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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Project Manhigh was a pre-Space Age military project that took men in balloons to the middle layers of the stratosphere, funded as an aero-medical research program, though seen by its designers as a stepping stone to space. It was conducted by the United States Air Force between 1955 and 1958.[1]
The project started in December 1955 to study the effects of cosmic rays on humans. Three balloon flights to the stratosphere were made during the program:
Candidates for the Manhigh project were put through a series of physical and psychological tests that became the standard for qualifying astronauts for the Project Mercury, America's first manned orbital space program.[1]
Similar projects in which men in a gondola reached near-space altitudes were performed by Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer, reaching 15,785 m (51,788 ft) in 1931, USSR-1 piloted by Georgy Prokofiev reaching 18,500 m (60,700 ft) in 1933, and Osoaviakhim-1 reaching 22,000 m (72,000 ft) in 1934 as well as Explorer II reaching 22,066 m (72,395 ft) in 1935.
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