Project Strato-Lab was a high-altitude manned balloon program sponsored by the United States Navy during the 1950s and early 1960s. The Strato-Lab program lifted the first Americans into the upper reaches of the

stratosphere The stratosphere () is the second layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is an atmospheric layer composed of stratified temperature layers, with the warm layers of air ...

since World War II. Project Strato-Lab developed out of the Navy's unmanned balloon program, Project Skyhook. The program was established in 1954 and administrated by Commander Malcolm Ross ( United States Navy). Malcolm Ross and others developed the program to accomplish research required for the manned rocket program to follow. This program provided biomedical data that was used for subsequent efforts in space. Malcolm Ross launched five numbered flights (Strato-Lab 1 through Strato-Lab 5) as well as other unnumbered flights. Strato-Lab was developed to allow humans to make observations and perform experiments in the upper reaches of the stratosphere using balloons constructed of a thin polyethylene plastic film. These balloons were developed during the earlier Projects Helios and Skyhook by Jean Piccard and

Otto C. Winzen Otto C. Winzen (1917–1979) was a German-American aeronautics engineer who made significant advances in the materials and construction of high-altitude balloons after World War II. Winzen emigrated to the United States in 1937 and spent time d ...

. Their purpose was to reduce the weight of the balloons to a fraction of previous rubber balloons. The Strato Lab program used both open and pressurized gondolas built by Winzen Research Inc and the balloon program in the Mechanical Division of

General Mills, Inc. General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company ori ...

Strato-Lab built on the earlier programs with goals to obtain fundamental data in the fields of astronomy, astro and atmospheric physics, and human physiology at high altitudes. The Strato-Lab flights made a number of contributions to the manned space flight program. One set of experiments demonstrated that protons from solar flare activity posed a serious risk to humans working in space. This contributed to developing methods of predicting and monitoring solar flare activity. Strato-Lab also contributed to early astronomical observations above the bulk of the Earth's atmosphere. Secondarily to the scientific objectives of the program, Strato-Lab set a number of records for scientific endeavor and general aeronautics. The Strato-Lab flights culminated in a record-setting flight on May 4, 1961, by Commander Malcolm Ross and Lieutenant Commander

Victor Prather Lieutenant commander (United States), Lieutenant Commander Victor Alonzo Prather Jr. (June 4, 1926 – May 4, 1961) was an American flight surgeon famous for taking part in "Project RAM", a government project to develop the space suit. On May 4 ...

(USN) to test the Navy's Mark IV full-pressure suit. The Mark IV suit overcame problems of weight, bulk, ventilation, air and water tightness, mobility, temperature control, and survival capabilities so well that NASA selected a modified version for use by the Project Mercury astronauts. The May 4 flight was the most severe test of the suits conducted. The flight set an altitude record of 113,740 feet (34.67 km), lasted 9 hours 54 minutes, and covered a horizontal distance of . The research goals of the flight were successful, but Victor Prather drowned during the helicopter recovery from the Gulf of Mexico. For the record ascent, President John F. Kennedy presented the balloonists (Victor Prather, posthumously to his wife) the 1961 Harmon Trophy for Aeronauts. The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had orbited the Earth almost a month earlier, on April 12, 1961; and the next day, on May 5, Alan Shepard flew a sub-orbital trajectory on the

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

Redstone rocket.

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External links

Stratolab, an Evolutionary Stratospheric Balloon Project
article by Gregory Kennedy
Stratolab gondola
at the National Naval Aviation Museum, NAS Pensacola, Florida Accidents and incidents involving balloons and airships Accidents and incidents involving United States Navy and Marine Corps aircraft Aviation accidents and incidents in 1961 Aviation records Individual balloons (aircraft) 1961 disestablishments in the United States United States Navy in the 20th century Military projects of the United States * {{cite journal , title=High Altitude Balloon Research and Development Programs , date=22 April 1960 , last=Childs , first=Captain Donald R. , journal=United States Navy Medical Newsletter , publisher=U.S. Navy. Bureau of Medicine and Surgery , volume = 35 , issue = 8 , pages = 28–35 , url=https://archive.org/details/NavyMedicalNewsletter19600422 , access-date = 19 June 2015