The Navy last week broke the world balloon-altitude record long held by the Army,* but it did not do the job with unruffled dignity. Its helium-filled balloon, made of plastic film, and 128 ft. in diameter, rose without trouble from the same bowl-like depression near Rapid City, S. Dak. that the Army's record-setting flight used in 1935. Far below its partly expanded bag hung a spherical aluminum gondola stuffed with scientific apparatus. Inside were Lieut. Commanders Malcolm D. Ross and Morton L. Lewis, wearing man-from-Mars pressure suits and festooned with instruments to measure...
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