Record Balloon Flight In U.S.

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28362, 22 August 1957, Page 13

Record Balloon Flight In U.S.

(Rec. 11 p.m.) ELM LAKE (South Dakota), Aug. 20. Drowsy but happy, a United States Air Force doctor-pilot landed safely late today near Ellendale, North Dakota, after riding in the gondola of a plastic balloon (shown above) to an estimated record of 102,000 feet in his 32 hours of exploring outer space. Asked his most exciting experience, the doctor, Major David Simons, said as he stepped from the gondola: “Getting back to earth.” Radar trackers estimated that the balloon reached the record 102,000 foot level over Wahpeton, North Dakota, early today. Confirmation will await calibration of instruments the balloon carried.

Major Simons said it was nice to see the sun’s rays diffused by the etrth’s atmosphere. ‘‘l’Ve been riding around in a sky that was purple black, even in daytime, and then it got darker at riight,” he said. Major Simons, six and a quarter hours after he started his descent, finally brought the giant balloon down on the shores of Elm Lake. The lake is on the North DakotaSouth Dakota border about 10 miles south-west 01 Ellendale. Ground winds shifted the balloon precariously during Major Simons’s battle to get the gondola and its cargo of instruments safely down. Observers said that by a masterful use of his ballast, Major Simons touched the ground gently. He suffered a slight cut on the chin when the gondola tipped over before the balloon could be cut loose. “You can tell the folks that, up high, the stars don’t twinkle, they just burn,” he said in a brief interview. Almost immediately he was led to a waiting helicopter and whisked away to an unknown destination. The balloon landing ended man’s longest sojourn in the stratosphere and his highest ascension in a balloon. A United States Air Force pilot has flown a Bell X-2 rocket plane 126,000 feet in the heavens. Major Simons began his descent shortly before noon today after telling his ground crew by radio that he had reached a record altitude of 102,000 ft. He made his flight in a tiny sealed capsule hooked to the huge plastic balloon from an open pit iron mine yesterday morning. Scientific information about [' conditions in the upper air and . the ability of man to survive [ there were the objects of his ■ flight. His reported peak height was I 6000 ft higher than the previous record for a manned ■ balloon. , Captain Joseph Kittinger reached 96,000 ft in June in a flight to test , the equipment to be used in > Major Simons’s ascent.

Major Simons was originally expected to drift about 500 miles west, but he remained within about 200 miles of the take-riff point.

The balloon lost altitude during the night, rising again after sunrise, and Major Simrins reported seeing a “whale of a storm” over Sisseton, South Dakota, early today.

"Ringside View”

Earlier he t 'd trackers on the ground from his gondola he had a “ringside view of the heavens —it is indescribable.” Lieutenant-Colonel John McCurdy, chief of the tracking force at Minneapolis, called Major Simons’s space journey “a huge success in almost every pspect.” Major Simons was reluctant to come down and “would have liked to remain up there a couple of days more,” Cclonel McCurdy said.

The reason, Colonel McCurdy said, was that Major Simons did not feel he had completed complicated psychological and biological experiments on himself and tests jf his craft to determine the dangers of space travel. Major Simons spent a busy night, according to reports from him. He took a few catnaps, totalling oply an hour. He was awake before sunrise and thrilled to see the vast eastern sky with its brilliant morning colours. Because he was so high. Colonel McCurdy paid, Major Simons saw the sunrise an hour before watchers on the earth below.