With the Stratonautical Service

OTL, the age of stratosphere balloons was short -- even shorter than the age of zeppelins. Basically we're talking about a decade. And the whole thing is half forgotten today.

But 75 years ago, it was quite something.

Here follows a long quote; feel free to skip ahead.

* * * * *


"In 1927, aeronaut Captain Hawthorne C. Gray, of the U.S. Army Air Corps, ventured into the stratosphere. He set a U.S. altitude record at 29,000 feet (8,839 meters) on his first flight, and although he attained 42,000 feet (13,222 meters) on his second flight, it was not an official record, because he had to parachute out of his balloon as it descended to save himself.

"His balloon, Army No. S-30-241, was a 70,000-cubic-foot (1,982-cubic- meter) single-ply rubberized silk envelope coated with aluminum paint. Gray's three flights offered him the opportunity to test high-altitude clothing, oxygen systems, and instruments as well as set a new record. On his third flight in November 1927, he reached 42,000 feet (13,222 meters) again, but ran out of oxygen on the descent. He arrived on the ground with his balloon, but he was dead...

"Gray 's death underscored the central problem facing high-altitude balloonists... [t]o fly above 40,000 feet (12,192 meters) without a pressure garment or the protection of a pressurized vessel was to invite death.

"The 1930s saw a large number of flights into the stratosphere. Auguste Piccard led the efforts. He... considered the problem of oxygen deprivation to be no obstacle. A leading cosmic ray investigator, he needed to rise above the atmosphere to study it. Obviously, he would have to design a sealed, pressurized gondola.

"Using an apparatus developed by the Germans for use in submarines during World War I, Piccard built a gondola sphere 82 inches (208 centimeters) in diameter that weighed 300 pounds (136 kilograms). The gondola was designed to keep two people alive for up to 10 hours above 40,000 feet (12,192 meters). The apparatus released pure oxygen into the cabin while scrubbing and recirculating cabin air by filtering it through alkalai.

"Piccard also solved the problem of the lifting gas of the balloon leaking away as it expanded during ascent by using a balloon envelope five times larger than necessary to get off the ground. The lifting gas would remain inside the balloon envelope as it expanded, giving him enough lift to return safely to Earth as the gas cooled at night. His 500,000-cubic-foot (1,416-cubic-meter) gas bag, fully inflated, could have lifted a locomotive.

"On May 27, 1931, Piccard and Paul Kipfer climbed into the stratosphere in a spherical, airtight, metal cabin suspended from a specially constructed, hydrogen-filled balloon. This balloon, with a capacity of 494,400 cubic feet (14,000 cubic meters), reached an altitude of 51,783 feet (15,787 meters). The following year Piccard ascended to an even higher 53,152 feet (16,200 meters) with Max Cosyns.

"Inspired by Piccard's success, the Soviet Union flew the largest balloon built to date, at 860,000 cubic feet (25,353 cubic meters), with a gondola. The balloon reached a record 60,700 feet (18,501 meters) on Sept. 30, 1933.

"Not to be outdone, the United States flew the Century of Progress, whose team was headed by Auguste Piccard's twin brother Jean Piccard, with a gondola to a record height of 61,000 feet (18,592 meters) on November 20, 1933. The balloon carried two instruments to measure how gas conducted cosmic rays, a cosmic ray telescope, a polariscope to study the polarization of light at high altitudes, fruit flies to study genetic mutations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and an infrared camera to study the ozone layer.

"The next year on January 30, 1934, a Soviet balloon flew to 72,000 feet(21,946 meters), but it descended too quickly and the crew died.

"In 1934, the U.S. Army Air Corps again began to participate in high-altitude flights. Captain Albert W. Stevens piloted the Explorer I and Explorer II. Explorer I had a balloon of 3,000,000 cubic feet (84,950 cubic meters), five times the volume of the Century of Progress. The first flight of Explorer I climbed to 60,613 feet (18,475 meters) on July 27, 1934, but the balloon ripped. and Stevens, co-pilot Maj. William Ellsworth Kepner, and Orvil A. Anderson, operations officer, had to parachute to safety."

