In 1897, pioneering Swedish balloonist Salomon August Andrée and two companions took off for the north pole in a hot air balloon. In 1930 their bodies were found, along with records of their expedition. This archive of newspaper articles tells their story. (So does Wikipedia, of course.) Many of the photos they took are here, along with a lot of text in Polish that I can't read any more than most of you can, so don't come complaining to me.
posted by dersins on Oct 8, 2007 - 12 comments

In 1982 "Lawnchair" Larry Walters tied about 40-45 4' helium-filled weather balloons to a Sears lawnchair and launched himself from San Pedro, California to rise to over 16,000 feet. Here is the audio recording of the CB communications of that flight, available with much more information from this page via markbarry.com.
(Warnings: Audio is Real Audio - use Real Alternative. First half of audio may contain recordings of extremely panicked and strident girlfriend.)
posted by loquacious on Dec 23, 2006 - 31 comments