A gondola for physiological research in the atmosphere.

F OR M A N Y years atmospheric research has been carried out using the balloon as a vehicle. Although animals, mainly humans, flew on the earlier flights, altitudes attained were not sufficient for a determination of any harmful physiological effects other than the classical ones due to lowered temperatures. Indeed, the only major effects noted o n animals sent aloft up to the past few years, were those due to decreased temperature, pressure and oxygen content of the atmosphere. With the advent of high altitude aircraft there has been a renewed interest in a determination of the effects of atmospheric phenomena at very great altitudes on the human physiology. A special interest in the effects of natural cosmic radiation has been generated by recent information regarding the intense energies of such radiation coupled with new knowledge of the effects of radiation on the cellts of the body. Although a deduction of possible high altitude effects can be made by laboratory studies of radiation and radiation effect, a final confirmation of results obtained by such a method can only be made by exposing animals to high altitude radiation con-