-- Pause to contemplate that one. Their balloon is sixty thousand feet up -- almost 20 kilometers into the sky. Then it *rips*. So they have to climb out of the falling gondola and parachute. All this with 1930s equipment. I would love to read an account of that trip.

Note also the advance of the technology. In seven years, we've gone from 70,000 cubic feet to 3,000,000.

"In June 1935, a Soviet mission climbed to 52,800 feet (16,093 meters) in a balloon. This was the first of many flights taken by the Soviets to systematically explore the upper atmosphere, emphasizing physics over records.

"Explorer II was the last high-altitude flight of the 1930s. It had an envelope of 3,700,000 cubic feet (104,772 cubic meters) and was the first helium balloon. Its sealed gondola kept the crew from freezing to death and their blood from boiling due to the low air pressure. On November 10, 1935, Explorer II reached 72,395 feet (22,066 meters), high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. Piloted by Anderson and Stevens, it set a world altitude record that would stand for the next 21 years.

"Their flight marked the end of the great era of human stratosphere ballooning. The enormous and heavy balloon envelopes had clearly reached the limits of rubberized fabric balloon technology, and a worldwide depression was setting in."

* * * * *

Now. OTL this exploration of the stratosphere used a certain amount of WWI spinoff technology. But I don't think a simple high-altitude balloon was beyond the capabilities of the Belle Epoque. You need a suitably tough envelope, protection from the cold, and oxygen. That all seems doable. Rubberized envelopes could have been done in the 1890s; short-term chemical rebreathers were first developed around 1900.

Certainly the possibility was there. Two Englishmen, Coxwell and Glaisher, had briefly ascended to over 10 km in 1862. Remarkably, they survived, and set a record that would last until Captain Gray's ascent 65 years later. The POD... heck, I don't know. Some early airship developer gets a bug. Maybe altitude records become a source of national pride, like reaching the North and South Poles.

So, beginning in the 1890s, two or three nations start sending balloons 10 km high. Payloads are light, and the trips are short. The aeronauts will start off wearing crude pressure suits, probably adapted from contemporary diving suits, with simple insulation underneath. (Simple as in wool sweaters, probably. Temperatures will go down under -40, but the longest trip will be under an hour, so this is not completely daft.)

Now, this is going to be incredibly dangerous. Rips in the envelope; leaks in the crude pressure suits; failure of the rebreathing apparatus; anoxia; hypothermia. Or simply landing in the wrong place. High altitude balloons could catch fast high-altitude winds and end up very far away from their takeoff. OTL one high-altitude balloonist was killed when his balloon drifted out to sea; he landed safely, but then drowned -- his pressure suit became waterlogged and dragged him down.

But this is the Belle Epoque! Man against nature! National pride at stake! How high can we raise the Union Jack? We must not let the Germans beat us to the stratosphere!

So. By 1905, there have been several expeditions over the 10 kilometer mark. By 1910, at least two have ascended over 14 km (45,000 feet). There have also been a number of gruesome accidents, but never mind... the rivalry has captured the public imagination. By the eve of WWI, there have been several flights over 50,000 feet, and balloons have stayed aloft around the 30, 000 foot mark for several hours at a time.

And then the Archduke goes to Sarajevo.

Some thoughts.

1) Pure science. We know about the ozone layer a generation sooner, and that cosmic rays are cosmic. (OTL they were discovered in 1912, when a German scientist named Victor Hess took a balloon up to 4000 meters.)

Meteorology gets a shot in the arm. I have a mental image of some insane American with a Kodak Brownie trying to get a picture of a Great Plains thunderstorm from above.

2) Spinoffs. I think parachute technology comes earlier in this TL. Diving apparatus will be improved faster. Knock-ons for submarines too, I'm sure. Pressurized cockpit technology will be waiting for airplanes that can use it.

