Thinking about rubber led me to reading about sulphur and vulcanisation, which led to my stumbling across the fact that hydrogen balloons were around much earlier than I would have guessed.
And there is another, direct, rubber connection.
From Wikipedia:
Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers began filling[10] the world's first hydrogen balloon on the 23rd of August 1783, in the Place des Victoires, Paris. The balloon was comparatively small, a 35-cubic-metre sphere of rubberised silk (about 13 feet in diameter),[9] and only capable of lifting about 9 kg.[11]
It was filled with hydrogen that had been made by pouring nearly a
quarter of a tonne of sulphuric acid onto half a tonne of scrap iron.[11] The hydrogen gas was fed into the envelope via lead
pipes; as it was not passed through cold water, the gas was hot when
produced, and then contracted as it cooled in the balloon, causing great
difficulty in filling the balloon completely. Daily progress bulletins
were issued on the inflation, attracting a crowd that became so great
that on the 26th the balloon was moved secretly by night to the Champ de Mars (now the site of the Eiffel Tower), a distance of 4 kilometres.[12] On August 27, 1783, the balloon was released; Benjamin Franklin was among the crowd of onlookers.[11]
The balloon flew northwards for 45 minutes, pursued by chasers on horseback, and landed 21 kilometres away in the village of Gonesse, where the reportedly terrified local peasants attacked it with pitchforks[11] and knives[13], and destroyed it.
Here's the drawing of the peasant attack (which, to be honest, has a touch of an urban myth sound about it, if you ask me):
Surprisingly, as the Wikipedia entry on the history of ballooning goes on to explain, the famous Montgolfier brothers and their first manned hot air balloon flight (in November 1783) was followed only about 10 days later by the first manned hydrogen balloon flight. The balloon itself sounds pretty sophisticated for the times:
The balloon was held on ropes and led to its final launch place by four of the leading noblemen in France, the Marechal de Richelieu, Marshal de Biron, the Bailli de Suffren, and the Duke of Chaulnes.[22] Jacques Charles was accompanied by Nicolas-Louis Robert as co-pilot of the 380-cubic-metre, hydrogen-filled balloon.[9][11]
The envelope was fitted with a hydrogen release valve, and was covered
with a net from which the basket was suspended. Sand ballast was used to
control altitude.[9] They ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet (550 m)[11] and landed at sunset in Nesles-la-Vallée after a flight of 2 hours and 5 minutes, covering 36 km.[9][11][13] The chasers on horseback, who were led by the Duc de Chartres, held down the craft while both Charles and Robert alighted.[13]
Charles then decided to ascend again, but alone this time because
the balloon had lost some of its hydrogen. This time he ascended
rapidly to an altitude of about 3,000 metres[23][13]),
where he saw the sun again. He began suffering from aching pain in his
ears so he 'valved' to release gas, and descended to land gently about
3 km away at Tour du Lay.[13]
It was also an enormously large public spectacle:
It is reported that 400,000 spectators witnessed the launch, and that
hundreds had paid one crown each to help finance the construction and
receive access to a "special enclosure" for a "close-up view" of the
take-off.[13] Among the "special enclosure" crowd was Benjamin Franklin, the diplomatic representative of the United States of America.[13]
Also present was Joseph Montgolfier, whom Charles honoured by asking
him to release the small, bright green, pilot balloon to assess the wind
and weather conditions.[13]
Now, in my previous post, I noted that a famous chemist Gay-Lussac did some ballooning. Here's a
brief summary:
On Aug. 24, 1804, Gay-Lussac and physicist Jean B. Biot went up in a
hot-air balloon to check out the Russian idea. All iron was excluded,
excepting a few tools hung on a string far below the open basket. The
basket contained, besides the humans, a sheep, a rooster, pigeons,
snakes, bees, and other insects. The scientists began making
observations at about 8,600 feet and rose no higher than 13,100 feet
despite jettisoning everything they could spare. They landed about 48
miles from Paris after 3.5 hours aloft. They found no variation in
Earth’s magnetic field.
Gay-Lussac went up alone on Sept. 16, 1804. He reached 23,000 feet,
Miller says, as calculated from barometric pressure. Gay-Lussac sampled
the air at different altitudes and found no change in composition. His
altitude record stood for half a century.
I have questions: at that height, he should have needed oxygen. Also - was the second flight in a hydrogen balloon?
But before that, another amusing talk of peasant panic:
The items jettisoned on the foregoing flight included an old kitchen
chair. The balloon was invisible in the clouds. The chair landed near a
girl tending sheep, and she screamed. The local priest was consulted,
but he could opine only that the chair had fallen from heaven or been
thrown out by angels. The mystery went away a few days later when news
of the balloon reached the village, which was about 20 miles from Paris.
OK, more on his very high flights
from a different source:
Gay-Lussac
got a larger balloon provided with every requisite, and made an ascent
by himself on September 16 of the same year. On this occasion the
balloon rose to a height of 7016 metres, an altitude greater than any
which had been formerly reached, and surpassed only by a few later
ascents. At this great elevation of nearly 23,000 feet, and with the
thermometer at 9 1/2° C. below freezing, Gay-Lussac remained for a
considerable time making observations on temperature, on the moisture of
the air, on magnetism, and other points. He observed particularly that
he had considerable difficulty in breathing, that his pulse was
quickened, and that by the absence of moisture in the air his mouth and
throat became so parched that it was painful to swallow even a piece of
bread.
Annoyingly, I still don't know if that "larger balloon" was hot air, or hydrogen.
This
brief site says the latter:
In 1804 Gay-Lussac made several other ascents of over 7,000 meters above sea level in hydrogen-filled balloons.
Well, the guy was certainly brave: can you imagine being the first to float up to 23,000 feet, have difficulty breathing, and doing it again?
This warrants further reading....
Update:
Well, this is frustrating. A Gettyimages print, made by who I don't know, is captioned with this:
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac's hot air balloon ascent, Paris, September 1804 (1900). On this flight, French chemist and physicist Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) reached a height of 7016m and confirmed many of the observations he and Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774-1864) made on their flight of 20 August 1804.
But surely it's a hydrogen balloon:
Embed from Getty Images
Update 2: OK, thanks to a subscription to Scribd [have I recommended it before? I am finding it has a lot of interesting and some rather obscure titles, as long as you not looking for current bestsellers] I have found a rather delightful looking book
Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, which seems a pretty thorough but general audience history of early ballooning.
It has solved the continual confusion I am finding in other sources as to whether Gay-Lussac was going up in a hot air or hydrogen balloon, or both. Here are a couple of pages:
Now, to be clear, the book explains prior to this that Coutelle was a French commanding officer of the Corps d'Aerostiers, which took hydrogen filled (and manned) balloons into battle to use for military observation. He was in Egypt with his balloons in 1798 fighting for Napolean, when Nelson turned up and spoilt the show.
Even allowing for the book possibly being wrong about the type of balloon used on the first ascent (because the earlier extracts above note that Gay-Lussac got a larger balloon for his solo ascent, yet
Falling Upwards makes it sound like there was only ever one balloon,) I would say that at least his second, solo and record breaking attempt must have been a hydrogen balloon from Coutelle.
Well, if anyone is still reading, I hope you appreciate how I have tried to clear that up. Please send money.
