet and when the ground came rushing up, he knew he would be home.

At the time of his touchdown, Kittinger had set four records: Record altitude for manned balloon flight, record altitude for an open gondola, the highest parachute jump (102,800 feet) and the longest freefall (4 minutes 36 seconds). He was awarded the Harmon Trophy by President Eisenhower in 1960 for outstanding accomplishments in aeronautics. His record stood for 52 years and was broken, in October 2012, by expert parachutist Felix Baumgartner, whom Kittinger had assisted throughout the project. Baumgartner soared in a balloon to 128,100 feet above the Earth and jumped out. Two years later, Google executive Alan Eustace soared even higher and jumped from 135,890 feet.

But Kittinger’s space dive remains a phenomenal achievement even today as it was in 1960. At a time when it was not known what would happen to a human body in the vacuum of a near-space environment, Kittinger took catastrophic risks to test the MC-3 partial-pressure suit and new technologies in the stratosphere and improve safety in aviation. Kittinger’s jumps proved that, with proper protection, human beings can survive the hostile space environment, and for anyone ejecting at an extreme altitude, a stabilization chute can prevent the deadly flat spin while providing a quick descent to a safer atmospheric level.

Kittinger’s contributions, however, are not limited to his pioneering efforts in aerospace. As a fighter pilot, he went on to serve 483 combat missions during the Vietnam War and endured eleven months as a prisoner of war, in a North Vietnamese prison.  A passionate flyer, he logged more than 16,800 hours in 93 different aircraft and flew on four continents, across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He made 102 parachute jumps and ejected twice from disabled jets.  His many awards and recognitions as an Air Force hero and a civilian include induction into the Aviation Hall of Fame, on July 19, 1997, in Dayton, Ohio.

After Colonel Kittinger retired from the Air Force in 1978, he pursued his passion for aeronautics and became the first balloonist to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1984. For that long, lonely flight, he launched from Caribou, Maine, USA on 14 September 1984 in a 101,000 cubic foot, helium-filled balloon Rosie O’Grady. After 86 hours and flying 3,543 miles, he landed at Montenotte, near Savona, Italy, on 18 Sep 1984. For this outstanding flight, the Italian government honored him by dedicating a monument that marks his landing site in Cairo Montenotte, Italy.

He also won the coveted Gordon Bennett trophy in long-distance ballooning in 1982, 84, 85, and 88, and was inducted into the U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame at the National Balloon Museum in Indianola, Iowa, in 2010.

In his autobiography, Come Up and Get Me (published in 2010), Kittinger narrates awe-inspiring and gripping stories about his flying adventures, often sprinkled with humor and amusing anecdotes, and salutes the brave efforts of people who contributed to the remarkable achievements.

Colonel Kittinger admired Neil Armstrong, Charles Lindbergh, Scott Crossfield, and John Paul Stapp because each one of them wanted to make a glorious contribution. Like them, Kittinger also took up challenges that contributed toward gaining profound knowledge and progress in aerospace. His major involvement in projects Manhigh and Excelsior, through ballooning as a scientific platform, would usher in the space age and contribute significantly to NASA’s Project Mercury—the first human spaceflight program of the United States. Even in the most dangerous situations Kittinger had immense faith in his team members. He never missed an opportunity to appreciate good work and show his gratitude.

After he retired from the Air Force, Colonel Kittinger settled in Orlando. A park was dedicated to him in 1992 at Orlando Executive Airport. Many newspaper accounts suggest that the colonel was cheerful even as he battled lung cancer and was thankful for having lived a great life. 

I was privileged to talk with him. On November 11, 2018, on this Web site I published an article: “Joe Kittinger: First Man to Jump from Space.” I sent him an email, informing him about the published article, and mentioned that I will quickly correct any mistakes, if he could bring them to my attention. He called me and congratulated me in a highly enthusiastic and appreciative tone. A part of the conversation went along these lines:

“What a great article you wrote for LTA-Flight Magazine, thank you,” he exclaimed.

I was ecstatic to hear from him. I thanked him profusely and muttered, “I’m glad you liked it. Please feel free to tell me about any mistakes.”

“You got everything right…”

“You are being too kind,” I interrupted.

“It’s brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed reading my story. I am impressed by the details and accuracy. You wrote a great story…Thank you…all the best, and God bless you!”

I was speechless, but I managed to say, “Thank you, Colonel. God bless you too!”

Joe Kittinger may not be a household name like Neil Armstrong, but, for all practical purposes, Kittinger was the first astronaut who blazed a trail for all astronauts and pilots, and even the astronauts revered him. Moreover, all those who know about his work, legacy, and humility will continue to draw inspiration from him and will appreciate that he was the world’s first spaceman and highest skydiver in 1960, when space knowledge was still in its infancy.

Thank you, Colonel Kittinger. May you Rest in Peace, and may your family, friends, and fans find strength and patience in this difficult time.

By Sitara Maruf

The NASA Balloon Program was established 30 years ago for scientific and technological investigations and to contribute to our understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. According to NASA experts, satellite missions take five to seven years to develop and they cost millions of dollars, while scientific ballooning can be done at a fraction of the cost. From New Mexico to Arctic Sweden and Australia to the coldest and driest continent Antarctica, NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility launches 15 to 20 balloons a year for any science that can be done above 99.5% of the atmosphere, either above or below the floating balloons.

A standard NASA scientific balloon is constructed of a polyethylene film that is only 0.002 centimeters thick, about the same as an ordinary sandwich wrap. The film is cut into banana-peel shaped sections called gores and heat sealed together to form the balloon. The total length of seals in one balloon can run 20 miles (32 km). More than 200 gores are used to make NASA’s large balloons, each requiring about 20 acres of material.