3) Military applications. This gets wacky, but hear me out. In 1914, no airplane could climb past about 12,000 feet. By the end of the war, the ceiling would be over 20,000 feet, but still... a balloon 8 or 10 kilometers up would be completely untouchable.

At 8,000 meters or 25,000 feet, with reasonably clear weather, you can see a hundred miles away. An aeronaut with binoculars, a wireless set and a rebreather can stay up for several hours. It's every general's dream: an untouchable eye in the sky.

-- Okay, not quite untouchable. A big balloon can easily rise at over 1000 feet per minute, so the ascents will be relatively safe: take off in the early morning, when no enemy fighters are around, and keep radio silence until you're at cruising altitude. Descents may be trickier, though... the enemy may have heard your wireless broadcasts and sent interceptors, high-altitude winds are unpredictable, and you may be running short on air.

So overall, the Stratonautical Service is not going to be a good insurance risk. One of those "either a Victoria Cross, or a wooden cross" sort of things. But it's wartime, and there are always young men willing to try something new and crazy.

I don't think this will make much of a difference on the Western Front. In the east, though, I think it gives a significant tactical advantage to the more technically advanced Germans.

What think you?


Doug M.
 
Wow, you've got originality at the very least going for you.

Earlier parachute technology would mean a higher survival rate for pilots in WWI. (I'd assume that it'd be invented prior to WWI).

Anyways if the Germans adapt it to military use during the war I'd say you'd see a quicker end to Russia and perhaps a narrow victory in WWI.

Just a thought: Would it be plausible to tether said stratopherical ballon to say a ship? That could give any navy an excellent edge.

Anyhow seems plausible to me.
 
Parachutes date back to the 18th century, but there were a lot of kinks to be worked out. OTL, they weren't used in airplanes in the first couple of years of WWI, for a variety of reasons.

Tethering: tethers are problematical because of weight issues. OTL observation balloons were tethered to powered winches, but they were only going up a couple of thousand meters. 10-12 km of tether is something else again.

I think that on land, you have a launch caravan. It's literally a caravan -- a couple of mule-drawn covered wagons. They're up before dawn, trotting around 20-50 km behind the lines, looking for an optimum launch site depending on winds and weather.


You have one or two early launches, just before dawn, to collect additional information about wind and such. Then a wave of observers going up an hour later.

It's drift-and-recover, so winds are crucial. There's a window of vulnerability to enemy fighters while descending, especially if you've been blown closer to the front. Standard strategy is for the S-balloon to vent gas, drop fast, then throw ballast at the last minute for a soft landing.

The recovery team is a half-squad of cavalry carrying hot coffee and rum. They secure the deflated balloon; a bit later the caravan catches up, the ground crew packs it all away, the observers fall asleep in the back of a wagon, and next day they'll be ready to go again.
Once the Russians get S-balloons, their recovery teams will be Cossacks, of course.


Doug M.
 
"S-Balloons of the Great War"

At the outbreak of war, all the various combatants experiment with different models of S-balloon, and there's sort of a Cambrian Explosion. But by mid-1915 things have settled down, and a few standard models predominate. The one that catches the popular imagination is the British Mark V, aka "Gumdrop".

Gumdrop can carry a payload of about half a ton. Standard crew is two men, an observor and a wireless operator. A third man can be squeezed in, but at the cost of much slower lift. (And severe crowding; the gondola is about the size of a large closet.)

The Gumdrop's gondola is closed but not pressurized. The stratonauts wear heavy clothing and pressurized helmets. The helmets are connected by rubber hoses to a tank of compressed air.

Temperatures in the lower stratosphere run around -50 C. The gondola contains a heater which, if everything goes right, warms it to around -10 C.

The Gumdrop's ceiling is around 12 km, but most missions only rise to about 10 km. It takes the balloon less than an hour to reach cruising altitude. Observation times vary. When the Gumdrop is introduced in September 1915, it can only stay up for a little over an hour, but by the summer of 1916 better heaters and air tanks have raised this to more than three hours

A Gumdrop's cabin is a crowded place. The bulky radio set is about the size of a steamer trunk. Oxygen tanks, heater, parachutes... and the stratonauts must maneuver around this wearing heavy protective clothing.

