The picture shows a superpressure balloon in a hangar in New Zealand in 1960. One of these atmospheric monitoring balloons managed to stay in the air for over 2 years, orbiting the earth more than 70 times.
interesting balloons
Balloons formed the origins of what became the USAF, have been used for stratospheric parachute jumps, bungee jumps and even to test nuclear bombs. Vote for your faves.
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A proposal by NASA for a balloon that could float experiments above 99 percent of the earths atmosphere for more than 100 days.
There are few photos in the history of space exploration that bring home quite how brave the people involved were and are.<p /><p />Joe Kittinger ascended into the stratosphere in a high altitude weather balloon and jumped. And there is this photo.
The are thousands of odd shaped recreational balloons, but we chose this flying cow to represent them on Oobject.
This metallic weather balloon is covered in spikes which allow it to track the flow of air across its surface, to show wind patterns.
This site tells you how to fly using clusters of helium balloons. dont even think of suing us if you break every bone in your body.
Chinese trade portal Alibaba has a bunch of weather balloon manufacturers that you can buy from. Absolutely no idea how much they cost, unfortunately. There is no a massive demand for these at Walmart.
A record was set when a bungee jump was made from this balloon at a height of 10,500 feet.
In 1863, during the Civil War, there was a nascent air force, in charge of deploying observation balloons such as this one, over the battlefield.
The Betelgeuse balloon was used to test an early French nuclear bomb.<p />The sign in front says "danger, no smoking", in French. Something of an understatement, but you know how the French like to smoke everywhere.
The Stratolab was used for high altitude experiments at the beginning of the space race. It was flown only 5 times but reached an unbelievable 113,000 feet. It is on display at the Balloon Museum.
Although ballutes have been revived recently for military and aerospace applications, they have been around as an idea since the 50s. <p /><p />This photograph is of a high altitude descent using a ballute, for the Gemini space program. The person on the right is a free fall photographer.
