Project Manhigh

"David Simons" redirects here. A person of this name also created Simons' BASIC.

Manhigh II balloon gondola displayed at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio

Project Manhigh along with Project Excelsior was a pre-Space Age military project that took men in balloons to the middle layers of the Earth’s stratosphere.

History

The project 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 29,500 m (96,784 feet), by Captain Joseph W. Kittinger II (1928–) on June 2, 1957,
• Manhigh II to 30,900 m (101,516 feet), by Major David Simons (1922–2010) on August 19–20, 1957 for a 32-hour flight,
• Manhigh III to 29,900 m (98,097 feet), by Lieutenant Clifton McClure on October 8, 1958.

With the pilot and the scientific payload, the Manhigh II gondola had a total mass of 748 kg (1,650 lb). At maximum altitude, the balloon expanded to a diameter of 60 m (200 ft) with a volume of over 85,000 m³ (111,000 cu yd).

A similar project in which a man in a gondola reached an altitude of 15,785 m (51,788 ft) was performed in 1931 by the Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard.

Further reading

• Kennedy, Gregory P. (2007). Touching Space: The story of Project Manhigh. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Books. ISBN 9780764327889. 
• Ryan, Craig (1995). The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1557507325. 
• Simons, David G.; Schanche, Don A. (1960). Manhigh. Avon Books. 

External links

• Details of the Manhigh I flight
• Details of the Manhigh II flight
• Details of the Manhigh III flight
• The view from a high altitude balloon