Guy Madison. In addition to Holloman personnel appearing as extras in the film,
a pair of balloon flights were performed with a dummy spherical gondola dubbed
“Skylight” to obtain shots that would later be included in the movie. As far as we
know this was the only movie ever filmed that included stratospheric balloons as
“main characters” of the plot.
A secret mission
This story is from Dr. Henry C. Dethloff’s 2012 book, “Exploring Near Space”.
Carol Foster spent decades making balloons for Winzen Manufacturing. She
tells the story of getting a special government order in the early 1970’s to assist in
the development of a balloon program in Taiwan. The order was for the development of a balloon to fly at certain altitudes and, once it was at altitude, “certain
things would happen”. As it turned out, the balloon released propaganda leaflets
across mainland China. Another order for a balloon was to drop a “certificate”
valued at 1 million American dollars in gold as exchange for the delivery of a MiG
aircraft to Nationalist China or U.S. territories. She went to Taiwan, and helped to
design and construct a balloon plant.
The 700 mph gondola
This is the story of the fastest gondola in history. The Balloon-Borne Lidar was
launched from the NSBF in Palestine, TX on June 5, 1989. The NSBF Site and
Operations Managers were monitoring the telemetry from the balloon when the
abnormal termination occurred, and they immediately realized the problem that
was about to unfold. They drove to the area where a NASA recovery team had
been pre-deployed for the balloon’s arrival. While driving toward Graham, TX
west of Fort Worth, they received a report that people had seen the chute impact
on the ground near Weatherford, Texas about 129 km (80 mi) to the southeast of
Graham. Some people thought it was a hot air balloon falling, and reported that
they had seen people waving their arms. The large parachute only had about 45 kg
(100 lb) of weight on the bottom so it drifted a very long way and descended very
slowly. Meanwhile, the balloon impacted on the north shore of the Possum
Kingdom Lake. It was reported by a lonely fisherman in a small boat on the lake,
who was very shaken because he had seen the balloon coming down through the
storm clouds and thought the wrath of God was coming to get him. According to
his statement, the 3,000 lb of balloon material (which had rolled up as it fell and
adopted a chevron shape) made a lot of noise and sounded like a locomotive. At
impact, it covered an area of almost 1,000 ft
2
.
When the NSBF Site Manager, Dwight Bawcom, and his operations colleagues
arrived at the balloon scene they met the recovery team and started to search for
the payload. They rented a small Cessna airplane and, with an observer familiar
Appendix 3: Interesting Stories 303
a pair of balloon flights were performed with a dummy spherical gondola dubbed
“Skylight” to obtain shots that would later be included in the movie. As far as we
know this was the only movie ever filmed that included stratospheric balloons as
“main characters” of the plot.
A secret mission
This story is from Dr. Henry C. Dethloff’s 2012 book, “Exploring Near Space”.
Carol Foster spent decades making balloons for Winzen Manufacturing. She
tells the story of getting a special government order in the early 1970’s to assist in
the development of a balloon program in Taiwan. The order was for the development of a balloon to fly at certain altitudes and, once it was at altitude, “certain
things would happen”. As it turned out, the balloon released propaganda leaflets
across mainland China. Another order for a balloon was to drop a “certificate”
valued at 1 million American dollars in gold as exchange for the delivery of a MiG
aircraft to Nationalist China or U.S. territories. She went to Taiwan, and helped to
design and construct a balloon plant.
The 700 mph gondola
This is the story of the fastest gondola in history. The Balloon-Borne Lidar was
launched from the NSBF in Palestine, TX on June 5, 1989. The NSBF Site and
Operations Managers were monitoring the telemetry from the balloon when the
abnormal termination occurred, and they immediately realized the problem that
was about to unfold. They drove to the area where a NASA recovery team had
been pre-deployed for the balloon’s arrival. While driving toward Graham, TX
west of Fort Worth, they received a report that people had seen the chute impact
on the ground near Weatherford, Texas about 129 km (80 mi) to the southeast of
Graham. Some people thought it was a hot air balloon falling, and reported that
they had seen people waving their arms. The large parachute only had about 45 kg
(100 lb) of weight on the bottom so it drifted a very long way and descended very
slowly. Meanwhile, the balloon impacted on the north shore of the Possum
Kingdom Lake. It was reported by a lonely fisherman in a small boat on the lake,
who was very shaken because he had seen the balloon coming down through the
storm clouds and thought the wrath of God was coming to get him. According to
his statement, the 3,000 lb of balloon material (which had rolled up as it fell and
adopted a chevron shape) made a lot of noise and sounded like a locomotive. At
impact, it covered an area of almost 1,000 ft
2
.
When the NSBF Site Manager, Dwight Bawcom, and his operations colleagues
arrived at the balloon scene they met the recovery team and started to search for
the payload. They rented a small Cessna airplane and, with an observer familiar
Appendix 3: Interesting Stories 303