11 amazing scientific balloon missions

toIn the year, NASA with huge balloon peaks over the Antarctic continent, bearing a 5,000 -pound telescope. Known as GUSTO, astronomers will help understand the story of the formation of stars in the universe.

The balloon, full of superiority, may seem a low -tech approach to enabling the cosmic discoveries of the front line in an era where missiles are now tearing in space with this regularity. But scientists have been working for nearly 250 years to master the art of scientific inflation. From the first high -end -galaxy traposporine samples – collected in a glass bottle – to new hints about the shape of the universe, balloons played an amazing important role in our understanding of our planet and the universe after that. Here are 11 of the most wonderful balloon tasks in history.

1783: In the late eighteenth century of the twentieth century, the Montgolfier brothers sent the first passengers to the sky in the balloon: at King Louis XVI stadium in Versailles, they loaded a sheep, duck and chicken in a round wicker tied balloon filled with hydrogen by a rope. The spectators also clapped in awe, raised the balloon from the ground and rose in the air – only to achieve the nearby forests after 10 minutes. (The animals survived the trip.)

Just two months later, human passengers boarded a basket connected to a spherical balloon, which toured the sky for 25 minutes. A New age Science began: Human aviation operations began to use balloons to study the air.

During a crashing of a crash, he and his assistant helmets made of wicker chicken baskets.

1804: French chemist Joseph Louis Jay Lucac, which up to 23,000 feet, flew Ticket How gases interact with different environments. he carry Heat scale, scale, scale. In the atmosphere, filled a bottled bottle that was evacuated – the air was removed from the inside to create a vacuum – with an air sample and found that it had the same chemical composition as air on the ground.

1898: The French meteorologist Lyon Tiserrink de Port wanted to find out how the air temperatures differ at different heights from the ground, so he loaded an uncomplicated balloon made of paper and silk with temperature and step reading devices sender In the air. It was found that the temperatures decreased with the height of the balloon, but above 26,000 feet, the temperature was fixed. In 1902, he suggested a name for this upper layer of the atmosphere: the stratosphere. (We now know that the changes in the temperature are upside down in the strategy and in reality He increases With a height to a certain height.)

1912: In one year, the Austrian physicist Victor F. Hess seven various Flights in hydrogen balloon. In seventh, he is rise Above the Bohemian town of Aussig to more than 15,000 feet, where he was surprised when he found that, according to his carefully calibration electricity, the atmosphere did not fall as it rises. Instead, there were approximately three times higher than it was on the floor. These notes led to discovery From the cosmic rays, which won the Nobel Prize in 1936.

1931: Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard wanted to make his own notes on cosmic radiation in the air via the hydrogen balloon. To protect himself and his assistant, though, Piccard designer Coastic aluminum cabin. During a crash Decline In the Bavarian Alps, he and his assistant helmets made of chicken baskets and pillows on their heads. He continues to create special hall doors to improve safety in flights. He later expected that the ram system one day would take people to the moon.

1947: After World War II, the era of plastic balloons, known as “skyhooks”, Take off. The US Navy funded the University of Minnesota Aviation Research Laboratory, where scientists designed open neck balloons made from a thin plastic, icon or stratofilm. The new material enabled more and lighter balloons building that can carry more weight to the upper heights that can maintain a fixed height. The first balloon in this project was successfully transferred on September 25, 1947. Like Skyhooks, the beginnings of space exploration, after which it was a platform for firing missiles from the stratosphere.

1957: In the fifties, Scientists have begun to send telescopes in balloons. One of these telescopes has been named I am the laparoscope I amTelescope reflects the 12 -inch size managed by remote control and is suspended from the polyethylene balloon. The laparoscopy flew seven times between 1957 and 1959 with the aim of capturing high -resolution photography of solar activity. This was followed by the second layer in the early 1960s, which shares some Similar aspects With the early preliminary models of the Hubble Space Telescope today.

1960: In the depth of the space race, NASA launched an ambitious project: a SatellionHalf satellite, half a balloon. It took seven attempts before the balloon successfully Firing. Echo 1 was Satial Etisalat: a large area of ​​the high -end Mylaar in space, and provided a reflective surface that radio signs from one location on Earth to another location. She felt retail in 1968, but helped enter a new era of satellite -based communication signals.

Balloon notes by Victor F. Hess to the discovery of cosmic rays, which won the Nobel Prize in 1936.

1962: A astronomy scientist and captain of the Air Force hiking In a small steel capsule connected to the 300 -foot Miller balloon, with the aim of studying the universe with a special stability telescope and other designated tools. For 18 and a half hours, they rose to 82,000 feet and returned to the ground as part of a task known as Stargazer process. Although the trip achieved great success, it will also be the last balloon trips for scientific research. The project was considered very expensive and canceled in 1963.

1998: Boomrang experience – Balloon notes of radiation outside the millimeter and geophysical – telescope on a 22 mile balloon over the Antarctica. Its goal? to Measure Radiation of the cosmic microwave background, after a bottle of the large explosion that permeates the universe. In this regard, the absorption of the atmosphere of microbial waves decreases to the minimum, giving scientists a clearer picture of the structures that precede the first star or galaxy in the universe. The results showed Engineering From the universe to be flat – which has since been confirmed by other measurements.

2024: The Hilium Balloon mission was launched only last year to study the atmosphere around the outer planets, especially the “Hot Copters” – GAS giants that quickly revolve around their stars. The task, called RaisedIt flies at a height of about 132,000 feet, and the light is collected with infrared, which passes through a spectrum to discover any precise changes in the light from the outer planets. This type of data can help scientists build 3D models for the atmosphere of these giant data, and shed light on its temperature, composition and weather dynamics-all of the upper atmosphere of our planet.

This article is inspired by a Nutelos feature Written by Adam Man is about a breakthrough in balloon -based astronomy.

Lead: NASA

• Catherine Jamun

  Spread on March 27, 2025

  Catherine Jamun is an independent scientific writer based in Santa Monica, California, who writes about the environment, science, fatherhood and motherhood. You can find it on X (previously known as Twitter) Kategammon.

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