The Germans, initially a bit behind, leapfrog the British with the introduction of the S-7 in 1917. The S-7 has more than double a Gumdrop's payload, but the real innovation is a pressurized cabin for a shirtsleeve workplace. (For broad values of "shirtsleeve".) A powerful heater can keep cabin temperatures a few degrees above freezing even after hours in the stratosphere.

The more powerful lift allows a number of new tactics. Most annoyingly, the S-7 can be used at low altitudes. When wind conditions are right, the Germans launch S-7s to cruise at just a couple of thousand meters, close over the front. If enemy fighters appear, the crew simply dumps ballast. The S-7 can climb at over 1000 ft/minute, so unless it is surprised it simply cannot be caught.

The S-7's operating ceiling is almost 15 km, and it regularly cruises at 12. Under ideal conditions it can stay aloft for 12 hours, though 8-10 is more typical. The standard crew is three men, ballooning along in (relative) comfort.

In March 1918, an S-7 is blown badly off course by unexpected winds in the lower stratosphere. Through a series of errors, it ends up landing behind Allied lines. The crew set the envelope on fire, but Allied soldiers manage to salvage the gondola. The British incorporate several of its design elements into their next generation balloon, the Mark VI, or "Handbag". Handbags first appear in the skies over France in August 1918.

Thoughts?


Doug M.
 
I wonder what the actual impact on the Western front would be of generally better intelligence, for both sides. Things like knowing that a bombardment hadn't cut the barbed wire, as well as earlier warning of assaults could well lead to earlier tactical innovation.

For all that, i think some of the big effects would be on secondary fronts, like Mesopotamia, where one side would have them and the other not. In places like these tethering might also be more useful as the other side may not have fighter planes suitable for interdicting them.

This also applies to naval matters, and the use of tethered gunnery spotters balloons might prompt earlier float plane/aircraft carrier development.

I also wonder what impact the big demand for better and lighter weight radios and cameras might have, as well as the requirement for shorter development of the film.

As a side note, think of the changes to archeology of earlier aerial surveying.
 
I think there was some unmaned baloons used for spying during early cold war. But the use of manned ballons are less attactive. To much risks for things that machines could do as good.
 
