Roosevelt High School - Bwana Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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EWZHE the queer signals which interest Marconi. Professor Piccard has proved that the air in the stratosphere, instead of lying in layers each colder than the one below, stands in huge columns, each with its own temperature, and is much less dense than near the earth's surface. On October 23, I934, Professor Piccard and his wife made a balloon ascent in which they hoped to reach a height of sixty thousand feet. Their purpose was to observe the cosmic rays. They were forced to land without making the intended study. Piccard's flights are important and have served to focus public attention upon the stratosphere. A very recent Stratosphere flight was the National Geographic Society- United States Army Air Corps Stratosphere Expedition, which was planned in the fall of I933 and took place in July, I934. The members of the crew were Major Wm. E. Kepner, pilotg Captain Albert W. Stevens, observer, one of the foremost aerial photographers in the world, and Captain Orvil A. Anderson, alternate. The base of the flight, Stratocamp, was loated in the Black Hills of South Dakota, twelve miles southwest of Rapid City. This site was chosen because it was a point far enough west to permit the balloon to drift seven or eight hundred miles east and land in comparatively unforested countryg the record of the region was promising for good summer flying weatherg and the spot was sheltered from surface winds. The camp, estab- lished in June, was like a small city with its own drainage system, sawdust- paved streets, waterworks, two electric lighting systems, parking spaces, a fire department, a hospital and an ambulance, traffic officers, three telephone lines, two radio stations, and a special weather station, which ranked in fullness of information furnished with the half dozen most important weather stations in the United States. It was inhabited by scientists, army officers, veteran balloonists, troops, and many civilian workers, all of whom were kept busy for almost two months in preparation for the flight. As the instruments were to be of full laboratory size to insure accuracy, it was necessary to build a gondola larger than any previously sent aloft. ln view of the enormous weight of the gondola and instruments and the height to which the weight had to be lifted, the balloon had to be the largest ever constructed. At the end of five months, the balloon, airtight and holding three million cubic feet of gas when fully inflated, was completed. The crew took a Fairchild aerial camera to record instrument readings, showing the position and altitude of the balloon at all times, the rate of ascent or descent, the direction of drift, and the velocity of air currents. The instrument that would afford new information regarding the distribution of ozone and the height of its center of concentration was the spectrograph. Three electroscopes for use in obtaining data on the penetration of cosmic rays and a Geiger counter apparatus to record the directions of movement of cosmic rays were also taken. Two sealed barographs were hung outside to determine the altitude reached. An extra light transmitting and receiving Twenty- six 935

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935 EVJZINH EXPLORING THE STRATOSPHERE NLY recently have people in. general become interested in the strato- sphere. It has been only within the last fifty years that much of the knowledge which we now possess of the gaseous portion of our sphere has been accumulated. The principal reason for the rapid growth of interest in this field is the possibility of using it as a lane for long distance flying. This would be desirable because it would mean the elimination of the storms, fogs, and winds encountered in the lower atmosphere and because much greater speed would be possible since less resistance would be offered by the air. There are, however, several problems involved. The most important of these is the difficulty of designing aircraft suitable for use in this region of extreme cold and diminished supply of oxygen. These problems are not beyond solution. Probably the intensive study which is being made of the stratosphere at the present time may lead to its being conquered in the near future. Until almost the end of the nineteenth century observations had been confined-'to the lower regions, and the conditions in the upper regions of the atmosphere could only be surmised. Observations made up to a height of two or three miles by means of sounding and passenger carrying balloons had shown that up to about three thousand meters above the earth conditions are very variable with regard to air currents and temperature. Above that level the changes in temperature were found to be more uniform, and the winds become generally more easterly in direction and much stronger. From this knowledge scientists assumed that decreasing temperature and increasing wind velocity would continue until the outermost portions of the atmosphere were reached. ln 1898 this supposition was upset by de Bort, a French meteorologist, who, by means of sounding balloons, made observations at higher altitudes than had formerly been attained. His conclusions were consistent with the early observations up to about eleven kilometers above sea-level. At that point, however, the temperature remained constant or even increased with the altitude. The first name given to this newly discovered region was uisothermal layerug later it was changed to the present term, stratosphere , The work and theories of de Bort have been confirmed and further advanced by numerous scientists since that time, among whom Gold, Milne, and Humphreys have been particularly important. Auguste Piccard, a Swiss-Belgian professor, accompanied by his brother jean, made a stratosphere flight in l9l 3 in an effort to measure the density and temperature of the gas inside their balloon. ln May, 1931, and in August, l932, Piccard made two more balloon ascents to study the cosmic rays in the stratosphere. It was believed that this would lead to other dia- coveries, such as the reason for the fading of wave-length and the cause of Twenty-Hue

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