Objetives

¿Do you want to help us?

The StratoCat project is fed mainly with the information which I can obtain from specialized publications, scientific papers related to balloon-borne experiences, the visit to libraries and Internet. However, there is a lot of information to which I have no access. There is where you, dear visitor, can contribute to StratoCat's growing.

If you have related material (old technical reports, travel diaries, photographies of balloon launches campaigns, newspapers or magazines clippings, etc.), or perhaps if you had participated in the past in some experience related to the scientific ballooning and wishes to share it, please contact me and with much pleasure I will include the material in the site, with the corresponding credit of the source.

Let me say that I'm not an "expert" on the subject and I'm learning on the fly, so any correction, alteration or extension to the information provided in StratoCat will be very welcome.

The aim of this site is to document and make available to Internet users everything related to the history, development and use of man's first aerial vehicle, both in scientific research, as in the military field or aerospace activity.

While the main goal is merely historic, StratoCat will not be limited only to that, as the scientific ballooning is an activity that evolve constantly.

Even now, when space flight and exploration missions are almost routine, the balloon continues to be a key research tool for large segments of astronomy, astrophysics, atmospheric science and technology.

This becomes evident after realizing that there are more than a dozen of active bases for balloon launches, among the 10 nations that currently have regular programs involving stratospheric balloons.

This scientific activity -with a few exceptions- do not receive the media coverage that deserves, so in this context StratoCat was born to fill these informative gaps.

But, before dwelling on the contents of the site and its organization, let me tell you about the unorthodox origin of the project.

The ufo-balloon that gave rise to the project

The long way from the original idea of cataloguing launches of stratospheric balloons to the current shape of the project, has had a remarkable development. While StratoCat is an initiative to document an activity intimately linked with science and technology, its origins come from a field far from it: the UFO myth.


On September 17, 1985, over the city of Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, the unexpected apparittion of what we now know was a french stratospheric balloon (shown below left) launched a month earlier from South Africa, made believe thousands of Argentines (myself included) that we were visited by a vehicle from another world. It was an event of great public impact that still remains in the memory of many people, even in the mind of those for which the UFO are merely a silly note of colour in the newspaper or on TV.

Many years after the event, and being involved as editor of an ephemeral electronic publication which attempted to have a rational approach to the UFO field, I decided to start my own inquiry into this famous sighting. First, all was merely reduced to write an article for the journal, but as far as the research on the subject progressed, the initial objective was expanded.

More data, photos, contradictory evidence, contacts with various agencies, and so on forced me to leave the edition of the journal, to concentrate only in my research, which at the time was truly a personal obsession. Forced necessarily to inquire into all aspects about balloons in the scientific research, its origins, flight characteristics, etc; gradually I discovered the fascinating story behind the conception and development of the first flying device used by man.

This showed me two things: that the UFO field usually underestimates the degree of impact that balloons have on several UFO cases (perhaps because the "balloon explanation" was the favourite and most abused "explanation") and that in the internet both in the field of aerospace technology or scientific research there are no initiatives devoted to collect and document the history of the development of balloons and their use as a research tool, unlike for example about rockets, satellites, aircraft, etc.. of which there are countless web sites aimed at the general public.

After a little thought I decided to start all by myself and try to fill that gap. Thus was born StratoCat.

In the first years on the air the whole project evolved to a more balloon technical-historical oriented website, with practically no traces of the UFO myth connection of it's origins.

Organization of the contents

Returning to more mundane issues, what we might call the "heart" of StratoCat is a huge consolidated database with over 60 data fields per record, which contains information on stratospheric balloons launched in the last 50 years throughout the world. The initial version of this site in which you are at this moment, is some sort of "window" on part of all such information.

The data structure is divided into 4 main sections: one devoted to list stratospheric balloon launches, ordered by date of launch. Another one, focused on the several launch bases around the world, a third one devoted to offer detailed information od several flights including pictures, technical data and external links with direct access to related bibliography, and also a section devoted to document UFO sightings wich had been provoked by balloons.

A final warning: surely if Shakespeare return to live and read my english writing he would die again of shame, my english is not better than Tarzan's english. So be advised !