Rubberized envelopes could have been done in the 1890s; short-term chemical rebreathers were first developed around 1900.
I'm not sure you even need rebreathers. "Hardhat" diving suits pumped air in; if you've got tank storage, bleed it off thru hoses to the crew. And didn't MacIntosh develop rubberized fabrics in the 1820s?
The aeronauts will start off wearing crude pressure suits, probably adapted from contemporary diving suits, with simple insulation underneath.
Probably. Could you use boiler makers (no, not the drink:D You might want 8-10 before flying these deathtraps, tho.:D) to build air/pressure-tight gondolas?
Meteorology gets a shot in the arm. I have a mental image of some insane American with a Kodak Brownie trying to get a picture of a Great Plains thunderstorm from above.
An excellent point. Better knowledge of weather movements has some real knock-ons, not least for military ops. Also hurricane/tornado forecasts, especially if you can see them 100mi away...
I think parachute technology comes earlier in this TL.
Actually, the parachute was invented around 1810 by Andre Jacques Garnerin... I can imagine the concept of HALO developing. And sport parachuting, even stratochuting, would be much more popular.
Diving apparatus will be improved faster.
Maybe. Hardhat diving depended on the support ship. If advanced balloons lead to the Cousteau (& somebody...) regulator, maybe earlier scuba? Earlier UDT/frogmen?
Knock-ons for submarines too, I'm sure.
Again, maybe. Better pressure tech will improve hulls, for sure, but subs really needed propulsion advances, diesel & batteries, more. Recall Hunley.
Pressurized cockpit technology will be waiting for airplanes that can use it.
Very probably. Which makes me wonder what year you're thinking. If you go back around 1870, you could see a driver for better aircraft engines, using (for instance) Lenoir's early IC, of 1860...
Military applications. a balloon 8 or 10 kilometers up would be completely untouchable.
At first. You'd very soon see AAA... Russia might try rockets, too. So might others. And even simple BP rockets could be mighty dangerous if they could catch the gasbag, full of hydrogen,:eek::eek::eek: alight...
At 8,000 meters or 25,000 feet, with reasonably clear weather, you can see a hundred miles away.
As soon as that's possible, you inevitably IMO get trench warfare: inability to move in secret means much less surprise, & it's been blamed for the OTL onset of stalemate. You also get development of camo, of course (which, IIRC, wasn't even a word before WW1...)
An aeronaut with binoculars, a wireless set and a rebreather can stay up for several hours. It's every general's dream: an untouchable eye in the sky.
Well, no. OTL radio tech was nothing like good enough until, oh, 1916 IIRC. They'd be tethered, just like OTL WW1. And as fixed targets, they'd come under attack from fighters trying to cut their tethers, & would be heavily defended, just as OTL. These fighters might be rocket-armed, too, BION....
the ascents will be relatively safe: take off in the early morning, when no enemy fighters are around, and keep radio silence until you're at cruising altitude.
I wouldn't bet on it. If you can see 100mi, so can the enemy, so he's bound to have a pretty good idea where your balloons are based, & it won't take him long to figure out he can launch & fly fighters at night, so long as they can see the target in twilight & their airfields when they get back. It wasn't called dawn patrol for nothing....
I don't think this will make much of a difference on the Western Front. In the east, though, I think it gives a significant tactical advantage to the more technically advanced Germans.
I doubt the Russians were too incompetent to build & operate balloons, especially if they appear soon enough. Trenches from Petrograd to Tsaritsyn? (Whew! I'm exhausted.:D) And they'd probably still be rolling up the barbed wire...:D
Earlier parachute technology would mean a higher survival rate for pilots in WWI. (I'd assume that it'd be invented prior to WWI).
It was. Parachutes were used routinely by observation balloon crews, when they came under attack from fighters. It didn't appear in aircraft in part because the 'chutes were so damn heavy (lift & power were pretty marginal, recall), & in RFC, in part because SOs were convinced it'd lead to cowardice, pilots & crews bailing out rather than attacking... That it could boost morale, giving them a chance to escape a burning aircraft, & so also save trained crews & maintain/improve effectiveness, occurred to nobody...
Just a thought: Would it be plausible to tether said stratopherical ballon to say a ship? That could give any navy an excellent edge.
Very good point. It'd improve ASW, enabling convoys (when the Admiralty finally get their heads out of their bilges...) to avoid. OTOH, balloons might be used for spotting by raiders &/or subs...

IMO, the better option is:eek:zeps.:eek: OK, it's cliche, but powered craft trump free-fliers every time.
 
Well maybe balloons don't merge with fix-wing aircraft into zeppelins (instead the two staying separate) and instead stay stylish long enough for rocketry to get serious and get merged with that sort of?

So the extra usefulness of balloons in the Great War leading to manned and automated aerospace pods serving as more re-positional and covert cousins to the spy satellites during the Cold War? Until the technology improves enough to shift to extremely high altitude aerospace fighters of course. But by then the entire lineage would of had a long enough run to continue to influence the world's culture even if you examined the timeline a few decades later.
 
Congratulations on a truly interesting alternative technological timeline. Interesting to imagine the possibility of using high altitude long range S-balloons as strategic bombers or for the insertion or troops and agents into enemy homelands. Dependence on prevailing winds at altitudes would be a problem. Over several hundred small Japanese balloon bombs reached north america in 1944-45. With a head start in the technology, could S-balloons be launched on world-circling flights in which they do recon, drop a few bombs when they pass over cities (perhaps containing biological agents), and drop off Special Strato-Troopers by parachute?

This is almost as cool as zeppelins...almost.
 
