Project Manhigh
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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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
