Evening Star Newspaper, February 14, 1932, Page 77

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 14, 1932, onquest of the Stratosphere Climbing Ten Miles Into the Sky, We May Fly From New York to _ Paris in Ten Hours, Safe From Rare fied Air in Sealed Cabins, While Zooming Along at the Dizzy Speed of Four Hundred Miles an Hour! By Prof. Auguste Piccard As Told to Maj. Dudley Heathcote TO MARS— SOME DAY! Prof. Piccard (shown at the left) and his assistant were glad to get back to the realm of humans after their remarkable journey in a sealed balloon to the air 190 miles above the earth, BRUSSERS. F ever there was a typical ‘“professor;” it is Piccard! A man of medium height, he has the traditional flowing locks, the high, wide, intellectual brow, the thought- ful eyes glinting behind spectacles and the courtesy one always associates with the We were chatting over his adventure in the of 1931 when he and his assistant, Kipfer, made their daring balloon ascent imto the rarefied upper air called the stratosphere an attempt to make investigations as 0 possibilities of aircraft travel at high ali- He received me in his laboratory, cled ih an overall coat, smiling as he peered through his speetacles at my notebook and pencil. Test tubes and bottles in profusion lined the wall ghedves, and littered the benches; Bunsen burn- ors, retorts, charts, all the paraphernalia of chemistry and science hemmed us in as we sek down to talk. “Y was satisfied with my last attempt In the stratosphere,” said Prof. Piccard. “The pesults obtained were extremely valuable %o swiation, and from the standpoint of naviga- tion they confirmed all my theories. Kipfer I proved that it is possible to navigate , the stratosphere for at least 17 hours in & slosed cabin without feeling any il effects. Puring the whole time we were up. there peither I nor my assistant experienced the glightest feellng of nausea or intoxication. “We were the pioneers who proved that im- vestigations can be made in the stratosphere # a height exceeding six miles without any yhsk. This in itself is an important result. I am of opinion that with the same balloon I would be able to rise to a height of more than miles if I went by myself and had a suffi- cy of ballast. HY am I so keen on exploring the fly- ing possibilities of this upper atmos- phere? Well, you see, viewed from the avi- @tor’s standpoint, we know that the higher a plane flies the quicker it must go in order the wings support it; but we also know the higher it flies the quicker it is able #® 8o, because resistance is reduced. “For example, in crder that an-.airplane may at a height of 9 miles, that is to say, in & gawm where the density of the atmosphere one-ninth of the normal density, it must y at three times its normal speed. All the aerodynamic forces remain constant and the expenditure of effort incurred for eaeh mile flown remains the same, but as the sum total of the power produced must be obtained in a space of time that is three times shorter shan the normal, the motor must be three times more powerful. “The possibilities that such a development of aviation holds are enormous. And i I leave out of count the enormous gain m time thus achieved, there is even a greater advantage produced, thanks to the rapidity at which such flights will be made. As we all know, one of the biggest difficulties which the aviator cross- ing the Atlantic has to cope with is that any meteorological provisions that he may have at the moment he sets off on his flight are abso- Jutely valueless for his Janding in view of the length of time that has elapsed. The aviator of the future who will cross the Atlantic in the stratosphere will meet with no weather sur- “Of course, the rocket system of transoceanic travel is far from being realized, but where force, combustible mass and speed are eon- cerned, adequate calculations are already made and, thanks to the proper combustible and liquid oxygen, ulira-rapid navigation between continents outside the atmosphere has now become a possibility. This is an enormous gain. “As far as navigation between planets, prob- able flights to Mars and so em, this is still & problem to which we have found no solution, and we are not likely to reach one just yet. But I do not think it is an impossibility. We will undoubtedly achieve these things one day. Hl HAVE no intention of going up again in a balloon. One experience such as that which befell Kipfer and myself this year is quite enough for a lifetime. In any case, my wife was so worried during the whole time I was up that I have promised her never to re- peat the experiment. Let others continue in the airy path which I have traced. I shall content myself with improving the instrumental side, and thus enable further experiments to be made in a field which opens boundless possi- bilities. I shall also take an active part in the preparations for the new flight in the strato- sphere, which will take place next Summer. On this occasion the crew will be entirely Belgian in character. Already we have chosen the physicist, but the pilot has yet to be selected. “As for the new equipment of the armored cabin of the balloon, certain modifications are contemplated. For instance, when we went up the first time there was quite a possibility of our not coming through alive, owing to the valve cable being placed outside and thus being Thanks to combustible and liquid oxygen, ultra-rapid navigation be- tween the continents of the earth outside the atmosphere has now become a possibility, Auguste Piccard. s.ays Prof. “As for. navigation between planets, probable flights to Mars and so on, this is still a problem to which we have found no solution, and we are not likely to reach one just yet. “But I do not think it is an im- possibility. We will undoubtedly achieve these things one day.” outside our direct control. This time the cable works on a windlass inside the watertight nacelle and with- in reach. I personally will supervise the sendoff of the balloon, but that is all. “As for the possibilities now open to us in aerial navigation in the strato- sphere, I must first of all draw attention to the impor- tant developments that have taken place in aeronautical construction since our first experiment. If you remem- ber, experiments made pre= viously with round balloons had established that at any altitude from 10 to 11 miles air was rarefied and the at- mosphere was free of aerial currents, clouds or fogs, thus allowing airplanes to attain fantastic speeds. “In our twrn we found that in order to fly in the stratosphere, airplanes would have to possess carlingues and cabins hermetically closed and sirtight so as to avoid fatal consequences to pilot and pessengers which would result from the enor- mous diminution of pres- sure, the rarefaction of the air and the intense cold at such heights. “Accordingly, the air- planes which are being built by Junkers and Farman %o fly in the stratosphere take all the new factors into con~ sideration. The Junkers plane, for instance, not only has a carlingue and arme~ ture made of duralumin, Continued on Eighteenth Page This conception by the artist shows the limits of aerial transportation as dis- closed by the balloon experiment of Prof. Piccard. Airplanes will be able 1@ fly ot terrific speed above 10 miles because of low resistanee.