Ad Astra (balloon)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cover of the balloon, clearly recognizable with the lettering "Ad Astra"
Case in side view

Ad Astra ( Latin ad astra 'To the stars' ) is a balloon from 1784 that was filled with hydrogen and twice that year rose unmanned in front of Braunschweig Castle . The balloon envelope has been in the fund of the Braunschweig City Museum (SMBS) since 1899 . In terms of aviation history , it is probably the world's oldest surviving original of an aircraft .

history

Prehistory of the balloon flight

On June 14, 1783, the Montgolfier brothers from France let the first balloon - later named " Montgolfière " after them - rise unmanned in the French city of Annonay . The hot air powered aircraft rose about 2000 meters and drove two kilometers. On August 27 of the same year, also in France, the first unmanned hydrogen-filled gas balloon , named " Charlière " after its inventor Jacques Alexandre César Charles , rose. On October 15, 1783, the first ascent of a person, the physicist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier , took place, with the balloon anchored to the ground by ropes for safety. These events also triggered a great balloon euphoria in Germany , which led to Professor Achard on October 27, 1783 in Berlin and the city surgeon Hildebrand on January 21, 1784 in Greifswald to let small, self-made and hydrogen-filled balloons rise.

History of the first balloon flight in Braunschweig

At the turn of the year 1783/1784, the Brunswick Duke Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand commissioned the geographer and biologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann , professor at the Collegium Carolinum and teacher of Carl Friedrich Gauß , as well as the pharmacist Justus Christian Heinrich Heyer , owner of the Hagenmarkt pharmacy , with the construction of a balloon. It appears to be the earliest documented case of government funding for aviation.

Zimmermann and Heyer opted for a gas balloon like a Charlière. The cover with a diameter of 1.40 m and a weight of 467.7 g , consisted of five individual parts that were sewn on the long sides with leather strips. The material of the red and black cover, backed with paper , was atlas silk , which was coated with "spring resin" (= rubber ) that had previously been dissolved in turpentine oil . It bore the lettering "Ad Astra" three times, which is derived from a Latin motto of the Brunswick Welfen House to which the Duke belonged: Per aspera ad astra , "Through hardship to the stars." Heyer produced the inflammable material necessary for the lift Air (hydrogen) himself in his laboratory by dissolving iron filings in dilute "vitriolic acid" (= sulfuric acid ). The balloon was then filled in the Hagenmarkt pharmacy, which took about an hour and 20 minutes, and then carried into the palace gardens, which were only a few hundred meters away . The first voyage of the "Ad Astra" took place on January 28, 1784 in the presence of the Duke. The balloon rose over the left wing of the castle and then traveled about two kilometers until it went down near Eisenbüttel , from where several boys carried it back to the castle. This start marks the beginning of Braunschweig's aviation history . In view of the successful journey, Heyer asked the Duke for permission for a second ascent, which took place with a slightly larger filling on February 8, the last Sunday of the Braunschweig Spring Fair , and ended after 75 kilometers in Dambeck near Salzwedel , with the shell only after four Days was found.

Apotheker Heyer wrote a report in September 1784 in which he described the historical event with the " aerostatic ball" in detail. A few months later, the balloon was moved to the Ducal Museum (today the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum ) and, in 1899, was exchanged for the Braunschweig Municipal Museum.

Exhibition history

Detail of the shell

The shell was found again in the museum in 1937 and exhibited in 1938. There are black and white photos of the balloon from the 1950s, on which the director of the SMBS at the time, Bert Bilzer , can be seen. "Ad Astra" is said to have been shown in Darmstadt in the 1980s . In 2004 it was exhibited in the anniversary exhibition "250 Years of the Museum" in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum and described in the catalog. The last time the balloon was in the SMBS was in the exhibition Peter Joseph Krahe in 2015 . An architect around 1800 in honor of the Brunswick architect Peter Joseph Krahe .

