Talk:Skyhook balloon

Skyhook Balloon not really correct
Topic should be retitled and rewritten in the context of Project Skyhook, and titled Project Skyhook, which was the US Navy's unmanned balloon program from the late 1940's and through the 1950's. There was no "Skyhook balloon," except that the plastic balloons used in the program might have been referred to as Skyhook balloons in context of their usage, or loosely referred to as the "Skyhook system", which boiled down to the lightweight "plastic balloons". Prof. Jean Piccard flew the first plastic (cellophane) balloons in 1935 in Swarthmore, PA., and subsequently expanded his plastic balloon investigations with Dr Akerman at the Univ of Minn. Similar although much larger plastic balloons were used in subsequent Navy Programs, such as Project Skyhook. These were an extruded polyethylene film joined together with heat sealed gores. The Office of Naval Research was the pioneer agency in supporting the plastic balloon as a tool for research under its Skyhook program. The Skyhook project used plastic balloons manufactured by Winzen Research and General Mills for unmanned flights. The Strato-Lab program was subsequently created to supplement Skyhook with manned flights for research that required people on board. Historical information from, "Plastic Balloons for Planetary Research", by M. D. Ross, Fourth Annual meeting of the American Astronautical Society, Junuary 31, 1958, New York, N.Y.

As an aside, I noticed Skyhook flight reports as late 1977, with Raven Industries, in the archives at DTIC Online (see http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA037419). Catrachos (talk) 17:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

UFO Phenomena
The most famous case today involving the Skyhook was the Mantell UFO Incident.

I think this line should be re-written to something like - "The most famous case possibly involving a Skyhook mis-sighting was the Mantell UFO Incident." - only because Mantell's death is still listed as undetermined and there is no physical evidence to support the explanation that the object was a Skyhook balloon, whether it be the most likely or not.Noctris (talk) 14:39, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Changed to above as no discussion or objection to the change.Anoctris (talk) 19:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Different Date for Project Stratoscope Launch
The May 1958 ONR release, (currently reference #1), says that the Project Stratoscope balloon was launched on on September 25, 1957 (not August 19, 1957 as reported here), the 10th anniversary of the first Skyhook flight. I'll see what I can find. This may be correct, as the Time Magazine article reporting the launch was Monday, Oct. 07, 1957, although they don't give the exact date.

Perhaps someone could check for us in the S&T article: Rogerson, John B., Jr. (January 1958). "Project Stratoscope -- Solar Photographs from 80,000 Feet". Sky and Telescope 17: p. 112.Catrachos (talk) 22:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Skyhook balloon. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121007025634/http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary/Winzen/DI67.htm to http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary/Winzen/DI67.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 23:13, 24 January 2018 (UTC)