Shape to rest the balloon and the gondola in. They were looking for a bowl area, not only to spread out the balloon on the ground, but also that natural bowl shape protects the gondola the first couple thousand feet as it goes up. They scoured all of north america for a place. They had a couple of different decisions that they could have made, places they could have chosen. And essentially they chose rapid city because of how kind the people were, because of how welcoming we are. The perfect shape of the bowl was nice, too, but it did come down to the people of the area. That was the reasoning behind choosing it. The first attempt happened in 1934. There were three men on the first flight. It was captain Orval Anderson, major william kepner, and captain albert stevens. What happened was they got into the gondola and they went up and they hit about 60,000 feet. And they think the friction between the metal and the canvas of the balloon ignited the hydrogen that was inside the balloon. And so, the balloon failed. It busted up completely. And they fell into a freefall. They started exiting the gondola. You know, they had parachutes. The first man got out fine. The second man got stuck in the gondola itself. The first man we dont who was first and who was second and who was third. But the first man got out. He had to kick the second man out of the gondola to get him free. Major kepner, who we know was actually last, he got out of the gondola at about 500 feet above the ground. So, the second flight happened in 1935. The National Geographic and u. S. Army air corps did change how the balloon was created. What they did was they actually used helium instead of hydrogen. And that allowed the balloon to not ignite, which is fabulous for the people in the gondola. Two of the men came back, that was Orval Anderson and albert stevens. They did both come back for the second flight. And they hit 72,395 feet. They took measurements about the stratosphere and cosmic radiation and anything they could possibly measure, they attempted to while they were up in the gondola. And they took an image of the curvature of the earth, which had never been done. They were recognized for their efforts. They were given medals by fdr, and it was just a success, an allaround success. But what makes it even better for rapid city is it happened in the black hills. It was here. It was local. It was just a great communityinvolved piece of history. 1935 balloon flight took place while the National Advisory committee for aeronautics was the chief agency for aeronautic research. Founded in 1915, it was dissolved in 1958 when nasa was created by an act of congress. With the soviet Union Sputnik launch, and their next first as a cosmonaut successfully orbited the earth once in 1961, the u. S. And the soviet union battle for supremacy in the space race. Then on february 20, 1962, nasa astronaut john glenn became the First American to orbit the earth, spending almost five hours in space and circling the earth three times. As nasa prepares for its scheduled wednesday launch of u. S. Astronauts