These giant balloons can fly 8,000 pounds of payload (scientific equipment), equivalent to the weight of three small cars, nearly 26 miles high and can float in near space for weeks. Flying above 99.5% percent of the Earth’s atmosphere gives clear and excellent views of space without any interference from the atmosphere.

The balloon platform has yielded some world-class science discoveries. In the mid 1980s, initial measurements made from scientific balloons led to the discovery of an ozone hole over the Antarctic continent.  Another significant balloon-borne experiment called “Boomerang,” in 1998, showed findings that the geometry of the universe is flat and it’s continually expanding, and in 2003 a cosmic ray experiment called CREAM, launched on  a long-duration scientific balloon, orbited the South Pole three times, setting a record of 42 days at float. Among other research projects, balloon payloads have been used to study the origins of the universe, cosmic rays, supernova, black holes, dark energy, dark matter, and other space phenomena.

The era of balloon science was launched on the day the first balloon took off in 1783 in France and continues to this day. In the past, a lot of the science and space research involving balloons needed daring humans to fly to higher altitudes and into near space. Various explorers soared in balloons to observe weather phenomena, test instruments and gear, and experience the effects of the dangerous near-space environment on human physiology. Some even lost their lives in their effort to contribute to our knowledge of science, medicine, space, and travel.

Over the decades, advances in research, technology, and ballooning paved the way to explorations without risking any human life.  Though these are unmanned missions, launching a scientific balloon with its heavy payload requires tremendous preparations, safety procedures, and the correct combination of weather at various altitudes. Inappropriate weather can cause delays for as long as two weeks. Each launch may be slightly different based on the experiments involved; however, the main procedure of a scientific balloon flight is same. Prelaunch involves a complex hands-on rigging process. A specially designed launch vehicle is used to launch the balloon with its heavy payload.

For a successful launch, winds cannot exceed six to seven miles per hour in the first two hundred vertical feet; from 200 to 1000 feet, winds must be less than 12 miles an hour; and, from top to bottom, winds must be in a constant direction. Any shift in wind speeds during inflation can shred a balloon, so the crew tests for surface wind speeds using small tethered pilot balloons. To launch, the balloon is partially filled with helium and, as it rises, it expands to a volume of up to 40 million cubic feet (NASA’s largest balloon is 60 million cubic feet), nearly the size of a stadium. These zero-pressure balloons are open to the atmosphere at the bottom to equalize the internal pressure with the surroundings. The balloon system includes the balloon, the parachute and a payload that holds instruments to conduct scientific measurements.

After about two hours of ascent, balloon and payload reach near space. As precious data is gathered for days or even up to weeks, the team monitors the balloon in real-time with sophisticated software. The crew is required to keep a chase aircraft within one hour of flying time from the balloon.

If all goes according to plan, the flight can be concluded at a predetermined time and the aircrew gets clearance from the FAA to terminate the flight or separate the payload and the balloon. After surveying the projected landing point, a telemetry command fires an explosive squib that separates parachute and balloon around 120,000 feet. This separation tears the balloon, and the payload descends by parachute in about 50 minutes. The circling aircraft monitors the descent of the balloon and the payload. As the payload touches the ground, flying sensors send a signal which leads to the next step of firing explosives that separate the parachute from the payload to keep it from dragging in strong wind situations.  In the end the payload is recovered and returned to the science team to fly another day.

NASA claims that in over 2,200 scientific balloon flights, there has never been a single injury to a crew member or anyone else. Since balloon payloads are capable of observations and measurements in natural environments and at various altitudes, NASA and other private enterprises are looking into the possibility of flying scientific balloons on other planets and space bodies, particularly Mars, Venus, and Titan. Such “in situ” measurements are currently not feasible with other platforms such as satellites and rovers. Even in this age of the space shuttle, the International Space Station, and rocketry, scientific ballooning remains an ideal and economical platform to learn about earth and space science.

Replying to a query about the tragic loss, Roberta Greene, spokesperson for Nott’s family sent this information in an email:

“Julian was flying an experimental balloon that was his invention and design—made to test high-altitude technology.   It was a test flight and while flying over the Warner Springs, CA area, he began to lose altitude.  He landed safely  and spoke to several of us, including me.  He said all was OK and he needed to secure the cabin.  Several hours later, while he was in the cabin, it became loose and rolled down the hillside with him inside.  It was a totally unforeseen and tragic accident.  Unfortunately, he sustained many serious injuries and passed away peacefully in a nearby trauma center.”

Several people familiar with the project told the San Diego Sheriff’s office that Nott’s balloon flight with pressurized capsule was part of a high-altitude weather research project being conducted by the University of Florida. According to information uploaded on Nott’s website, “Julian was changing the course of balloon history with the development of an entirely new system in which conventional ballast is replaced with cryogenic helium.”

Due to the unusual nature of the accident, which happened after the landing, there were some confusing reports, initially. However, after inquiries with the Sheriff’s office and the Federal Aviation Administration, who is handling the investigation, some of these details have come to light.

“An experimental high-altitude weather balloon landed on a mountainside near Warner Springs, Calif., Sunday afternoon.

The two people on board exited the balloon and secured it while waiting for the chase crew to arrive. At some point, the pilot and passenger re-entered the capsule and it rolled down a steep ravine. Both were transported to a hospital.”