At first. You'd very soon see AAA... Russia might try rockets, too. So might others. And even simple BP rockets could be mighty dangerous if they could catch the gasbag, full of hydrogen,:eek::eek::eek: alight...
Hmm... I have to wonder whether hydrogen would ignite, with the air that thin...

otherwise, all good stuff! :)
 
There's another interesting knockon effect. Space flight. In the 1920s and 30s rockets were starting to become reliable technology, but weren't quite big enough for orbital flights yet. I could easily see someone slinging a V-2 or its equivalent under a large balloon floating it up into the stratosphere and lauching a primitive satellite into space.
 
There's another interesting knockon effect. Space flight. In the 1920s and 30s rockets were starting to become reliable technology, but weren't quite big enough for orbital flights yet. I could easily see someone slinging a V-2 or its equivalent under a large balloon floating it up into the stratosphere and lauching a primitive satellite into space.
Even easier to carry an He-163 & put a man in orbit. In the 19hC!
 
Just considering ways to shoot these things down. Aeroplanes could reach 40,000 feet with 1920s technology- built as lightly as possible with huge superchargers. They might be a bit late for WW1- but then, they might not. The Le Prieur rocket might be a standard anti-balloon weapon. This could be very interesting- the anti-balloon aircraft will be slow and vulnerable to enemy fighters at low altitude.

AAA- I'm not sure, given that IOTL gun development was driven by aircraft development. There was no need to try to build a gun with a huge vertical range in WW1, so we don't know if they could have got the necessary muzzle velocity. Something like the post-WW2 120mm M1 could have made a balloon's life very difficult indeed, given that it could reach up to 80,000 feet!

Airships are strictly low-altitude machines (or at least WW1 ones were). The record was 24,000 feet- and that one lost so much gas it crashed.
 
Even easier to carry an He-163 & put a man in orbit. In the 19hC!

:eek::D

Yes! Victorian space missions. I would be interested to know how they would go about solving the problems of navigation and attitdue control, though, especially in regards to re-entry considering that computers didn't exist yet.
 
So off of the original change in attitudes/lines-of-development we get the result being earlier/more-advanced/different(?):
- looooong range guns
- space exploration (from associated rocketry and harsh environment survival developments), space satellites, and aerospace tech in general
- interest in looong range weapons + rocketry = cruise missiles ?
- computers, radar, sonar ?
- deep sea exploration ?
- earlier and increased focus on eye in the sky intelligence (more of an early rush for spy sattelites?)


Also, what technologies and sciences might progress more slowly than in OTL as a consequence of the changed focus?
 
There's another interesting knockon effect. Space flight. In the 1920s and 30s rockets were starting to become reliable technology, but weren't quite big enough for orbital flights yet. I could easily see someone slinging a V-2 or its equivalent under a large balloon floating it up into the stratosphere and lauching a primitive satellite into space.
Even easier to carry an He-163 & put a man in orbit. In the 19thC!
... well, that'd need a much quicker development of rocketry and aerodynamics... wouldn't it?

Anyway, this would be much cooler:
ministryofspace1.jpg

:eek::D
Yes! Victorian space missions. I would be interested to know how they would go about solving the problems of navigation and attitude control, though, especially in regards to re-entry considering that computers didn't exist yet.
Good point, but surely the Mercury missions didn't involve much computing, just trial and error... right?
 
