Page 153 - The Secret Museum

AUGUSTE PICCARD (1884–1962) WAS AN eccentric Belgian scientist. He was

fascinated by the stratosphere – the layer of the atmosphere that begins 16 kilometres
above where you are sitting now – and made this gondola to take him there. Using it
like the basket of a hot air balloon, he attached it to a balloon filled with hydrogen
and floated up miles into the sky. It’s amazing to stand in front of it and imagine
Piccard climbing inside, shutting the door over his head and taking off.

Like many of the Science Museum’s large objects, Piccard’s gondola is stored in
one of several aircraft hangars on an ex-RAF airfield in Wroughton, Wiltshire. It
shares its berth with planes, including a Lockheed Constellation aircraft used to

transport roadies and equipment on a Rolling Stones concert tour, and a very sleek
plane designed by Burt Rutan (who also designed Voyager – the first plane to fly
around the world without stopping for refuelling – as well as a hybrid flying car and
space craft for Virgin Galactic). But the gondola has been higher than any of the
aircraft in the hangars in Wroughton.

Piccard made his first trip to the stratosphere in 1931. He broke a world record
for the highest any man had ever been and then crash-landed in Obergurgl, a little
alpine town of 14 farms which, after a lifetime of sleepy obscurity, became known

internationally when Piccard accidentally arrived. This gondola in the Science
Museum’s behind-the-scenes collection was used for Piccard’s second journey to the
stratosphere, when he reached 16,201 metres. He and his assistant took off one
summer’s day in 1932, from just outside Zurich. The launch was filmed by a news
team from Pathé and released under the title ‘10½ Miles Above the Earth! Professor
Piccard and Dr Cosyns, safe & sound after world’s most daring & romantic scientific

adventure’. In those days, science and adventure were still deemed to be ‘romantic’.
The newsreader says, in his old-fashioned broadcasting style, ‘The start was

made at dawn from Diibendorf aerodrome near Zurich. The preparations for the flight
began at midnight. And thousands of people had made the journey from Zurich in
special trains, whilst a battalion of Swiss troops held down the guy ropes.’ He
continues: ‘When all was ready he clambered inside the gondola, which contained a
mass of scientific instruments, and gave the signal to let go. The balloon rose quickly
and eventually climbed to over 10½ miles above earth. Just imagine – whilst we

were sweltering in a heatwave, he was nearly frozen to death in 15 degrees
Centigrade below zero.’ He ends: ‘From the practical point of view, Professor
Piccard’s experiment is of the highest scientific importance. One of the things it will
definitely do will be to enable better weather forecasts to be made, and won’t that be
a boon when we are picking out our holidays!’

Watch the film online if you’d like to see Piccard leaning out of the gondola,
waving goodbye with his hat in his hand. ‘Off we go into ze stratosphere,’ he seems
to be saying (moustache blowing in ze wind).

Piccard was a funny-looking man. He had a bald head, with tufts of hair on each
side, wore round glasses and, usually, a lab coat. When Hergé, the creator of Tintin,