Cal Fire crews reported the incident as soft landing around 12:45 p.m. but called the Sheriff’s office at 3:30 pm to report that people were injured, which indicates that the tragedy struck during the interval. It took fire fighters one hour to reach the tragic scene, in a remote area on the east side of Palomar Mountain near Chihuahua Valley Road and state Route 79 in San Diego County. Both victims were airlifted by a sheriff’s helicopter crew, to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, around 5:50 p.m.

Nott, 74, was born in Britain and had a master’s in physical chemistry from Oxford University. He held dual citizenship, British and American, and lived in Santa Barbara, California.

As one of the pioneering balloonists and inventor, Nott belonged to an extraordinary class of aeronauts applying courage and advanced scientific principles to modern manned balloon designs.  In 2017, at age 72, Nott set a record for the highest documented tandem skydiving jump, from 31,916 feet, which earned him a place in the Guinness World Records. The objective for Nott and Curt Johnson was to prepare in the event of an emergency bailout from high-altitude balloon flight above 35,000 feet. The jump took place at Skydance Skydiving Center at Davis, California, using a Cessna Caravan.

On his website, Nott writes that record-breaking is never the central objective. “Most of all I hope to use science to advance and innovate. But setting a world record is indisputable proof of the success of a new design.” Nott was equally curious and excited learning about an ancient civilization such as Peru’s vast, barren Nazca Plains with hundreds of straight lines, symbols, and drawings by the pre-Inca Peruvians 1,500 years ago, as he was about designing a balloon system that would send Alan Eustace into the stratosphere for his record skydive in 2014.

Though skeptical about the idea from Jim Woodman that the people who created the Nazca lines could have seen them from hot air balloons, Nott piloted the Nazca prehistoric balloon, made with methods and materials available to the Nazca people of Peru 1,500 years ago. Woodman and Nott, both more than six feet tall, had to straddle outside the raft-like gondola, made from totora reed. Neither had a parachute. Their balloon Condor I reached 380 feet above the Nazca plains, and Nott made a brilliant observation. “And while I do not see any evidence that the Nazca civilization did fly, it is beyond any doubt that they could have. And so could the ancient Egyptians, the Romans, the Vikings, any civilization. With just a loom and fire you can fly!” Moreover, recently, Nott repeated the flight for the Japanese network TV-Asahi.

For his work designing high-altitude balloon cabins, he was awarded the Gold Medal by the Royal Aero Club. Nott has been a Senior Balloon Consultant to World View Enterprises, a company working on commercial stratospheric balloons and passenger spaceflight projects. “I designed the balloon system that took Alan Eustace to 135,890 feet into the stratosphere,” Nott told me in late January.  Eustace jumped from that altitude and fell at 820 miles per hour, 25% faster than the speed of sound and holds the world altitude record for the highest-altitude free-fall jump.

Nott’s incredible contribution to World View is apparent in a recent message posted by World View on Facebook. A part of the message reads:

“RIP to a true pioneer in our field, Julian Nott. To hear of his passing is a gut-wrenching loss for the global ballooning community.… He was also instrumental in leading project StratEx and helping World View mature and develop. Words can’t adequately convey his impact on the ballooning community. And above all else, he was a true joy, great friend, and kind heart. He will be missed but never forgotten. RIP good friend and thank you for a lifetime of inspiration.”

In the past two months, I had the pleasure and honor of talking with Nott on few occasions via phone and also corresponded by email. Just this month (March), I received an email from him, and I was going to reply. It’s a sad irony that in these last two months, Nott was paying glowing tributes to his friend and departed LTA pioneer Tracy Barnes, who had a tremendous influence on Nott’s ballooning career.  While most of the discussion with Nott revolved around Barnes, I sensed a lot of excitement and enthusiasm in his voice as we briefly touched upon high-altitude ballooning technology, the balloonists of the 1960s that paved the way to an enjoyable sport, his friendships in ballooning, and future scientific applications in lighter-than-air aviation.

Despite being very busy, he was always impeccably polite, prompt, very helpful, and thoroughly professional. He connected beautifully like a friend, even offering advice and speaking his mind, which prompted me to tell him, “Thank you for your input and candor!” Given the circumstances and his sudden, tragic, and untimely death, this has been the hardest and saddest experience in writing.

Nott was very excited about a project he was working on. He said that he was giving me a heads-up and would talk about the details closer to the date. In deference to Nott’s wishes, I do not want to mention any specifics now and will research and write about Nott’s contribution closer to the event, if and when it materializes.

I agreed to follow up and said that I looked forward to working with him on his contributions to lighter-than-air flight. He was very appreciative and offered permission to use photos and information from his website. “If it interests you,” he said. After publishing the article on Tracy Barnes, I sent an email informing him that the article has been published. Within an hour, Nott replied, “Love it, thank you….”

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum has described Nott as “a central figure in the expansion of ballooning as an organizer, pilot, and most of all as arguably the leading figure to apply modern science to manned balloon design.”

Nott will be remembered and missed as a friend and ballooning’s most creative and innovative exponents, who rejoiced in exploration and adventure and who changed the course of balloon history by taking it to a higher level.  Like many of his ballooning predecessors, Nott fell a martyr to the pursuit of science and lighter-than-air aviation.

According to the obituary on Nott’s website, “Interment will be in the Nott Family Plot in England. In lieu of flowers, Julian’s wishes were for donations to his favorite charity, SEE International, www.seeintl.org ”

We join the family and the ballooning community in mourning the passing of Julian Nott.

