1
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. von Ehrenfried, Stratospheric Balloons, Springer Praxis Books,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68130-2_1
1
Introduction
A Brief History
Balloons have been around for over two hundred years. Some accounts go back
three hundred years. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette loved to watch them. So did
Benjamin Franklin and his son, who witnessed some of the first flights. Certainly
one of the first scientists ever to go aloft was Jacques Charles, French inventor,
scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Today, we know him best by Charles’
Law that describes how a gas expands as the temperature increases; conversely, a
decrease in temperature will lead to a decrease in volume. This fundamental law
of physics is known to every balloon scientist. But two thousand years earlier,
Archimedes of Syracuse discovered an even more basic law when thinking about
“floating bodies” and buoyancy. Balloons are, indeed, floating bodies buoyed up
by the weight of the air they displace.
Balloons have been used for just about anything you can think of, be it for good
or for ill. It only took eleven years after the first untethered balloon flight for the
French to realize the military applications of the technology. The first use was on
June 2, 1794 for reconnaissance during an enemy bombardment. Fast forward less
than a hundred years and Thaddeus Lowe was telegraphing a message to President
Lincoln to demonstrate the balloon’s application during the Civil War. He soon
became Chief Aeronaut of the newly formed Union Army Balloon Corps. Of
course, there was a little bit of unrecognized technology transfer going on even
then. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, then aged 24, was visiting the U.S. and
observing Lowe’s flights. He took his new found knowledge back to Prussia and
certainly capitalized on what he learned about balloons.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. von Ehrenfried, Stratospheric Balloons, Springer Praxis Books,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68130-2_1
1
Introduction
A Brief History
Balloons have been around for over two hundred years. Some accounts go back
three hundred years. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette loved to watch them. So did
Benjamin Franklin and his son, who witnessed some of the first flights. Certainly
one of the first scientists ever to go aloft was Jacques Charles, French inventor,
scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Today, we know him best by Charles’
Law that describes how a gas expands as the temperature increases; conversely, a
decrease in temperature will lead to a decrease in volume. This fundamental law
of physics is known to every balloon scientist. But two thousand years earlier,
Archimedes of Syracuse discovered an even more basic law when thinking about
“floating bodies” and buoyancy. Balloons are, indeed, floating bodies buoyed up
by the weight of the air they displace.
Balloons have been used for just about anything you can think of, be it for good
or for ill. It only took eleven years after the first untethered balloon flight for the
French to realize the military applications of the technology. The first use was on
June 2, 1794 for reconnaissance during an enemy bombardment. Fast forward less
than a hundred years and Thaddeus Lowe was telegraphing a message to President
Lincoln to demonstrate the balloon’s application during the Civil War. He soon
became Chief Aeronaut of the newly formed Union Army Balloon Corps. Of
course, there was a little bit of unrecognized technology transfer going on even
then. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, then aged 24, was visiting the U.S. and
observing Lowe’s flights. He took his new found knowledge back to Prussia and
certainly capitalized on what he learned about balloons.