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The successful flight demonstrated beyond any doubt that flight was possible long
before the Montgolfiers. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks or Vikings could have flown,
with fabric, fire and organization. The Chinese had everything the Montgolfier broth-
ers used for many hundreds of years but never dared to fly. Why not? Partly at least
because, surely, they lacked intellectual courage.
Floating
Over The Land At Sunset
No matter how many records and experiments I complete, with each unique project
I must remind myself that I need intellectual courage as much as anyone exploring the
greatest uncharted unknown: the future. There is always an emotional barrier to doing
something for the first time. However, if you push yourself beyond that, great things are
possible; this will be the subject of my new book.
During my early career I thought the novelty of balloons would soon end, yet extraor-
dinary prospects continue. I built the first super-pressure Pumpkin Balloon, piloting it to
make the first crossing of Australia. This design continues to evolve; this winter NASA
flew its first operational Pumpkin Balloon in Antarctica. It carried scientific instruments
at 110,000 feet for a remarkable 54 days, which was significantly longer than any
previous scientific flight. This design will likely carry future astronomy experiments.
I am currently working with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on an extraor-
dinary futuristic project, developing balloons planned to travel by rocket to Saturn’s
fascinating moon, Titan. Although unmanned flights need no physical courage, even
the brilliant minds at JPL need intellectual courage to send the most complicated
spacecraft ever into distant reaches of the solar system. Anything never been done
before requires intellectual courage.
I was recently appointed to the Advisory Board of the new Keck Institute for Space
Studies at Caltech. We expect to encourage even more forward-thinking space projects
to investigate the most fundamental current science and astronomy questions. One of
my crafts will soon be in the Smithsonian. I have patented a balloon design using the
most advanced cryogenic technology, creating the first entirely new type of balloon in
two centuries.
Without intellectual courage, none of this would have been possible. Yet, after all that
has transpired, I still remember best my Isle of Wight flight and the most intense simple
pleasure of floating over the land at sunset.
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summer
This hot-air “balloon” (left), designed and flown by Julian Nott in 1975, is made of cotton fabric; the
gondola is crafted from reeds grown in nearby Lake Titicaca (and built by the same person responsible
for Thor Heyerdahl’s Ra raft some years earlier); it utilized technology available to Peruvians 1,500
years ago to view the famous drawings on the Nazca plains below