Current Ballooning
Over the years, sport ballooning has gained great popularity. It started becoming a popular sport in the 1960's. Since then, many people have become professionals at the sport and have tried to master it by making the first non-stop balloon flight . Nobody has yet completed this dangerous and exciting feat. