The (Not Yet) Around-the-World Balloonists
Of all the sorry moments in
the around-the-world balloon "race"--and God knows there have been --the
sorriest occurred last week. On Jan. 9, the Global Hilton balloon burst a
helium tank 70 minutes after takeoff, and Dick Rutan and his co-pilot were
forced to bail out at 11,000 feet. They parachuted directly into a cactus
patch. Rutan, you may remember, is one of the true adventurers of the age: In
1986, he piloted the Voyager airplane on its astonishing nonstop,
around-the-world journey. Now, 12 years later, the aviation pioneer is picking
cactus spines out of his face, the latest casualty of the world's most
pointless competition. What is the great balloon race? The irrepressible
pursuing the irrelevant.
Howard
Hughes sped around the world by plane, and Ted Turner has squandered plenty of
his millions on America's Cup yachts. But today ballooning is the pastime of
the gentleman adventurer. Winter is around-the-world balloon season--it's when
the jet stream runs consistently west to east--so the last few weeks have
witnessed, and the next few weeks will witness, an orgy of circumnavigation
attempts. A few days before Rutan's crash, commodities trader Steve Fossett
gave up his effort when his balloon ran out of fuel over Russia. A few days
before that, architect Kevin Uliassi aborted his flight after his balloon blew
a hole during takeoff. In the next few weeks eccentric Brit billionaire Richard
Branson (whose last balloon took off without him) and Swiss balloonist Bertrand
Piccard are each expected to launch their multimillion-dollar airships.
Uliassi, too, wants to relaunch his balloon.
The balloonists have captured the public imagination, and
not without reason. The nonstop, around-the-world balloon flight is the only
remaining aviation milestone. The expeditions make great television: They
unfold slowly over several days, and the visuals of sun-kissed balloons are
fabulous. The balloonists seem genuinely heroic: They endure cramped quarters
and subzero temperatures, and they face real danger. In 1995, Belarus jets shot
down a racing balloon, killing its two pilots, while China, North Korea, and
Libya are all thought to be hostile to balloon flyovers. And there is something
charmingly antiquated about the venture. (No ballooning story is complete
without reference to Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days . So
here it is.) Anheuser-Busch, hearkening back to the aviation prizes of the
'20s, has ponied up $1 million for the first person to circumnavigate by 1999
(half for the balloonist, half for the charity of his choice).
Balloonists and journalists are calling the race the "Last Great Adventure."
But that phrase does violence to the notion of adventure. Once upon a time,
adventuring was a purposeful activity. Magellan circled the earth in order to
open it to trade, Lewis and Clark went west to build a country. Flying
adventurers, too, recorded genuine, necessary accomplishments. Charles
Lindbergh's crossing wasn't just a stunt: It made real the idea of
transatlantic air travel. Hughes' around-the-world flights made real the idea
of global air travel. Even Voyager had a scientific aim: It vindicated
the notion of ultralight planes and proved the value of ultralight
materials.
The around-the-world balloon race, by contrast,
is a nonsensical exercise. We have climbed as high as we can and sunk as deep
as we can. We've gone as far north as possible and as far south. We've broken
the sound barrier on land and in water, circled the globe by water and by air.
Now it has come to this. The balloon race is the hot-dog-eating contest of
aviation. No one has ever bothered to break the ballooning record because
there's no reason to do it. Balloons are a uniquely terrible mode of
transportation: They are impossible to steer, slow, and dangerous. They are
also hideously expensive. The journey has no real-world utility. Passenger
balloons can contribute nothing to transportation or science. Will a successful
circumnavigation usher in an era of commercial balloon airlines?
This
insignificance is a shame, because today's adventurers are as brave as their
predecessors. The balloonists are adrenalin junkies, but brainy ones. Branson,
the genius behind Virgin, is as bold with his life as with his businesses. He
has crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific by speedboat and balloon.
Along the way he's crashed in (and been rescued from) the Canadian Arctic and
the Atlantic. Fossett (who's worth only $25 million to $50 million) is equally
insouciant: He has driven in the Le Mans 24-Hour Race, raced sled dogs in the
Iditarod, completed the Ironman triathlon, run an ultramarathon, and set the
ballooning distance and endurance records. Rutan was a Vietnam fighter jock and
test pilot. Piccard is a champion hang-glider and professional balloon racer.
(Piccard's family history is Exhibit No. 1 in the decline of the great
adventure. His grandfather Auguste Piccard invented the submersible bathyscaph
and was the first person to balloon into the stratosphere. His father, Jacques
Piccard, set the underwater depth record in another submersible. Jacques also
invented the tourist submarine. The third-generation Piccard, no less a
daredevil, is reduced to competitive ballooning.)
Balloon experts give Branson, Piccard, or Rutan decent odds
to complete the circumnavigation, eventually: All three have pressurized
gondolas that allow them to travel fast through the high jet stream. All have
deep pockets. There are doubts about Fossett and Uliassi, who fly in
unpressurized gondolas: Their balloons must travel slowly, at lower altitudes,
and they are more exposed to the cold. Fossett and Uliassi are also flying
solo, making them vulnerable to fatigue on a two-week trip.
In any case, let's hope that
someone finishes the race soon, so the balloonists can move on to
something worthwhile--such as, say, the Mars Prize. America wants a manned Mars
outpost. Instead of giving NASA $400 billion to build one, Newt Gingrich has
suggested that the United States offer a $20-billion reward for the private
organization that does it first. Branson has mulled over the idea of going into
space. Why not the Red Planet? (Its color, after all, matches his omnipresent
Virgin logo.) The Mars Prize--that's an adventure worthy of Branson's courage.
And that's an adventure that mankind could actually use.