Rest in Peace, Julian.
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By Sitara Maruf

Related articles:  Tracy Barnes: Pioneer of Lighter-than-Air Flight

Julian Nott’s Website

Popular science fiction of the early 20th century depicted Venus as some kind of wonderland of pleasantly warm temperatures, forests, swamps and even dinosaurs. In 1950, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Natural History Museum were soliciting reservations for the first space tourism mission, well before the modern era of Blue Origins, SpaceX , and Virgin Galactic. All you had to do was supply your address and tick the box for your preferred destination, which included Venus.

Today, Venus is unlikely to be a dream destination for aspiring space tourists. As revealed by numerous missions in the last few decades, rather than being a paradise, the planet is a hellish world of infernal temperatures, a corrosive toxic atmosphere and crushing pressures at the surface. Despite this, NASA is currently working on a conceptual manned mission to Venus, named the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept – (HAVOC).

But how is such a mission even possible? Temperatures on the planet’s surface (about 860°F or 460°C) are in fact hotter than Mercury, even though Venus is roughly double the distance from the sun. This is higher than the melting point of many metals including bismuth and lead, which may even fall as “snow” onto the higher mountain peaks. The surface is a barren rocky landscape consisting of vast plains of basaltic rock dotted with volcanic features, and several continent-scale mountainous regions.

It is also geologically young, having undergone catastrophic resurfacing events. Such extreme events are caused by the build up of heat below the surface, eventually causing it to melt, release heat and re-solidify. Certainly a scary prospect for any visitors.

Hovering in the atmosphere

Luckily, the idea behind NASA’s new mission is not to land people on the inhospitable surface, but to use the dense atmosphere as a base for exploration. No actual date for a HAVOC type mission has been publicly announced yet. This mission is a long term plan and will rely on small test missions to be successful first. Such a mission is actually possible, right now, with current technology. The plan is to use airships which can stay aloft in the upper atmosphere for extended periods of time.

As surprising as it may seem, the upper atmosphere of Venus is the most Earth-like location in the solar system. Between altitudes of 50 km and 60 km, the pressure and temperature can be compared to regions of the Earth’s lower atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure in the Venusian atmosphere at 55 km is about half that of the pressure at sea level on Earth. In fact you would be fine without a pressure suit, as this is roughly equivalent to the air pressure you would encounter at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Nor would you need to insulate yourself as the temperature here ranges between 68°F and 86°F (20°C and 30°C).

The atmosphere above this altitude is also dense enough to protect astronauts from ionising radiation from space. The closer proximity of the sun provides an even greater abundance of available solar radiation than on Earth, which can be used to generate power (approximately 1.4 times greater).

The conceptual airship would float around the planet, being blown by the wind. It could, usefully, be filled with a breathable gas mixture such as oxygen and nitrogen, providing buoyancy. This is possible because breathable air is less dense than the Venusian atmosphere and, as result, would be a lifting gas.

The Venusian atmosphere is comprised of 97% carbon dioxide, about 3% nitrogen and trace amounts of other gases. It famously contains a sprinkling of sulphuric acid which forms dense clouds and is a major contributor to its visible brightness when viewed from Earth. In fact the planet reflects some 75% of the light that falls onto it from the sun. This highly reflective cloud layer exists between 45 km and 65 km, with a haze of sulphuric acid droplets underneath down to about 30 km. As such, an airship design would need to be resistant to the corrosive effect of this acid.

Luckily we already have the technology required to overcome the problem of acidity. Several commercially available materials, including teflon and a number of plastics, have a high acidic resistance and could be used for the outer envelope of the airship. Considering all these factors, conceivably you could go for a walk on a platform outside the airship, carrying only your air supply and wearing a chemical hazard suit.

Life on Venus?

The surface of Venus has been mapped from orbit by radar on the US Magellan mission. However, only a few locations on the surface have ever been visited, by the series of Venera missions of Soviet probes in the late 1970s. These probes returned the first – and so far only – images of the Venusian surface. Certainly surface conditions seem utterly inhospitable to any kind of life.

The upper atmosphere is a different story however. Certain kinds of extremophile organisms already exist on Earth which could withstand the conditions in the atmosphere at the altitude at which HAVOC would fly. Species such as Acidianus infernus can be found in highly acidic volcanic lakes in Iceland and Italy. Airborne microbes have also been found to exist in Earth’s clouds. None of this proves that life exists in the Venusian atmosphere, but it is a possibility that could be investigated by a mission like HAVOC.

The current climatic conditions and composition of the atmosphere are the result of a runaway greenhouse effect (an extreme greenhouse effect that cannot be reversed), which transformed the planet from a hospitable Earth-like “twin” world in its early history. While we do not currently expect Earth to undergo a similarly extreme scenario, it does demonstrate that dramatic changes to a planetary climate can happen when certain physical conditions arise.

By testing our current climate models using the extremes seen on Venus we can more accurately determine how various climate forcing effects can lead to dramatic changes. Venus therefore provides us with a means to test the extremes of our current climate modelling, with all the inherent implications for the ecological health of our own planet.

We still know relatively little about Venus, despite it being our nearest planetary neighbor. Ultimately, learning how two very similar planets can have such different pasts will help us understand the evolution of the solar system and perhaps even that of other star systems.

Authors:  Gareth Dorrian, Nottingham Trent University and Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University

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Top featured image: There are plans to cause HAVOC on Venus. Credit: Advanced Concepts Lab at NASA Langley Research Center

Gareth Dorrian, Post Doctoral Research Associate in Space Science, Nottingham Trent University and Ian Whittaker, Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The designated boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space is 100 kilometers (330,000 feet) above the Earth, called the Karman line. However, the atmosphere does not abruptly end but thins out with increasing altitude. For human beings, though, the “death zone” begins at 26,000 feet because the insufficient oxygen cannot sustain life for more than few minutes, which means health hazards beyond that altitude only get worse. At 63,000 feet, the air pressure is so little that your blood can boil, and blood vessels and organs can rupture. And when you rise to 100,000 feet, you are above 99 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. There is virtually no air or oxygen. And though the temperature is 100 degrees below zero, the sun’s glare can burn you. So, except for the weightlessness in space, you are in a deadly space environment.