:eek::D
Yes! Victorian space missions. I would be interested to know how they would go about solving the problems of navigation and attitdue control, though, especially in regards to re-entry considering that computers didn't exist yet.
2 possibilities occur to me: trial & error (& lots of memorials for dead astronauts;:eek::eek: hmm, they wouldn't be called that, would they? Etoilnaut?:p), or put the Babbage Engine to use.:cool::cool: After I posted, I wondered how they'd solve the heating problems of zooms to 100km, even; the X-15 got pretty hot....:eek: (More trial & error...)
Just considering ways to shoot these things down. Aeroplanes could reach 40,000 feet with 1920s technology- built as lightly as possible with huge superchargers. They might be a bit late for WW1- but then, they might not. The Le Prieur rocket might be a standard anti-balloon weapon. This could be very interesting- the anti-balloon aircraft will be slow and vulnerable to enemy fighters at low altitude.
Could be. Of course, if a zoom too boost the perf of the rockets is needed, they might have to be fast. That being true, pulsejets appear sooner? Ramjets, too? (Launched with crude solid RATO.)
AAA- I'm not sure, given that IOTL gun development was driven by aircraft development. There was no need to try to build a gun with a huge vertical range in WW1, so we don't know if they could have got the necessary muzzle velocity. Something like the post-WW2 120mm M1 could have made a balloon's life very difficult indeed, given that it could reach up to 80,000 feet!
On the presumption balloons are flying really high, & it's necessary to blind them, or defend them, IMO AAA must develop; if they're stratofliers, heavy AAA's very likely, IMO.
Airships are strictly low-altitude machines (or at least WW1 ones were). The record was 24,000 feet- and that one lost so much gas it crashed.
OTL, yes. TTL, the tech applying to balloons is directly applicable to zeps, & you get stratozeps, too. Which also means long-duration ocean patrols, highly vulnerable U-boats & surface task forces, small chance of surprise attacks on bases (no Coronel, no Pearl Harbor, no Prien at Scapa, no Taranto). This puts even more pressure on AAA & AD fighter development. I can easily picture zeps turning into the likes of AWACS, even before radar, & here, given a drive to a/c earlier (1870s?), pressure to develop radar (IIRC, the idea was pretty old even when it was tried in 1904, but nobody really knew what to do with it...)
... well, that'd need a much quicker development of rocketry and aerodynamics... wouldn't it?
Yep, but given strato baloons, I presume the demand is there, & the tech follows. They might be a bit cruder internally, using (say) sugar-saltpeter solid rockets, with Isp around 120 (against about 80 for BP).
- looooong range guns
Very probable. Until they get supplanted by much cheaper & easier to build SAMs. (Making VLR guns is hard.) Might get big ones, cal over 1m,:eek: which, ironically, can develop low enough accelerations to be practical for launching payloads to LEO...
- space exploration (from associated rocketry and harsh environment survival developments)...and aerospace tech in general
Very probable. Demand for responses, as well as potential civilian apps.
-interest in looong range weapons + rocketry = cruise missiles ?
Very probable. A need to blind "sky eyes", as well as an ability/desire to strike at distant targets from them &/or defend from attack at a distance. And SLCMs (even something like V-1) make subs more dangerous... Picture shooting into a convoy from beyond the escort's ability to detect...
- computers, radar, sonar ?
Very probable. Sonar, maybe less so, tho if zeps/balloons make subs more vulnerable, earlier schnorchel & fuel cell are likely, making subs much more dangerous... Earlier DC & homing torpedo, too (& homer torps make subs more dangerous...)
-deep sea exploration ?
Very probable. Better pressure vessels means better hulls, deeper diving, possibly much larger subs (&, yes, more dangerous...); presuming fuel cell, tanker/freighter subs? Could also mean permanent udw habitats for science are practical much eariler, & become far more common (given space/balloon flight doesn't steal the show as it did OTL...) Seafloor hotels? oil rigs? mines? Add udw freighters...
- earlier and increased focus on eye in the sky intelligence (more of an early rush for spy sattelites?)
Maybe not. Balloons/zeps'd be as good, way cheaper, & more flexible: most often, it's desirable to have current recce. Plus, sats can be EZ scheduled & hidden from; stratozeps, not...

Something else to consider. If you do get stratozeps, or just better zeps, you get very cheap, very good air travel much earlier, which has important effects for tourism... It also affects archaeology, believe it or not, 'cause you can overfly jungle & see patterns not visible from the ground: finding lost Maya/Inca/Saudi cities way earlier? It also has effects for search for, & discovery of, fuel & lift gas sources; hydrogen's not a great choice, & oil'd be in big demand...

