A natural bowl in the hills south west of Rapid City was chosen in 1934 because a stratospheric balloon needs shelter from wind while it is being filled and a clear run east once it is up. Rapid City subscribed ten thousand dollars towards the work. The first flight, Explorer I, lifted on the morning of 28 July 1934 with William Kepner, Orvil Anderson and Albert Stevens aboard. It reached 60,613 feet before the fabric tore, the hydrogen caught fire on the way down, and all three men parachuted clear, the last of them at about five hundred feet. Explorer II went up from the same ground on 11 November 1935, with Stevens and Anderson and no hydrogen. The Homestake Mining Company supplied lights so the envelope could be inflated through the night before. Its helium envelope held 3.7 million cubic feet and stood 316 feet tall. The sealed gondola was nine feet across, made of a magnesium alloy by Dow Chemical, and carried sixty four instruments weighing over a ton. It reached 72,395 feet, held near that ceiling for well over an hour, and came down near White Lake after eight and a half hours aloft and 230 miles of drift. It brought back the first motion pictures shot from the stratosphere and photographs showing the curve of the Earth. The altitude record stood until November 1956, when another balloon rose out of the same bowl.
Getting there
43.9767, -103.3452
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