title: The future of scientific ballooning.
abstract: This paper gives a brief overview of the historical development of scientific balloons and their capabilities. Furthermore, a recent programme by NASA is introduced that aims to develop balloons capable of carrying payloads of several tonnes to above 99% of the Earth's atmosphere for up to 100 days. It is shown that the currently investigated balloons suffer from instabilities that can be minimized using a different design paradigm for the cutting patterns. Finally, a novel balloon design, similar to the topology of radiolarians, is introduced that is potentially superior to existing designs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK. mp403@cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pagitz
mesh_terms: D001359:Aviation / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005544:Forecasting; D012586:Science / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical