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AEROSPACE BALTOONS From Montgolfiere To Space Edwin J. Kirschner

Sha Wve? (Uos STRasbeaay Witt Rd AEROSPACE BALLOONS oe : Bi CO ee irae ae TRaveese City ™ From ontgolfiere o space } YJ Wey Man’s creative genius, his ability to make something new which never existed AE RO S PACE before, is exemplified by the inventions of the atmospheric balloon in 1783 and, more recently, the balloon satellites in space. For more than 200 years, the atmospheric balloon had moved forward with not- able success, linking the early heritage of adventurous pioneers to space technology ( BA I i OONS of the future. | AEROSPACE BALLOONS portrays the development and progress of the …

FIRST EDITION SECOND PRINTING Printed and published in the United States of America by Aero, a division of TAB BOOKS Inc Reproduction or publication of the content in any manner, without express permission of the publisher, is prohibited. No liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information herein Copyright 1985 by Aero Publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data: Kirschner, Edwin J Aerospace balloons Includes indexes 1. Balloons. 2. Expandable space structures. |. Title TL610.K57 1986 629.133'22 86-28695 ISBN 0-8306-8851-X (pbk.) DEDICATION This book is especi…

PREFACE Man’s earliest thoughts about flying and his earliest attempts at flight took place before the days of science; before man began to measure, to investi- gate, to experiment and to think things out in orderly fashion. The invention of the balloon in 1783 reveals an example of man’s creative genius, his ability to make something new which never existed before. Dreams of flight were based on examples from our imaginative myths and legends as well as examples of flight observed in nature. By looking at ancient myths, we see man’s earliest thoughts and dreams about flight. The best known of…

TABLE OF CONTEN a ROSPACE BALLOON MILE It DEVE TORME NUS OR WHE 25 Oistre secon erect in ig (a) Breakthroughs in Design. (b) Superpressure Balloons (c) Zero Pressure Balloons. (a) (b) Ghost Flights. (c) Stratoscope Projects................ (d) The Echo Series ee (e) Miscellaneous Achievements . (f) Powered Balloons (g) Tethered Balloons (h) Viking Project (i) Mars Voyager (j) Venus Project. . (k) Russian & French Projects... we (1) 1976 National Research Council Report (m) Some Major Accomplishments of the ’7 A LOOK AT THE ’80’s & BEYOND (With a synoptic view of inflatable space structures) (a…

What Archimedes had realized was this: that if the crown and an equal volume of pure gold were weighed in air and then again in water, the loss of the weight of the pure gold in water as compared to the crown would be exactly the same—if the crown was also pure. If the weights were not equal, then Archimedes could deduce that the goldsmith had alloyed some other metal with the gold and stolen what he could. What Archimedes had discovered was the principle of specific gravity; the basic concept for understanding buoyancy. Simp- ly stated, the principle says that a buoyant force exerted by a flu…

covered a gas he named “‘inflammable air.” This discovery was not taken to be of great import by Cavendish himself, yet another English chemist named Joseph Black, who knew of Cavendish’s find, was prompted in 1768 to propose a thin, light bladder filled with “inflammable air.’’ Sometime later, the French chemist Lavoisier, renamed the gas “hydrogene.”’ In 1782, a year before the first public demonstration of the hot air balloon, an Italian physicist, Tiberius Cavalio, then living in England, succeeded in getting soap bubbles to float upward after inflating them with ‘‘hydrogen”’ gas. The Age …

their allegiance to science before other things and for whom the balloon appeared a tool of enlightenment. With the earliest flights an era of scien- tific research and practical ballooning blossomed that was to yield considerable knowledge. Information was sought on air currents, temperature, and pressure vari- ations, and wind velocity in the atmosphere. One Dr. Jefferies, an American physician, carried out barometric, thermometric, and hygrometric observations by balloons over London during the early 1780’s! (On one of his flights in 1784, Dr. Jefferies systematic- ally obtained samplings o…