In 1960 these were some of the known perils of the stratosphere, and there were many unknowns, but that did not prevent Kittinger from taking the risk. The launch of Excelsior III was to take place in the New Mexico desert at 6 a.m. Kittinger and his crew woke up at 2 a.m. to start filling the helium balloon, which at sea level was about four stories (40 feet) wide and 20 stories high. At 4 a.m. Kittinger started breathing pure oxygen for two hours to remove all the nitrogen from the blood to avoid getting bends (decompression sickness) which occur with rapid changes in air pressure.  He wore layers of warm clothing, gloves, and socks under his pressure suit, and his team kept him cool enough to make sure that he did not sweat—as any perspiration would turn into ice and freeze his clothes in the stratosphere. With his gear, Kittinger weighed 320 pounds. The team sealed his helmet and helped him climb into the gondola perched on the launch truck.

As the 200-foot-tall silvery balloon rose and floated higher, it expanded to 25 stories in width.   At 40,000 feet, Kittinger’s pressure suit inflated, but his right pressure glove did not inflate. With the exposure to vacuum, his right hand began to swell. He decided to keep that painful revelation to himself rather than convey it to his crew, fearing that they would abort the flight. Having taken his calculated risk, the 32-year-old captain decided to stay calm and focused as it was important for the mission, and his respiration and pulse were being monitored.

For Project Excelsior, all three flights to the stratosphere involved jumping from extreme altitudes and his first dive from 76,000 feet from Excelsior I had nearly killed him. On that flight, just before the jump, Kittinger had to struggle his way out of the frozen seat and, in the process, he had accidentally triggered the timer of his stabilization chute, which deployed prematurely during the fall and wrapped around his neck.  Research on dummies had shown that, without a stabilization chute, a falling body from an extreme altitude has a dreadful tendency to go into a flat spin up to 200 revolutions per minute. Now, Kittinger was falling and spinning at 120 rpm. Rendered unconscious, few minutes later, he found himself 3,000 feet above the Earth, coasting down under his reserve parachute.

Undaunted, by the catastrophic experience, he proceeded with Excelsior II, and everything went well with his jump from 75,000 feet.

Now on Excelsior III, he was going to dive from 102,800 feet above the Earth, where there was no room for any error till he fell to a safer altitude. Even a small rip in his helmet or pressure suit would have been fatal. At that peak altitude, where only a handful of rocket plane pilots had arced momentarily, Kittinger had eleven long minutes before initiating the jump procedure. He took that opportunity to absorb the panorama of space in detail and described it to his ground crew who was eager to hear about it. He could see the curvature of the Earth set against the black backdrop of outer space and how the sky changed colors from a blue band along the horizon to dark blue to indigo to the blackest he had ever seen. While he felt blessed to look out at the magnificent expanse of the universe, he was also acutely aware of the hostile environment around him and the dangerous part of his mission ahead, and he just wanted to be back on the ground.

Kittinger was relieved when his ground crew asked him to go through the checklist for the jump. He unplugged all the monitoring systems connected to him and stood up outside the confines of the gondola becoming the first man to be in space outside of a spacecraft. Just before taking the leap, he informed his doctor that his right hand was twice its normal size and of no use. He wanted them to have the information for documentation. Then he said a silent prayer and jumped in the vacuum. Within seconds he had accelerated to 614 miles per hour. But he had no sense of speed, because there is no wind or sound, and nothing flashes by in the stratosphere.

As he fell to the troposphere below, his speed had decreased to 250 miles per hour due to the resistance of the air, and the pressure suit was beginning to relax.  During the long leap, he kept commenting to tape his observations about the altitude, the parachute functions, the pressure suit, and his fall. Even at 30,000 feet, the sunshine felt harsh and bounced off the top of clouds, which were at 20,000 feet. Though this was his 33^rd parachute jump and third one from extreme altitude—he was falling through thick, dark clouds for the first time.

The main canopy opened at 17,000 feet and when the ground came rushing up, he knew he would be home. “Lord, thank you for protecting me through that long fall,” he said. Kittinger made a rough landing due to the heavy instrument kit on his back – cutting the kit away required him to use his right hand, which was rendered useless during the experiment, but in a few days, it became normal.

At the time of his touchdown, Kittinger had set four records: Record altitude for manned balloon flight, record altitude for an open gondola, the highest parachute jump (102,800 feet) and the longest freefall (4 minutes 36 seconds). His record stood for 52 years and was broken, in October 2012, by expert parachutist Felix Baumgartner, whom Col. Kittinger (retired USAF) had assisted throughout the project. Baumgartner soared in a balloon to 128,100 feet above the Earth and jumped out. Two years later, Google executive Alan Eustace soared even higher and jumped from 135,890 feet.

But Kittinger’s space dive remains a phenomenal achievement even today as it was in 1960. At a time when it was not known what would happen to a human body in the vacuum of a near-space environment, Kittinger took catastrophic risks to test the MC-3 partial-pressure suit and new technologies in the stratosphere and improve safety in aviation. Kittinger’s jumps proved that, with proper protection, human beings can survive the hostile space environment, and for anyone ejecting at an extreme altitude, a stabilization chute can prevent the deadly flat spin while providing a quick descent to a safer atmospheric level.

