The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

Flight 73: Released from Alamogordo, New Mexico, 1948 MST, July 14, 1948 Recovered at Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico The objective of this nighttime flight was to determine whether a fixed ballast leak of 100 grams per hour would sustain a 20-foot, .001" polyethylene balloon at floating levels near 50,000 feet. From the Olland-cycle pressure record (Figure 27) it appears that loss of buoyancy due to Figure 27 diffusion and leakage is more than this. Indeed, the balloon with this ballast flow did not remain at altitude as long as either Flight 70 and 71 which were without altitude controls.