1. Scientific Ballooning
Brief history
Electrodynamics over thunderstorms
Balloon types
How a balloon works
Lift (forces)

2. January 2005 Flight From Antarctica
Read about what it is like to do this experiment: Michael Kokorowski’s Antarctic Diary for the experiment:

3. History
First hot air balloon – French brothers – 500ft. for about 5 miles in 1783
War time usage
Many ‘Firsts’
1st to cross English Channel
1st to cross Atlantic – Double Eagle II
and Pacific – Double Eagle V
1st non-stop around the world – Bertrand Piccard from Switzerland and Brian Jones from Great Britain in 1999 (

4. Other Records
Altitude Record and Highest Parachute Jump: Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger jumps from a balloon at 102,800 feet on August 16th and sets a world high altitude parachute jump (where he breaks the sound barrier with his body) and freefall record that still stands today.
Current Official Altitude Record Set: Commander Malcolm Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather of the U.S. Navy ascend to 113,739.9 feet in 'Lee Lewis Memorial,' a polyethylene balloon. They land in the Gulf of Mexico where, with his pressure suit filling with water, and unable to stay afloat, Prather drowns.

5. more
Hot Air High Altitude Record: Per Lindstrand sets a solo world record of 65,000 feet for the greatest height ever reached by a hot air balloon.
First Solo Transpacific Balloon Flight: February 14-17, Steve Fossett, another around-the-world contender with his Solo Challenger project, launches from Seoul, Korea and flies 4 long days to Mendham, Saskatchawan
First Solo Round the World in a Hot Air Balloon: Steve Fosset, Started in Northam, Western Australia to Queensland, Australia. 13 days 12 hours 5 minutes (14 days 19 hours 50 minutes to landing), 20, statute miles (32,963 kilometers). This was Fossett’s 6th attempt at an around the world flight.
Want More? See

6. My Experiments: Stratospheric Electrodynamics over Thunderstorms
Sprites and Lightning
Measure electric field, magnetic field, X-rays
Balloons in the stratosphere 10 to 15 hour flights with zero pressure balloons
Coordinated ground-based measurements
(more next lecture)

7. Sprite scenario
balloon

8. Sprite movie

9. Balloon types
zero pressure, super pressure, weather, blimp, tethered, cylinder, hot air, party
Tethered
Aerostat
(blimp)
NASA He
air bladder
semi-trailer

10. Hot Air Balloons Montgolfier - rigid tissue paper over frame
Modern types are numerous – nylon, etc
burners up to 15,000BTU or more
people

11. ZeroPressure Balloons
Highest and lightest
Open at the bottom
no pressure difference across flanks
Sprite Balloon
Test flight
May 2002
Tillamook, OR
Bob, Jeremy
Michael

12. Zero Pressure Balloon
When balloon
gets to float altitude
He has fully expanded
and starts venting.
Balloon stays at that
altitude
Duct to vent Helium
no pressure difference across
bottom and sides of balloon
(only around the very top)
payload

13. Super Pressure Balloon
Longest Duration
Sealed Bag
Heavier (double layered – will not pop like rubber balloon)
Spherical

14. Superpressure balloon flights 1992/3
Launched
from
New Zealand
Record flights
longest > 4 months

15. Forces on a Balloon Gravity (on the balloon and the gas)
Pressure over the whole surface
Buoyancy – You get ‘lift’ if the weight of helium+balloon is less than the weight of the air displaced
So, how much does air weigh?

16. First lets talk about Density and pressure
Density is the technical term for how much mass is in a volume.
The more mass in a given volume, the higher the density
density  = m/V= mass/volume
Helium is less dense than air because each atom has less mass than atoms of Nitrogen and Oxygen

17. Atmospheric Pressure
Think about an ocean of air above us pressing down
Air pressure at sea level is 15 pounds/square inch. In other words, a column of air one inch square weighs about 15 pounds
A 1 square meter column of air weighs 39x39x15 pounds or nearly 23,000 pounds

18. Lift
Replace a volume of air with something that weighs less than that volume of air, BUT TAKES UP THE SAME VOLUME, and it will float
Density of He is much less than the density of air
Same number of atoms but each atom of He is lighter
Upward Force = Lift = L
Lift on the balloon is
L= (weight of air displaced) –
(weight of balloon+He+payload)