Nearly 100 years ago, scientists and militaries around the world were in a race to send mankind into the heavens. But this wasn’t the Space Race of the 1950s and 1960s. Without rockets and jets, these aeronauts as they were called ascended using balloons. And the U.S. military was firmly involved in what would prove to be a deadly and chaotic competition.
Since balloons first lifted humans off the ground in the 18th Century, aeronauts had tried using them both as military vehicles — mainly for observation, these were not fully armed and operational floating battle stations — and as scientific research vessels. But that changed in 1931 when Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard and partner Paul Kipfer used a pressured capsule, carried by a hydrogen balloon to become the first humans in the stratosphere. Piccard and Kipfer showed that a specialized gondola could help humans survive the conditions of the upper atmosphere, inspiring more aeronauts to take action. And they did, with the race quickly becoming competitive, with events in 1933 setting off a string of back and forth responses.
Much like the Space Race, it turned into a contest between the United States and Soviet Union, pitting their militaries and scientific resources against one another. As with the early days of the latter competition, the U.S. Army and Navy had their own competing projects. But unlike the Cold War, the American military wasn’t testing scientific ideas that involved turning off the sky with nuclear missiles or plotting ways to use the Moon to scare off the Soviets. Instead the goal was simple: How high can you go?
The Soviets had successfully reached the stratosphere on Sept. 30, 1933 in the USSR-1. But as the USSR was not part of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, which recorded achievements in fields such as ballooning, it officially didn’t count (most aeronauts and scientists still credited the Soviets for their accomplishment however). Enter U.S. Navy balloonist, airship pilot and test pilot Thomas “Tex” Settle. He had been invited by Piccard to join a mission flying a specially made balloon in 1933. After a failed initial launch, on Nov. 20, 1933 he and U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Chester Fordney took off from Ohio, reaching a height of 61,237 feet and floating in the upper atmosphere for hours. They eventually landed in New Jersey and were recognized as the record holders by the FAI.
Although no rockets or vacuums of space were involved, this was still a deadly race. Before the successful flights by Piccard and Settle, U.S. Army Air Corps Capt. Hawthorne Gray had tested the limits of high-altitude ballooning in 1927. Using an exposed gondola, he had a semi-successful flight in May of that year, having to parachute out when his balloon dropped after reaching a record high. He wouldn’t be so lucky in November of that year, dying from a loss of oxygen and his balloon crashing. He had, however, set a new record of at least 43,000 feet. Gray wasn’t the only casualty of the contest. Alongside Gray, another Soviet effort, this by the paramilitary organization Osoaviakhim, tried to top Settle and Fordney’s achievements. In January 1934, they technically did, reaching roughly 72,000 feet, but could not control their descent due to design issues and the three-person crew died.
With those deaths in recent memory, and the race still on, the U.S. military would make one more big push for the altitude record. And it happened in South Dakota. The U.S. Army Air Corps teamed up with the National Geographic Society to build and launch Explorer I, a hydrogen-powered balloon. The two groups found a canyon in the Black Hills that would help block winds and in 1934, with large crowds of spectators watching, the aeronauts took off. And soon had to bail out after the balloon ripped and the gondola started falling to the ground. That wasn’t the end though.
A little over a year later on Nov. 11, 1935, two members of the Explorer I crew, Army Air Corps captains Orvil Anderson and Albert Stevens, took off in Explorer II from the same canyon. Now powered by helium, Explorer II — not to be confused with the space satellite of the same name — reached a height of 72,400 feet, setting a record that would stand for 21 years. Anderson and Stevens both received the Distinguished Flying Cross twice, in honor of the two Explorer missions. Anderson would go on to serve in World War II and the Korean War, retiring as a major general in the U.S. Air Force.
The Explorer II mission provided the United States and the world with a wealth of new data. By successfully reaching that height and surviving, the crew obtained for the “first time a mass of scientific data on such subjects as cosmic rays, ozone distribution, composition of the atmosphere and micro-organisms above 36,000 feet.”
Aeronautical exploration of the stratosphere essentially halted with the outbreak of World War II. Information gleaned during the 1930s balloon race helped the Army Air Corps prepare for high-altitude combat missions. It wouldn’t be until well after the war that military scientists in the United States launched a new effort. The Strato-Lab program proved to be a strong stepping stone for the actual space race. Alongside a collection of new data on the upper atmosphere, the technology and equipment designed for the missions would provide part of the foundation for NASA-led research and launches.
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