Even today, the multistage parachute system designed by Francis Beaupre of the Air Force’s Aerospace Medical Division is used in every ejection seat system. The knowledge gained from projects Manhigh and Excelsior, through ballooning as a scientific platform, would usher in the space age and contribute significantly to NASA’s Project Mercury—the first human spaceflight program of the United States.

Kittinger’s contributions, however, are not limited to his pioneering efforts in aerospace. As a fighter pilot, he went on to serve 483 combat missions during the Vietnam War and endured eleven months, as a prisoner of war, in a North Vietnamese prison. After Col. Kittinger retired from the Air Force in 1978, he pursued his passion for ballooning and became the first balloonist to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1984. In his autobiography, Come Up and Get Me (published in 2010), Kittinger narrates awe-inspiring and gripping stories about his flying adventures, often sprinkled with humor and amusing anecdotes, and salutes the brave efforts of people who contributed to the remarkable achievements.

By Sitara Maruf

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Top featured photo–An automatic camera captures Capt. (later Col.) Joseph Kittinger just as he jumps into the space vacuum from the Excelsior III gondola on August 16, 1960, at an altitude of 102,800 feet (31,300 m). (Photo courtesy of United States Air Force)

The new exhibition traces the stories of inductees, beginning with those who launched the age of human aviation over two centuries ago through ballooning. Since then, people have pushed the technology of ballooning and lighter-than-air (LTA) aviation in order to reach new heights, gain new knowledge, and advance human capabilities. The International Ballooning Hall of Fame recognizes and memorializes the accomplishments of these legendary aeronauts.

“Due to the nature of ballooning and LTA aviation, the inductees have been leading practitioners of science, technology, engineering, and math,” adds Garver.

Technology is a major theme of the new International Ballooning Hall of Fame, which includes a section on airships that features the steering wheel from an early 20th-century dirigible.

In light of this, the exhibition explores how inductees mastered physical forces to achieve flight; experimented at high altitude to better understand our physical world; created and adapted technologies to help us go higher and farther; explored new frontiers and pushed the boundaries of performance through competition and setting records; and they have enhanced, preserved, and shared history, science, and technology for the benefit of each other, as well as the public, government, and private enterprise.

“Without the efforts of these inductees,” says Garver, “our understanding of aeronautics, the natural world, and the cosmos would be greatly diminished along with our potential as humans.”

The “Voyages of Discovery” section of the exhibition chronicles inductees who went beyond known frontiers, were the first to achieve unprecedented milestones and passed thresholds of earlier ballooning records.

Technology is a major theme of the “Science of Flight” exhibit, which includes a section on airships that features the steering wheel from an early 20th-century dirigible.

“There are dozens of legendary aeronauts in the International Ballooning Hall of Fame,” says Paul Garver, Balloon Museum manager. “Of course, this includes a number of people from New Mexico and Albuquerque, in particular, but also people from around the world and from different historical periods.”

The multi-media exhibition includes many unique and never-before-seen artifacts from the Balloon Museum’s extensive collection, including burners, instruments, and inflation devices. A centerpiece touchscreen interactive, nearly 8 feet tall, invites visitors to learn more about all of the inductees.

The World Air Sports Federation’s International Ballooning Commission, or Comité International d’Aérostation, founded the Hall of Fame in 1994 to honor those who have made significant contributions to ballooning and airships, including those who have excelled in business, history, design, engineering, competitions, and record-setting. The Balloon Museum has been home to the International Ballooning Hall of Fame since 2011.

Named in honor of Albuquerque’s pioneering aeronauts Maxie Anderson and Ben Abruzzo, the Balloon Museum opened in 2005 and has since welcomed over one million visitors from across New Mexico, the United States, and around the world. Through its extensive collection of artifacts, interactive special exhibitions, and engaging educational programs, the Museum is a gateway to science, exploration, and discovery. The Museum is open year round and hosts many community-oriented special events, features unique art and architecture, and offers distinctive rental spaces for meetings, weddings and receptions, and other celebrations.

The exhibit needs $137,000 to materialize and museum officials at the Byron Center Museum have started “The FUGO Campaign” to raise money. “I hope people come forward and donate, so the balloon could be nicely displayed, like it should be, and it does not have to stay in the box,” said Theresa Kiel, a board member with the Byron Center Historical Society.

In May 2017, the FUGO envelope was tracked and brought back to Byron Museum. Last summer, the balloon was taken out from its drum and unfurled in an open field, for the first time in decades. Museum exhibit designer Valerie van Heest was invited to examine it and was delighted to see its intact condition and the fact that it can still hold air. “To be able to see and touch the material paper, after 72 years, and realize that it is in such good condition-it’s just amazing to touch history like that,” said van Heest.

The original plan was to have the exhibit at the Byron Center Museum, but the museum does not get enough visitors, nor does it have a space big enough for the comprehensive exhibit that the officials want it to be. “It just wouldn’t do it justice to have it hanging from a ceiling,” Kiel told LTA Flight Magazine. “We want to have a lot of hands-on activities for the kids.”

So, the Byron Center Museum and the Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Museum, in Portage, Michigan, have entered a partnership to pool their resources. Being only half an hour away from Dorr, Air Zoo provides a close connection to local history. This aviation museum which has high ceilings and attracts 150,000 visitors per year has reserved 2,000 square feet of space for the exhibit.

