Abstract
MISFORTUNE has attended this latest attempt at stratosphere research. An account of the careful preparations that had been made jointly by the National Geographic Society and the U.S. Army Air Corps appeared in NATURE of June 22 (p. 1026) and the largest balloon ever designed was scheduled to be ready by June 1. A message in The Times of July 12 reports, however, that whilst the gondola was being attached on the previous day, the balloon burst for some unaccountable reason; the 375,000 cu. ft. of helium were lost, and the five men working below had to jump for their lives to escape from the falling mass of the collapsing envelope. From the brief report it would appear as though the whole of the 8 tons upward force was too much for the initial cylindrical form assumed by the envelope, with the result that the top blew out.
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U.S. Stratosphere Balloon Explorer II. Nature 136, 99 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136099c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136099c0