DescriptionExplorer II gondola - Smithsonian Air and Space Museum - 2012-05-15 (7271389346).jpg
The gondola of the Explorer II, a balloon co-sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the U.S. Army Air Corps, on display in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
The goal was to build a balloon of reaching the stratosphere (6 to 30 miles above the surface of the Earth). The first balloon, Explorer, lifted off on July 28, 1934. On board were Captain Albert Stevens, Captain Orvil Anderson, and Major William E. Kepner. The balloon ruptured after seven hours of flight. It disintegrated, and the gondola went into free-fall. The remaining hydrogen in the balloon exploded at 5,000 feet. Stevens and Anderson bailed out. Kepner, too, bailed -- but only a mere 500 feet above the earth. All three survived. Explorer missed a world altitude record by 624 feet. It turns out that small folds in the balloon had stressed it, causing the tears.
A second balloon, Explorer II, used helium rather than hydrogen. More than 20,000 people watched as it lifted off in November 11, 1935. Explorer II set a world altitude record of 72,395 feet.
Anderson, Kepner, and Stevens were the first men to see the curvature of the Earth.
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