When Kiel and van Heest talked with Troy Thrash, president and CEO of the Air Zoo Museum, he showed lot of interest. “Because it’s very rare you hear anything anymore about FUGO balloons,” Thrash told WZZM-13 TV. “Being a flight museum that we are, we want to be a part of helping to tell the story, not only of the balloon that landed in Dorr, but use it to explore the whole FUGO initiative.”

According to van Heest, “The balloon, itself, will take 900 square feet because the balloon is about 33 feet in diameter.” To make it look inflated she plans to use a framework, like that of an umbrella, inside the balloon.  This, she says, is a different approach from what the Smithsonian used in the sixties and seventies. “They built a bladder that they inflated within the FUGO. We don’t want to put any undue stress on the balloon because of its age,” she explains.  At the Smithsonian, however, the FUGO envelope has been in storage since the seventies.

For this comprehensive and interactive FUGO exhibit, probably the only one in the world, once completed, van Heest plans to display the intact FUGO envelope  with a full-size replica of its chandelier as a centerpiece of the exhibit, with text panels and interactive learning activities that will educate people about the world’s first intercontinental bombing campaign, with an unusual weapon—balloons.

Museum officials would like the whole country to learn about the FUGO initiative and the history of the Dorr FUGO balloon. “The immensity of it should draw a lot of people and we have the opportunity to share the story which is lost to time. It’s something we’ve forgotten about, since technology has developed many more sophisticated weapons,” said van Heest.

Air Zoo Museum officials were also happy with van Heest’s schematic designs for the exhibit.

The exhibit will have four interactive kiosks. Kiosk 1 will explore the military events leading to the FUGO campaign: the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941, and America’s retaliation with the “Doolittle Raid” airstrike. One hands-on activity will include making the paper that Japan manufactured to make the balloons.

Kiosk 2 will feature the science and mechanism of the balloon that enabled their thousands of miles journey— 38,000 feet above the Pacific. Visitors will be able to simulate a balloon crossing over the Pacific using an interactive touchscreen.

The kiosk on “Reaching North America” will explore the strange sightings in western states and the difficulties determining the balloons’ origin. Visitors will learn why the US government insisted on media censorship and what happened to the discovered balloons and the bombing apparatus. The interactive will demonstrate the law of gas volume, formulated by Jacques Charles, a brilliant young physicist of the late eighteenth century, who was also the first aeronaut to fly a hydrogen balloon over Paris.

Finally, the kiosk on “War comes to Dorr” will highlight the story of the three pre-teen boys who saw the balloon drift down in a corn field in Dorr, on February 23, 1945, its onward journey in the US, Don Piccard’s famous flight, and how the balloon was tracked and brought back to Dorr, 72 years later.

“The Byron Museum will design and develop the exhibit and the Air Zoo will host it and conduct educational programs,” said Kiel. Once the funds are raised, it will take a year to complete the exhibit.

The Byron Museum plans to have a scaled down exhibit and it’s likely that the exhibit will be fabricated to travel so that people across the country can see.  While in North America, there are seven exhibits that display partial or complete FUGO chandeliers, no museum has an intact FUGO envelope on display–not even the Japanese, who made 15,000 balloons but launched 9,300 as the media blackout in North America led them to believe that their bombing mission had failed.

To make a donation, please visit www.byroncentermuseum.com

You may also send a check to:  Byron Museum Go FU-GO

Box 20, Byron Center, MI 49315

Related articles from LTA Flight Magazine:

Incredible Journey of a Japanese Balloon Bomb

 A Japanese War Weapon and Don Piccard’s Famous Flight

WZZM-13 TV Stories:

• When the War Came to Dorr
• Anonymous donor comes forward with $10,000 to bring Dorr Fu-Go Balloon home
• A piece of the War has returned to Dorr: The Fu-Go Balloon comes home
• Man gets to see the Fu-Go Balloon he helped find 72 years ago
• Japanese Fu-Go Balloon found in Dorr unfurled in field; exhibit coming in 2018

DURING the solar eclipse, how did the LIVE video and images of the moon blocking the sun and the moon’s shadow hurtling across the earth reach NASA’s website? They came from balloons, outfitted with camera payloads, soaring near the edge of space. This was the first time that live streaming of an eclipse was accomplished with network coverage across a continent. One of the impressive things about NASA’s Eclipse Balloon Project was that, the 55 teams who accomplished this challenging task consisted of students from universities across the United States, and there were also ten high school teams. All teams were led by Dr. Angela Des Jardins director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium.

“It’s pretty amazing that with a low watt radio transmitter in a shoebox-size payload, we were able to stream down to antennas on the ground and then push it to the Internet. So, having that connection with the antenna on the ground and to receive the signal from the balloon– that’s a huge challenge that our teams had been practicing with for quite some time,” said Dr. Des Jardins in an interview with LTA-Flight Magazine. The teams had to ensure that the balloon’s equipment / payload did not exceed twelve pounds, which was also an FAA requirement.  “The overall project was very successful as we had expected. There were so many different things that came into play to do the live streaming, and teams had various degrees of results.”

Using Raspberry Pi and Arduino computers that allow sophisticated experiments at relatively low cost, balloons became a great accessible platform for hundreds of students who conducted high-altitude balloon flights and experiments from over 25 locations across the total eclipse path, from Oregon to South Carolina.

The idea to live stream video and images of the eclipse came to Dr. Des Jardins in 2013, who made it her mission. “I set out to convince NASA to support it and get the grant,” she said. “I grew it up in a very grassroots way, and the support that we had from NASA education and NASA Science Mission Directorate was hugely important in that.”

In preparation for the rare astronomical event, the Montana Space Grant Consortium has led students from across the US, since 2014, on a mission to capture live images from the edge of space, using high-altitude balloons.

