Gwiazda Polski

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Commemorative plaque at the mountain chalet in Chochołowska Valley

Gwiazda Polski ( German Star of Poland ) was the name of the world's largest gas balloon built before World War II . The attempt to beat the existing world altitude record from 1935 ended on October 14, 1938 with a fiasco. The hydrogen used as the lifting gas ignited when the balloon was filled and severely damaged it. A second attempt, which was planned for September 1939, did not take place because of the German attack on Poland .

prehistory

Auguste Piccard opened the era of stratospheric travel in 1931 . In a hermetically sealed ball hanging from a giant balloon, he and Paul Kipfer reached a height of 15,781 m on May 17th . In doing so, he surpassed the world record set in 1901 by the Berlin meteorologists Arthur Berson and Reinhard Süring , who had broken the 10,000 meter mark for the first time in the open basket of the Prussian hydrogen balloon . Since November 11, 1935, the altitude record of 22,066 m was set by the Americans Albert William Stevens (1886–1949) and Orvil Arson Anderson (1895–1965) when the Warsaw physicist Mieczysław Wolfke (1883–1947) proposed a Polish stratospheric journey in 1937.

The sport of balloons was very popular in Poland in the 1930s. The pilots of the Polish Aero Club won the most important international balloon race, the Gordon Bennett Race , three times in a row from 1933 to 1935, thanks in part to the excellent balloons from the balloon factory Wytwórnia Balonów i Spadochronów in Legionowo near Warsaw. The idea of ​​an own Polish stratospheric journey therefore quickly received nationwide support. The league for air and gas defense (Liga Obrony Powietrznej i Przeciwgazowej) acted as sponsor of the company . Polish President Ignacy Mościcki took over the patronage.

Polana Chochołowska mountain meadow , the launch site of the balloon

A preparation committee headed by Professor Wolfke set up a scientific program for the trip. Like earlier balloon flights, this one was also intended to be used for research into cosmic rays . It was financed through donations from companies and private individuals. In addition, Poczta Polska issued a block of stamps with a face value of 75 groschen at a price of two zlotys in an edition of 65,000. The journey should in September 1938 in Chochołowska Valley in Zakopane in the Western Tatras begin. Zbigniew Burzyński was chosen as the pilot , winner of the Gordon Bennett Races in 1933 and 1935. The physicist and alpinist Konstanty Jodko-Narkiewicz (1901–1963), an expert in the field of cosmic rays and leader of the Polish Andean expedition of 1934, should accompany him.

The balloon

The Gwiazda Polski was designed in 1938 under the direction of Stanisław Mazurek and manufactured in the Legionowo balloon factory. Its shell was made of 12,300 m 2 of rubberized Japanese silk . Thanks to this ultra-light material, the balloon weighed only 1270 kg without ropes. With a volume of 124,700 m 3, it was almost nine times the size of Piccard's FNRS and a fifth larger than the American Explorer II . The height of the Gwiazda Polski should be 120 m after filling. The hermetic gondola had the shape of a sphere 2 m in diameter. It had two hatches and six windows.

The record attempt

Filling the balloon

The weather in September 1938 in the Tatra Mountains was unfavorable for a balloon ascent, so that the start had to be postponed several times. Finally, October 14th was set as the start date. 1,200 pressure bottles with 6 m 3 of hydrogen each were available to fill the balloon . Several thousand spectators, including numerous newspaper reporters, watched from the terrace of the mountain hut on Polana Chochołowska the preparations for the launch, which had already begun the previous evening at around 10 p.m. Around midnight a light wind came up, which quickly increased. At 1 o'clock in the night, the almost complete filling of the balloon was interrupted. When the wind picked up further, it was decided to let the hydrogen off again. Some air must have got into the envelope through the balloon valve. When the balloon only contained about 500 m 3 of gas, an explosion occurred. According to eyewitness reports, a 20 to 30 meter high flame shot up and went out again immediately. The rubbing of various parts of the balloon envelope probably caused a spark that ignited the gas. The fire destroyed part of the shell. People were not harmed.

Since the pressurized cabin was not damaged, it was hoped to be able to carry out the trip next year. In August 1939 a delivery of the non-flammable carrier gas helium arrived from the USA. The balloon was supposed to rise into the Bieszczady near Sławsko in September . The beginning of the Second World War prevented this.

literature

References and comments

  1. ↑ Stefan Petriuk: 1st Polish Stratospheric Flight in Dolina Chocholowska, Poland, Block No. 6 from September 15, 1938 (PDF; 238 kB) on the website of the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Polen eV in the Bund Deutscher Philatelisten eV, seen on April 23, 2010
  2. ^ Ewa Jeleń and Jan Krupski: Stacja końcowa Zakopane . Warsaw 1999, ISBN 83-86183-24-1 , cited at http://www.gwarki.com/wyprawy_item.php?Id=48&Pg=130 ( Memento of August 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on September 15 2012 (Polish).
  3. ↑ A stratospheric balloon is filled with an amount of gas that is only a fraction of its capacity. The lifting gas expands strongly in the stratosphere due to the low air pressure, so that the balloon only takes on its spherical shape there.
  4. ↑ Zbigniew Burzyński: Balonem przez kontynenty , Wydawnictwo MON, Warsaw 1956, pp. 161–169, quoted in: Andrzej Kajetan Wróblewski: Fizyka wysokich energii w Polsce: pierwsze 50 lat (PDF; 6.2 MB). In: Postępy Fizyki . Volume 44, 1993, pp. 153-199 (Polish).
  5. ↑ Aeronautics and Astronautics Chronology, 1935-1939 on NASA's website , viewed April 13, 2018.

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