balloons then and now

  • 1860's

    In the civil war union troops,like the french army before them,use balloons to spy behand enemy lines to see how battles were going.
  • 1875

    Three french scientists,exploring the atmosphere,soared to 25 thousand feet in a balloon. The men took bottles of oxygen with them,but when the balloon landed only one scientist had survived.
  • 1900

    In the early 19 hundreds brougt the dirigible,or blimp. Made of sevral balloons, it was fitted with mototrs and propellers that let the piolet steer. A cabin on the under side held more than 100 people on Atlantic crossings.
  • 1932

    The man wo invented a way to travel safely in to the atmosphere was a swiss named Auguste Piccard, Who built a ball shaped aluminim gondula. Sealed inside with oxygen tanks, He safely reached a height of 54,000 feet.
  • 1961

    Brave men kept going higher and higher. Two u.s navy officers, malcom d. ross and victor prather., wnet up 113740 feet in suits for astronauts.
  • 1999

    others had crossed the oceans but bertrand piccard and brian jones were the first to ballon non-stop around the world covering 30000 miles in 20 days their ballon was a cross between a hot air ballon and a gas balloon.
  • 2015

    planes have long been the way to travel by air but you often see a dirigible carrying a tv crew above a fotball game or other sports event.
  • every day

    hundreds of small weather ballons explore the atmosphere and transmit their findings to earth.