More balloon rides in Braunschweig

  • August 27, 1786: The "Mechanikus" Eggerstorf, who came from Hanover , had a hot air balloon go up in "Wegener's Garden" at the Augusttor for popular amusement .
  • August 10, 1788: The first manned balloon flight in Braunschweig was made by the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard . For Blanchard it was already the 32nd balloon flight. He climbed the August bulwark near the Wenden gate to a height of 1250 m and landed at Lamme . Adolph Knigge processed the journey as a writer in his novel Die Reise nach Braunschweig .
  • August 9, 1818: Wilhelmine Reichard, who was born in the city, was the first woman in Braunschweig to ascend in a balloon. She drove via Wolfenbüttel and the Asse in the direction of Königslutter and finally ended up at Lehr . As early as 1810, Reichard was the first woman in Germany to ascend in a balloon in Berlin .

literature

  • Braunschweiger Aviation History Working Group V. (Ed.): Braunschweigische Luftfahrtgeschichte. Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2010, ISBN 978-3-941737-18-1 .
  • Franz-Josef Christiani: The first Braunschweig aviation. In: Alfred Walz (Ed.): 250 Years of the Museum From the Princely Collections to the Museum of Enlightenment. Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7774-2155-3 , pp. 16-18.
  • August Fink : The beginnings of aviation in Braunschweig. In: Yearbook of the Braunschweigisches Geschichtsverein. Second series / volume 10, issue 1, Wolfenbüttel 1938, pp. 49-70.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b August Fink: The beginnings of aviation in Braunschweig. P. 54.
  2. ^ A b Franz-Josef Christiani: The first Braunschweiger aviation. P. 18.
  3. ^ Michael Düsing, Jürgen Schulz, Frank Stahlkopf: Balloons and airships in the Braunschweig region. In: Braunschweig aviation history. P. 48. ( appelhans-verlag.de )
  4. ^ Franz-Josef Christiani: The first Braunschweiger Luftfahrt. P. 16.
  5. a b Cecilie Hollberg (Ed.): Peter Joseph Krahe. An architect around 1800. Exhibition catalog, Städtisches Museum Braunschweig, Braunschweig 2015, ISBN 978-3-927288-38-6 , pp. 1–2.
  6. August Fink: The beginnings of aviation in Braunschweig. P. 51.
  7. ^ A b c Franz-Josef Christiani: The first Braunschweiger aviation. P. 17.
  8. ^ NN: Braunschweig. Portrait of a city. Fackelträger-Verlag, Hanover 1961, p. 32.
  9. August Fink: The beginnings of aviation in Braunschweig. P. 53.
  10. The complete transcription of the report can be found in: August Fink: The beginnings of aviation in Braunschweig. In: Yearbook of the Braunschweigisches Geschichtsverein. Second episode / volume 10, issue 1, pp. 52–53, but also with Franz-Josef Christiani: The first Braunschweiger Luftfahrt. Pp. 16-17.
  11. Ad Astra - To the Stars! In: Braunschweiger Zeitung . from June 15, 2016.
  12. ^ Franz-Josef Christiani: The first Braunschweiger Luftfahrt. In: Alfred Walz (Ed.): 250 Years of the Museum From the Princely Collections to the Museum of Enlightenment. Pp. 16-18.
  13. August Fink: The beginnings of aviation in Braunschweig. In: Yearbook of the Braunschweigisches Geschichtsverein. Second volume / volume 10, issue 1, p. 54 and p. 68, appendix, no.2.
  14. ^ Düsing, Schulz, Stahlkopf: Balloons and airships in the Braunschweig region. In: Braunschweig aviation history. P. 49. ( appelhans-verlag.de )
  15. Friedrich Karl Franz Meyer: Chronicle Braunschweigische aviation. In: Braunschweig aviation history. P. 29. ( appelhans-verlag.de )
  16. ^ Elisabeth Reifenstein: Johanne Wilhelmine Siegmundine Reichard. In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 479 f .