256
© 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
Appendix 1
A Brief History of the NSBF/CSBF
The following is an edited article by Dwight Bawcom, who spent 13 years as the
Site Manager of the NASA National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF), later to
become the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Palestine, TX as an
employee of the Physical Sciences Laboratory of New Mexico State University.
-oOoThis article takes the information provided by UCAR and adds my perception of
activities and changes at the NSBF over the years. The intention is just to provide
people with an overview. A definitive and accurate history of the NSBF, the NSF
Balloon Program, the NASA Balloon Program, and technological improvements
and changes over the years requires an exhaustive and detailed study of records
stored in several locations. More power to someone to do this research and write
an exhaustive history of scientific ballooning in the US.
Scientific ballooning has proved to be a small, but vital program in the U.S. for
developing space sensors, training scientists to be successful in designing and
building extremely expensive satellites and space science systems, and testing
systems for further use in space payloads.
In The Beginning
Scientific ballooning grew in the United States after World War II with the new use
of polyethylene extruded film for balloon shell material. In the late 1950’s there
were six U.S. groups performing balloon operations: U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force,
Winzen [Research, Inc.], Raven [Aerostar], [G. T.] Schjeldahl [Co.], and General
Mills, Inc. At that time the reliability of polyethylene balloons was only around
50%. Support systems for balloon flights were rudimentary and limited. While
© 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
Appendix 1
A Brief History of the NSBF/CSBF
The following is an edited article by Dwight Bawcom, who spent 13 years as the
Site Manager of the NASA National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF), later to
become the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Palestine, TX as an
employee of the Physical Sciences Laboratory of New Mexico State University.
-oOoThis article takes the information provided by UCAR and adds my perception of
activities and changes at the NSBF over the years. The intention is just to provide
people with an overview. A definitive and accurate history of the NSBF, the NSF
Balloon Program, the NASA Balloon Program, and technological improvements
and changes over the years requires an exhaustive and detailed study of records
stored in several locations. More power to someone to do this research and write
an exhaustive history of scientific ballooning in the US.
Scientific ballooning has proved to be a small, but vital program in the U.S. for
developing space sensors, training scientists to be successful in designing and
building extremely expensive satellites and space science systems, and testing
systems for further use in space payloads.
In The Beginning
Scientific ballooning grew in the United States after World War II with the new use
of polyethylene extruded film for balloon shell material. In the late 1950’s there
were six U.S. groups performing balloon operations: U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force,
Winzen [Research, Inc.], Raven [Aerostar], [G. T.] Schjeldahl [Co.], and General
Mills, Inc. At that time the reliability of polyethylene balloons was only around
50%. Support systems for balloon flights were rudimentary and limited. While