TEN MILES HIGH

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 69, 18 September 1930, Page 9

TEN MILES HIGH

SCIENTISTS' VENTURE

STUDYING COSMIC RAYS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 3rd July

A giant balloon—one of the most remarkable aircraft ever built—is being prepared for two scientists, who will brave the terrors of the great cold, ten miles above th- earth's Burfaee, to investigate the mystery of the cosmic rays.

M. Piccard, Professor of Physics at the University at Brussels, is the leader of the expedition (writes the "NewsChronicle" correspondent). The cosmic rays, which scientists at one time believed to emanate from the earth, are now known to be stronger at high altitudes than at sea level. Apparently they interpenetrate the whole, universe, and one theory is that they are given off by the disintegrating atoms in space. . Professor Piecard believes it necessary to attain a height of about tea miles to study the rayd to advantage. Consequently he vs having constructed at Augsburg, Bavaria, a special balloon, with a metal cabin hermetically, closed, to protect him and his fellow investigator against the dangers of cold—calculated at about GO degrees below zero—and of the low atmospheric pressure. The height record made in an aeroplane is at present only 43,000 The professor's balloon will be 97% feet in diameter, and will have a capacity of over 38,000 cubic yards. It will have no SEVENFOLD EXPANSION. "When it leaves the earth ifc will be QUed to only one-seventh of its total volume, but will swell during the ascent owing to the dilation of the gas. The problem of an air supply for the scientists has been solved by means of apparatus similar to that adopted on submarines, by which' the air is dosed with oxygen and the carbonic acid and other toxic gases absorbed. Professor Piccard hopes to make his experiment at the end of the summer from Augsburg, where the meteorological conditions are excellent and the chances of the balloon being carried out to sea are relatively small. "There are problems other than that of the cosmic rays which we wish to investigate," said the professor, in an interview, "but, apart from these, the aerial travel of the future will probably have to be made at heights of 50,000 feet or more, and our experiences in such rariiied atmosphere and low temperatures should prove instructive. '

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