Trevor Gahl, who started his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University (MSU) in 2017, joined the project as an undergraduate student. “It was the aspect of being able to apply computer and electrical engineering and the knowledge from basic sciences to contribute to the embedded systems in high-altitude ballooning was what interested me,” says Gahl.

In the four years that the students have been working on the project, they accomplished about twenty test flights. Gahl’s MSU team had 12 members and they worked on the hardware of the ground station. Their team was the focal point of a nationwide project leading up to the day of the eclipse. So Gahl’s biggest challenge was time management. “We would get e-mails and phone calls from teams across the country that were also using our systems. We had to support, assist, and troubleshoot any problems they had, and we also had to get our project to a stage at which it would operate because this was something new that we were doing–streaming live video from balloon cameras during an eclipse. And we were going to have teams along the entire eclipse path from Oregon to South Carolina that would be sending live video of the shadow of the moon passing over the earth.”

For more than a year, Gahl and his team worked on the implementation of the automatic track algorithm that would track the balloon throughout the duration of the flight.

Gahl and his team reached Rexburg, Idaho, on Saturday and set up their camp and equipment. On Sunday they tested everything and did a dry run. “We started at 5 o’clock in the morning on Monday to make sure everything was going to be ready to get our balloons into the air in time.”

Flight Director Berk Knighton had estimated the typical ascent rate at about 1,100 feet per minute, so each balloon would rise to 50,000 feet within an hour. The fact that the totality was only 2 ½ minutes long, meant only a 10-minute window for the launch, to allow the balloons to rise to the target altitude (60-80,000 feet) and not any higher, as that would have increased the risk of bursting.

To be in the correct place for the eclipse and to launch their balloons in the stratosphere, many teams found themselves in the middle of nowhere and had to make sure that they had good Internet connections. “That’s difficult because without a hard Internet connection we weren’t able to rely either on self-phone jet packs or hotspots, because we knew and anticipated that the cell phone networks would be overloaded,” says Dr. Des Jardins. “And even places where the teams thought they were going to have really good Internet, media folks showed up and stole their Internet connections, so to varying degrees people had good streaming video.”

Gahl and his team had some equipment problem during launch. “There was more turbulence than we expected and then things came unplugged. We were able to get a video and some still images but some of our other stuff didn’t quite function properly. We’re still looking into the hardware failures that we found,” he said, adding that many teams’ equipment worked well. “That was awesome to see that all of our hard work had been able to pay off for all these other students nationwide who got involved with it. They were able to get data,” he said.

To get all round images and videos, the payloads carried different imaging systems. The still image system used a DSLR Nikon camera and other ones were Raspberry Pi and Pi Camera whose tilt could be adjusted to look up or down. For the multiplexer video system, they had a series of eight cameras going around the perimeter of the payload. And these could remotely be pointed to cardinal directions like north, northeast, south, and so forth. It also had a chip inside the actual measurement unit that would detect what direction the payloads were facing, and it would choose the camera that was closest to that direction.

On eclipse day, as the moon made first contact with the sun, the temperature started to drop. And as the air cooled significantly during totality, some low-pressure balloons dropped from 80,000 to 50,000 feet, and rose up again after the sun came into view. The standard or sounding balloons did not experience much altitude change.

Besides getting live video and images of the eclipse, many teams conducted various experiments, and NASA and MSU presented early results of the Eclipse Ballooning Project on 11^th December at the American Geophysical Union’s conference. The difference in images of the Earth and atmosphere taken from high-altitude balloons on an eclipse day and on a non-eclipse day is striking. “On non-eclipse day, the horizon is pretty brightly lit, and you can see fantastic things on the ground but also get a really good feel for the layers of the atmosphere, which is really interesting. During the eclipse, it’s just amazing, because you can see the dark shadow coming in, and, then when the balloon is in the shadow, you can see a kind of 360-degree sunset effect. So, you have the dark area and then the bright area where the shadow is, and you can’t see anything on the ground because it’s dark. So, it’s like this gigantic black hole kind of effect,” said Des Jardins.

When taken from above 80,000 feet, the images also show some curvature of the Earth.

According to Dr. Des Jardins, balloons are an inexpensive and stable platform to get fantastic footage and images and also to do science experiments, depending on the type of experiments. “Obviously, from very expensive satellites, you can see something, but this is a way to get hands-on experience yourself, and for most people doing satellite or some other high-tech platform is completely out of reach,” she says.

Gahl adds: “The planes cannot get this high. The balloons go up to around 90,000 feet which is the lower stratosphere. And so, we get a much wider viewing angle or range that we can take pictures from.”

He cites another potential project at MSU that will use balloons and camera payloads to do imaging of thunder storms. “We’ll be able to fly above the clouds, and we can do a lot of that stuff that the planes can’t necessarily do. They can get up above clouds but not stay in one spot like a balloon can. You know a couple of weeks ago, we could have been able to image all the fires in Montana and see how they were progressing. So, it’s a very stable imaging system for a relatively low cost.”

Randy Larimer, deputy director of Montana Space Grant Consortium notes that it was incredibly rewarding to watch the students grow in technical skills, social skills, and business skills while working on the project. And though the challenge was daunting at times, the students succeeded in accomplishing the mission and in engaging the public during this awe-inspiring celestial event.

Click the link below to watch videos that were streamed live on eclipse day.

https://eclipse.stream.live/

Related articles:

https://ltaflightmagazine.com/msu-eclipse-ballooning/results/

https://ltaflightmagazine.com/balloons-eclipse/