(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Museum Pieces: US Navy Project Strato-Lab [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-09-24 The US Navy’s Strato-Lab was a project designed to use balloons to put humans into the upper stratosphere. "Museum Pieces" is a diary series that explores the history behind some of the most interesting museum exhibits and historical places. A Strato-Lab gondola on display at the International Balloon Museum in Albuquerque The first manned balloon flight took place in November 1783, when Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent Marquis d'Arlandes ascended from the Champ de Mars in Paris. Their homemade balloon was constructed from paper and linen, with a wicker basket suspended underneath for passengers. To generate lift, a fire was built inside the balloon, heating the air and causing it to rise. The flight lasted about 25 minutes. Improvements followed, including hydrogen-filled balloons which could be steered by engine-driven propellers. By 1861 balloons were being used by military forces as reconnaissance platforms, and by World War I Zeppelins were bombing London. Manned balloons were also being used for scientific research. In May 1931 Professor Auguste Piccard used a closed and pressurized gondola to ascend to almost 52,000 feet over Germany. Subsequent researchers in the United States, Russia and Europe carried weather instruments aloft to make measurements, and in November 1935 the joint US Army/National Geographic Society balloon Explorer II reached an altitude of over 72,000 feet. After the Second World War, with the appearance of rocket vehicles, there was much interest in high-altitude research, and balloons offered a method that was simpler and cheaper than rockets. The US Navy's Office of Naval Research planned for a series of manned flights with balloons designed by Jean Piccard (Auguste's brother), known as Operation Helios. These flights would use a cluster of balloons made with the new lightweight plastic material polyethylene for a gas-bag, just two-thousandths of an inch thick. The “cluster” approach, however, presented some difficulties that were unsolvable at the time, and there were also technical limitations for the pressurized gondola. Project Helios was canceled. Its replacement in 1954 was called Project Strato-Lab, which was funded by both the Navy ONR and the National Science Foundation. Like Helios, Strato-Lab had the objective of gathering scientific data from the upper atmosphere, including radiation measurements, data on the solar wind, and studies on the biomedical effects of high-altitude flight on humans. It also had the task of testing the limits of the Navy's latest jet pilot high-altitude suits. By this time, the United States was also interested in the possibilities of manned rocket space flights, and Strato-Lab data would be useful in predicting the effects of spaceflight on American astronauts. Although the pressurized gondola for Strato-Lab was based on the earlier Helios design, it took advantage of new advances in technology. The Strato-Lab gondola had nine Plexiglas windows for viewing. It would be carried aloft by a single large balloon made of a thin polyethylene sheet that was a whopping 100 yards in diameter and ten acres in surface area, and held ten million cubic feet of gas. The cabin was maintained at a pressure equivalent to an altitude of 17,000 feet with a mixture of 50% oxygen and 50% nitrogen. When the gondola was higher than 17,000 feet the air pressure inside would be greater than that outside, and this would push the two hatch doors tightly against a rubber o-ring, sealing the cabin and preventing leaks. The cabin was also fitted with a secondary supply of pure oxygen, which was plugged in to the pressurized flight suits. This served as a backup to the main system, and also allowed the two occupants to make an emergency exit if it became necessary. During the flight, a system of chemical scrubbers using lithium hydroxide and lithium chloride removed carbon dioxide and water vapor from the air. The two air systems together could support the crew for up to 72 hours. As a safety system, the gondola was attached to a 64-foot wide parachute. If the balloon failed, the parachute would bring the gondola back, and if the crew were incapacitated for any reason, ground control had the capability of detaching the balloon and allowing the gondola to parachute down to the ground. In the unlikely event that both the balloon and the large parachute failed, the two crewmen were wearing their own parachutes. The first Strato-Lab flight was made in August 1956 by Navy Lt Commanders Malcolm Ross and Lee Lewis. With the objective of testing the balloon and the crew's pressure suits, it only ascended to 40,000 feet and had an open unpressurized gondola. The next flight, designated Strato-Lab High I, was in November and was a full-scale test of the pressurized gondola. Ross and Lewis ascended to 76,000 feet, but then a valve in the balloon malfunctioned and they began an involuntary descent at 4,000 feet per minute. The crew successfully slowed their descent by opening the hatches and tossing out some extra weight, and landed safely. Strato-Lab High II followed in October 1957. This flight lasted nine and a half hours, with much of that time spent above 85,000 feet. The next flight was in May 1958, when Ross was accompanied by Alfred Mikesell, an astronomer from the US Naval Observatory. His mission was to make astronomical and meteorological observations from 40,000 feet, and he carried several instruments with him in the open gondola, including a coronagraph for observing the sun. Another high-altitude flight followed in July, when Ross and Lewis took Strato-Lab High III to an altitude of 82,000 feet in a flight that lasted for 35 hours. It would be Lewis's last flight: he retired from the Navy shortly afterwards. For Strato-Lab High IV in November 1959, Ross was accompanied by Charles Moore, who used a16-inch telescope to make observations of the planet Venus from 81,000 feet. The final flight of the Strato-Lab series was on May 4, 1961. This time Ross was joined by Navy medical officer Victor Prather, who had the objective of testing the limits of the Navy's Mark IV pressurized flight suit (which had been introduced in 1959 and had already been modified for use by NASA's Mercury astronauts). Strato-Lab High V used an open gondola and reached a record altitude of 113,740 feet. The flight lasted almost ten hours. The mission did not go smoothly, however. The radio system was fading in and out and communications with the ground were difficult. One of the valves in the balloon was sticking, which meant Ross had trouble keeping a steady rate of descent. They were forced to toss out all of the ballast to slow their descent, and when that wasn't enough they jettisoned everything they could, including the radio. They landed in the Gulf of Mexico about a mile away from their recovery ship (the Navy carrier Antietam). But as the two men climbed out of the gondola to be winched by cable up to the helicopter, Prather slipped and fell into the sea. Water poured in through an open valve in his flight suit and the weight dragged him under. The rescue divers from the helicopter were unable to reach him in time, and Prather was drowned. The next day, May 5, 1961, the United States launched its first astronaut into space, as Alan Shepard was launched aboard the Freedom 7. His flight had been made possible in part by data gathered during the Strato-Lab series. Today, the International Balloon Museum in Albuquerque displays one of the Strato-Lab gondolas. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/24/2259061/-Museum-Pieces-US-Navy-Project-Strato-Lab?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/