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

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BWENE set, enabling them to receive weather and other important information and to give reports of their changing positions to the earth during the trip, was built for the flight by the National Broadcasting Company. This preparatory work, begun early in June, was completed July 9. As photography was to play an important part in the work, it was essential to make the flight during very special weather conditions covering an area of seven or eight hundred miles to the east. Cloudless skies and good visibility were needed. Current weather maps were completed every morning and evening. On July 27 the weather conditions were suitable. The men took off shortly after sunrise. At forty thousand feet they stopped. On no previous Hight had a balloon been stopped halfway between the ground and the maximum altitude. They had planned that at a height of about sixty-five thousand feet the balloon would stop rising and that by discharging additional ballast they would rise to at least seventy-five thousand feet. At sixty thousand six hundred thirteen feet, however, only six hundred twenty-four feet from equalling the official world record for altitude in a balloon ascent, the bag ripped. In three-fourths of an hour they had descended to forty thousand feet. Half an hour later they were down to twenty thou- sand. It became urgent to lessen the weight in the gondola. They discharged ballast, attached some of the instruments to parachutes and dropped them, poured out the remaining liquid air, and threw out the two empty containers attached to parachutes. Even in this crisis Captain Stevens, Major Kepner, and Captain Anderson were careful to throw out nothing in a way which might injure people on the ground. At a little more than half a mile from the ground the men jumped, coming down safely in a cornfield near Holdrege, Nebraska. They really should have left sooner, but they did not wish to abandon the scientific apparatus and wanted to be near it when they landed. Lieutenant F. Phillips and Sergeant G. B. Gilbert, making pictures as they followed in an airplane, photographed the Hnal collapse of the balloon. Much of the valuable apparatus was a mass of wreckage, and many feet of film were a total loss. If some of the negatives on which nearly all the reports were registered can be salvaged, much valuable information will be disclosed. It is believed that some of the photographs will furnish valuable scientific information. The preliminary reports from the several scientific laboratories are somewhat encouraging, and, if sufficient data were saved, it is possible that the laboratory measurements originally planned can be made. The balloon, gondola, and apparatus of the Hight, which lasted nine hours and fifty-seven minutes, cost less than sixty thousand dollars. This cost, borne largely by the National Geographic Society, was also shared by indi- viduals, corporations, and laboratories interested in the advancement of knowledge. During the flight small quartz tubes containing ten different kinds of spores furnished by the Department of Agriculture were hung outside. ln Twenty-eight 9

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EWEHE spite of the rough treatment, including the intense cold, thin air, and the blazing sunlight of the Stratosphere, the spores were unharmed. The distinguishing feature of the stratosphere is its temperature. This varies with the conditions existing at the surface of the earth, such as the season, latitude, surface altitude, and barometric pressure. The average height of the lower boundary of the stratosphere is about seven miles above sea-level, varying sometimes because of the same conditions that cause the temperature to vary. It is generally believed that the temperature begins to decrease again at the altitude of forty or fifty miles. Other interesting characteristics of the stratosphere are its freedom from 'storms and clouds, and its very moderate winds. Humphreys, in giving his summary of the situation existing in the earth's atmosphere, said: We have two distinct atmospheres that intermingle but slightly: a lower one with a large negative temperature gradient: and an upper one with a small positive gradient, The lower contains two-thirds to three-fourths of the entire mass of such gases of the air as oxygen, nitrogen, and all members, except helium, of the argon family, a still greater proportion of the carbon dioxide and nearly all the water vapor. The data obtained from this flight make it the most important exploration of the stratosphere. Captain Stevens, Major Kepner, and Captain Anderson deserve much credit for their work. FRANCES WILLERT Thirty 93