Race to the Stratosphere Photograph Collection

David DeVorkin, a Space History Curator at the National Air and Space Museum, completed Race to the Stratosphere: Manned Scientific Ballooning in America in 1989. The book traces the history of manned scientific ballooning from the 1930's to the 1960's, beginning with the flights of Auguste Piccard, and proceeding through the manned flights by the Army Air Corps, up to the Apollo Space Missions. This collection consists of the photographs used in the book and collected by David DeVorkin for research. The collection is organized by chapter. There are also a few engineering drawings of the gondola of balloons. There are three series in this collection. Series 1 consists of the photographs actually used in the book, arranged by chapter. Series 2 consists of photographs collected for research by David DeVorkin, but not used in the book. They are arranged by chapter. Series 3 consists of two subseries: Miscellaneous and Duplicate Photographs, and Science Service Photographs. There is one appendix to this collection. It is a list of all the Smithsonian Institution negative numbers from all the images that David DeVorkin used that came from the National Air and Space Museum's collections.

There are three series in this collection. Series 1 consists of the photographs actually used in the book; it is arranged by chapter. Series 2 consists of photographs collected for research by David DeVorkin, but not used in the book; it is arranged by chapter. Series 3 consists of two subseries: Miscellaneous and Duplicate Photographs and Science Service Photographs. There is one appendix to this collection. It is a list of all Smithsonian Institution negative numbers from all images that David DeVorkin used that came from the National Air and Space Museum's collections.