Also, better aeromedicine, better metals technology, better meteorology, better oceanography (thanks to hi-dur zep ops, able to stay over ocean for days, even without sealabs; add them, way better, with the ability to stay in the ocean for weeks or months), probably better computing (needed for better aircraft & engines), better astronomy (observation balloons/zeps drive better telescopes; add the ability to put 'em in LEO, & it really jumps...), better geology (air pattern searches, geomagnetic measurements by air), maybe better tall buildings (better steels/plastics for framing), more durable clothing & body armor (I have to think research into balloon/zep skins leads to something like nylon & Kevlar), better agriculture (meteorology plus better metals in implements plus machinery tech)
Also, what technologies and sciences might progress more slowly than in OTL as a consequence of the changed focus?
Hmm... An excellent question. I could imagine more pollution (earlier & wider use of air-sprayed chemicals against mosquitoes & agricultural pests), worse greenhouse warming (more use fossil fuels in aircraft & zeps, & by extension elsewhere), maybe more species at risk (easier to track & hunt whales; more human accesss/use of oceans; more need for whale oil?), maybe less effective vaccines (air spraying rather than vaccination), maybe worse exposure to diseases like Ebola/HIV earlier (easier air transit; exposure to diseases from fish, even?), & certainly more easily spread disease (ditto).
 
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Could be. Of course, if a zoom too boost the perf of the rockets is needed, they might have to be fast. That being true, pulsejets appear sooner? Ramjets, too? (Launched with crude solid RATO.)

OTL, yes. TTL, the tech applying to balloons is directly applicable to zeps, & you get stratozeps, too. Which also means long-duration ocean patrols, highly vulnerable U-boats & surface task forces, small chance of surprise attacks on bases (no Coronel, no Pearl Harbor, no Prien at Scapa, no Taranto). This puts even more pressure on AAA & AD fighter development. I can easily picture zeps turning into the likes of AWACS, even before radar, & here, given a drive to a/c earlier (1870s?), pressure to develop radar (IIRC, the idea was pretty old even when it was tried in 1904, but nobody really knew what to do with it...)
You're overestimating WW1 aeroplane technology. Even the 1936 Bristol Type 138 was too flimsy to take a pulse-jet, and far too slow for a ramjet. The knowledge of aerodynamics at that time is not enough for an aeroplane capable of much over 200 mph- and hence of much of a zoom-climb. High-altitude aircraft were even slower- when the RAF were operating 340 mph Hurricanes, the Type 138 topped out at just over 120 mph.

The balloon-hunting aircraft will effectively be a high-altitude sailplane which climbs slowly to operating height, fires its payload of 1 or 2 rockets- the balloon is practically a stationary target- then descends, possibly gliding because it has run out of fuel (the Bristol 138 only had fuel for 15 minutes at altitude). I see it as something much more like a U-2 than a MiG-25 or Lightning- climbing slowly to altitude rather than reaching it in an uncontrolled ballistic arc. You are not going to get a rocket-plane or pulse-jet until the late 1930s at the earliest- when, yes, ballistic interceptors like the Bachem Ba-349 will become very effective anti-balloon weapons.

Zeppelins- unlike a balloon, a zeppelin needs to maintain its shape. The only way to prevent it either leaking or exploding at high altitude is to have airbags inside the gasbag which deflate at altitude to allow the lifting gas to expand. Modern airships with these can reach 100,000 feet- but could you get them with WW1 technology without the pumps being very heavy?

Finally, the balloon gondola. High-altitude AAA prevents balloons operating within its range, so we mainly have to defend against aircraft attack, largely from below. I can definitely see a single machine-gun turret on the bottom. Also, reconnaissance is much more useful if the commanders can get the data quickly. I imagine a camera fitted with a very long lens to photograph enemy positions- the plates are then put in a container fitted with a parachute and dropped out of the balloon- the same light cavalry who later act as balloon recovery squads will pick them up and take them to HQ to be developed and analysed. Is WW1 camera technology good enough for these plates to be worth anything, or do they have to drop hand sketches of the enemy positions instead?
 
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