Zero-pressure Balloons
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Zero-pressure Balloons
A zero-pressure balloon (ZP) is a style of aerostatic balloon that is unsealed at its base, creating a mechanism by which lifting gas can vent out the bottom of the balloon when the balloon becomes full, allowing the balloon to float at stable altitudes. During the day the gas heats up in the sun, and at night the gas cools causing them to descend. This limits the flight time of this type of balloon. The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility has flown more than 1,700 scientific balloons over 40 years and currently launches between 10 and 15 flights of this type of balloon per year. Operation Zero-pressure balloons are filled with a lighter-than-air lift gas at a launch site where they are held to the ground during the launch process. Because lift gas expands as a balloon ascends, they are always smaller at launch then they are at higher altitudes. When ready to launch, the balloon is released and, if filled properly, will start to rise. As the balloon rises, the lift gas withi ...
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Super V Zero Pressure Balloon
Super may refer to: Computing * SUPER (computer program), or Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, a video converter/player * Super (computer science), a keyword in object-oriented programming languages * Super key (keyboard button) Film and television * ''Super'' (2005 film), a Telugu film starring Nagarjuna, Anushka Shetty and Ayesha Takia * ''Super'' (2010 Indian film), a Kannada language film starring Upendra and Nayantara * ''Super'' (2010 American film), a film written and directed by James Gunn, and starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page * "Super" (''Person of Interest''), an episode of the TV series ''Person of Interest'' Music * ''Super'' (Jão album), 2023 * ''Super'' (Pet Shop Boys album), 2016 * "Super" (Cordae song), 2021 * "Super" (Neu! song), 1972 * "Super" (Seventeen song), 2023 * "Super (1, 2, 3)", a 2000 song by Gigi D'Agostino Other uses * Hillary Super, American business executive * Súper, a Spanish professional footballer * Su ...
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Aerostat
An aerostat (, via French) or lighter-than-air aircraft is an aircraft that relies on buoyancy to maintain flight. Aerostats include unpowered balloons (free-flying or tethered) and powered airships. The relative density of an aerostat as a whole is lower than that of the surrounding atmospheric air (hence the name "lighter-than-air"). Its main component is one or more gas capsules made of lightweight skins, containing a lifting gas (hot air, or any gas with lower density than air, typically hydrogen or helium) that displaces a large volume of air to generate enough buoyancy to overcome its own weight. Payload (passengers and cargo) can then be carried on attached components such as a basket, a gondola, a cabin or various hardpoints. With airships, which need to be able to fly against wind, the lifting gas capsules are often protected by a more rigid outer envelope or an airframe, with other gasbags such as ballonets to help modulate buoyancy. Aerostats are so named ...
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Balloon (aircraft)
In aeronautics, a balloon is an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to its buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving with the wind, or Moored balloon, tethered to a fixed point. It is distinct from an airship, which is a powered aerostat that can propel itself through the air in a controlled manner. Many balloons have a basket, gondola (airship), gondola, or capsule suspended beneath the main envelope for carrying people or equipment (including cameras and telescopes, and flight-control mechanisms). Aerostation Aerostation is an obsolete term referring to ballooning and the construction, operation, and navigation of lighter-than-air vehicles. Tiberius Cavallo's ''The History and Practice of Aerostation'' was published in 1785. Other books were published on the subject including by Thomas Monck Mason, Monck Mason. Dramatist Frederick Pilon wrote a play with aerostation as its title. Principles A balloon is conceptually the simplest of all flying machines. The ...
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Lifting Gas
A lifting gas or lighter-than-air gas is a gas that has a density lower than normal atmospheric gases and rises above them as a result, making it useful in lifting lighter-than-air aircraft. Only certain lighter-than-air gases are suitable as lifting gases. Dry air has a density of about 1.29 g/L (gram per liter) at standard conditions for temperature and pressure (STP) and an average molecular mass of 28.97  g/mol, and so lighter-than-air gases have a density lower than this. Gases used for lifting Hot air Heated atmospheric air is frequently used in recreational ballooning. According to the ideal gas law, an amount of gas (and also a mixture of gases such as air) expands as it is heated. As a result, a certain volume of gas has a lower density as its temperature increases. The temperature of the hot air in the envelope will vary depending upon the ambient temperature, but the maximum continuous operating temperature for most balloons is . Hydrogen Hydrogen, being the ...
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Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility
The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF), established in 1961 and formerly known as the National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF), is a NASA facility responsible for providing launch, tracking and control, airspace coordination, telemetry and command systems, and recovery services for unmanned high-altitude balloons. Customers of the CSBF include NASA centers, universities, and scientific groups from all over the world. Mission CSBF has a threefold mission: * Provide maintenance, operations and logistics support for NASA's scientific balloon program and facilities. * Provide sophisticated ground and flight systems for launch, control, data retrieval, commanding, and recovery of NASA's balloon missions. * Perform research and development to advance the capabilities of NASA's suborbital programs. History The Balloon Facility was established by Vincent E. Lally at NCAR in Boulder, Colorado in 1961 under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. It was moved to Pales ...
