The 14-Mile Drop

The Navy last week broke the world balloon-altitude record long held by the Army,* but it did not do the job with unruffled dignity. Its helium-filled balloon, made of plastic film, and 128 ft. in diameter, rose without trouble from the same bowl-like depression near Rapid City, S. Dak. that the Army's record-setting flight used in 1935. Far below its partly expanded bag hung a spherical aluminum gondola stuffed with scientific apparatus. Inside were Lieut. Commanders Malcolm D. Ross and Morton L. Lewis, wearing man-from-Mars pressure suits and festooned with instruments to measure their heart action, breathing, etc., and report the readings to escort aircraft and ground radios. The primary purpose of the flight was not to make an altitude record but to study conditions on the fringe of space and human reactions to them. The Navy intended to keep its "Strato-lab" (the gondola) at peak altitude for about three hours, a period impossible for rockets or rocket planes.

The balloon rose rapidly, glinting in the sun. At 56,400 ft., Commander Lewis reported that he and Commander Ross were having coffee, a prime necessity of Navy men. Somewhat later he remarked that the sky was clear and dark blue-black. The balloon continued to climb. In two hours and 50 minutes it passed the Army's altitude record (72,395 ft.) and reached 76,000 ft.

Everything so far had gone well. Ross and Lewis dropped the balloon intentionally to 75,000 ft. and started to make the observations that were the purpose of the flight. Then the trouble started.

The gondola began to spin crazily, 14 miles above the earth, and the great gasbag would not stop descending. Apparently a malfunctioning valve on the balloon had begun to release helium. The men radioed that the balloon was out of control. They dumped all the ballast and strapped themselves to the gondola's seats. "We are calm, cool and collected," they radioed. "We think we'll stay with the balloon as long as we can."

To reduce the dangerous speed of descent, they jettisoned batteries, oxygen apparatus, everything in the gondola that could be torn loose. They were drifting over the sandhill cattle country of northwest Nebraska, and little by little the descent of the balloon decreased to a safer rate. As the gondola approached the ground, the crew detached the gasbag, which soared off on the wind. The gondola dropped the few remaining feet, its fall cushioned by a plastic shock absorber, and the two men from Mars stepped out. Almost at once a light airplane piloted by Don Higgins of Ainsworth, Neb. landed beside them.

"Have you got any coffee?" the balloonmen asked. Except for temporary deafness, they were unhurt after their 14-mile fall. "We got no work done." remarked one of them. "But it was lovely up there."

-Set by Army Captains Orvil Anderson and Albert Stevens on Nov. 11, 1935.

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