Well, let me tell you something about them weather balloons, the ones they send up real high. Folks call it “weather balloon altitude record,” sounds fancy, huh? I ain’t no scientist, but I heard things, you know?
Them balloons, they go way up there, higher than any bird I ever seen. Some say they go up to 90,000 feet, that’s a lot of feet, more than you can count on your fingers and toes, even if you got extra! And some, the real strong ones, they go even higher, maybe 125,000 feet or even more. Imagine that! Way up near the sky, where the angels live, or so they say. I ain’t seen no angels though, just clouds and sunshine, and sometimes rain, lots of rain.
They say there’s a limit, you know? Like how much soup you can fit in a bowl. For most of them rubbery balloons, it’s around 130,000 to 137,000 feet. After that, they just pop, like a bubble when you blow it too big. Pfft! Gone. But some folks, they try to push it, see how high they can really go.
I heard tell of a fella, down in Texas, Laredo they say, set a record for hot air balloons. Vijaypat Singhania, his name was, or somethin’ like that. He went up 68,986 feet! That’s higher than any mountain I ever heard of. Started in India, Mumbai they call it, and landed way far away. Imagine that trip! Must’ve been cold up there, and awful lonely.
- Them big balloons for NASA, they stay up even longer. One of ‘em, I heard, stayed up for 57 days! Almost two months! Can you believe that? Just floatin’ around up there, doin’ whatever them balloons do. Gatherin’ weather, I guess. Tellin’ us if it’s gonna rain or shine.
- Now, these high-flyin’ balloons, they ain’t just for play. They call ‘em stratostats, big words for big things. They go up 18 to 37 kilometers, that’s even more feet, thousands and thousands of them. They fill ‘em up with stuff like helium or hydrogen, makes ‘em float like a feather, a real big feather. One time, in 2013, a balloon went up 53.7 kilometers! That’s the highest I ever heard of. Beat all the records, they say. Folks were real excited about that one, I reckon.
These balloons, they ain’t just for the big fellas in government and labs neither. Regular folks, like you and me, well, maybe not like me, but people who ain’t scientists, they can send up balloons too. Little ones, mind you, not the giant ones. But they still go up pretty high, take pictures, and do science stuff. It’s kinda neat, if you think about it.
And what do they use these balloons for, you ask? Well, lots of things. They study the weather, you know, the rain and the wind and all that. They look at the air, see what’s in it. And some folks just do it for fun, like a hobby. Like collectin’ stamps, but way more interesting, if you ask me.
They even got these fancy ideas about using balloons like satellites. Float ‘em up there, real high, and keep ‘em in one place. They call ‘em geostationary balloon satellites, another mouthful of words. They’d be like those things in the sky that give us TV and internet, but cheaper, maybe. I don’t know much about that, sounds complicated.
And just this past year, they said a balloon, a real big one, went up to 159,000 feet! Can you imagine that? Higher than most anything. They keep pushin’ the limits, these folks. Always tryin’ to go higher, see farther. It’s the way of the world, I guess. Always lookin’ for somethin’ new, somethin’ better. Makes you wonder what they’ll come up with next, doesn’t it? Maybe balloons that go all the way to the moon! Now, that would be something to see.
Anyway, that’s all I know about them weather balloons and their altitude records. It’s a lot, ain’t it? Makes my head spin just thinkin’ about it. But it’s interesting, too. Shows you what folks can do when they put their minds to it.
Tags: [weather balloon, altitude record, high-altitude balloon, stratosphere, balloon flight, NASA, research balloon, amateur ballooning, geostationary balloon, weather research]