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Natural Balloon Shape
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part of nature, human activity or humans as a whole are often described as at times at odds, or outright Anthropocentrism, separate and even superior to nature. During the advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries, nature became the passive reality, organized and moved by divine laws. With the Industrial Revolution, nature increasingly became seen as the part of reality deprived from intentional intervention: it was hence considered as sacred by some traditions (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rousseau, American transcendentalism) or a mere decorum for divine providence or human history (Hegel, Marx). However, a vitalist vision of nature, closer to the pre-Socratic one, got reborn ...
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Aerostar (Romanian Company)
Aerostar S.A. is an aeronautical manufacturing company based in Bacău, Romania. History Since its establishment in 1953, the company's name has changed numerous times in turn from ''U.R.A.'' to ''I.R.Av'', ''I.Av''. and finally ''Aerostar''. It has been subordinated to the Ministry of National Defense of Romania, Ministry of Armed Forces and is currently a subsidiary of IAROM, former National Centre of the Romanian Aeronautical industry (CNIAR). Aerostar has been a major provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for all aircraft types used by the Romanian military. The company also developed the IAR-93 twin-engine, tactical ground-attack and reconnaissance aircraft, which was the first fighter aircraft produced in Romania following the end of the World War II, Second World War. Furthermore, the company has also produced more than 1,800 Yak-52 trainer aircraft; it was manufactured in Romania in three versions: the ''Iak-52'', ''Iak-52W'', and ''Iak-52TW''. Ae ...
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Red Bull Stratos
Red Bull Stratos was a high-altitude skydiving project involving Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner. On 14 October 2012, Baumgartner flew approximately into the stratosphere over New Mexico, United States, in a helium balloon before free falling in a pressure suit and then parachuting to Earth. The total jump, from leaving the capsule to landing on the ground, lasted approximately ten minutes. While the free fall was initially expected to last between five and six minutes, Baumgartner deployed his parachute after 4 minutes and 19 seconds. Reaching —Baumgartner broke the sound barrier on his descent, becoming the first human to do so without any form of engine power. Measurements show Baumgartner also broke two other world records. With a final altitude of , Baumgartner broke the unofficial record for the highest manned balloon flight of previously set by Nick Piantanida. He also broke the record for the highest-altitude jump, set in 1960 by USAF Colonel Joseph Kittinger ...
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StratEx Space Dive
On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace broke the world record for the highest balloon flight and skydive of all time, releasing himself from a balloon at 135,908 feet. Details In 2011, Eustace decided to pursue a stratosphere jump and met with Taber MacCallum, one of the founding members of Biosphere 2, to begin preparations for the project. Over the next three years, the Paragon Space Development technical team designed and redesigned many of the components of his parachute and life-support system. The Paragon team integrated systems for the Stratospheric Explorer mission code named StratEx Space Dive. On October 24, 2014, Eustace made a jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix Baumgartner's 2012 world record. The launch-point for his jump was from an abandoned runway in Roswell, New Mexico, where he began his gas balloon-powered ascent early that morning. He reached a reported maximum altitude of , but the final number submitted to the World Air Sports Federation was . The bal ...
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Project Excelsior
Project Excelsior was a series of parachute jumps made by Joseph Kittinger of the United States Air Force in 1959 and 1960 from helium balloons in the stratosphere. The purpose was to test the Beaupre multi-stage parachute system intended to be used by pilots ejecting from high altitude. In one of these jumps Kittinger set world records for the longest parachute drogue fall, the highest parachute jump, and the fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere. He held the latter two of these records for 52 years, until they were broken by Felix Baumgartner of the Red Bull Stratos project in 2012, though he still holds the world record for longest time in free fall. Background As jet planes flew higher and faster in the 1950s, the Air Force became increasingly worried about the safety of flight crews who had to eject at high altitude. Tests in Operation High Dive with dummies had shown that a body in free-fall at high altitude would often go into a flat spin at a rate of up to 20 ...
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Joseph Kittinger
Joseph William Kittinger II (July 27, 1928 – December 9, 2022) was an officer in the United States Air Force (USAF) who served from 1950 to 1978, and earned Command Pilot status before retiring with the rank of colonel. He held the world record for the highest skydive—102,800 feet (31.3 km)—from 1960 until 2012. Kittinger participated in the Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior high-altitude balloon flight projects from 1956 to 1960 and was the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth. A fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, Kittinger shot down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 jet fighter. He was later shot down as well, subsequently spending 11 months as a prisoner of war in a North Vietnamese prison before he was repatriated in 1973. In 1984, Kittinger became the first person to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon. In 2012, Kittinger participated in the Red Bull Stratos project as capsule communicator at age 84, directing Fel ...
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Project Manhigh
Project Manhigh was a pre-Space Age military project that took men in Balloon (aircraft), balloons to the middle layers of the stratosphere, funded as an aero-medical research program, though seen by its designers as a stepping stone to space. It was conducted by the United States Air Force between 1955 and 1958. History The project History of the United States (1945–1964), started in December 1955 to study the effects of cosmic rays on humans. Three balloon flights to the stratosphere were made during the program: * Manhigh I to , by Captain (land and air), Captain Joseph W. Kittinger on June 2, 1957. The balloon was launched from South St. Paul Airport and the flight was cut short due to one of the capsule's valves being installed backwards which vented the oxygen supply outside, but not before reaching a record altitude of 96,784 feet. * Manhigh II to , by Major (rank), Major David G. Simons on August 19–20, 1957, launched from Portsmouth Mine in Crosby, Minnesota, for ...
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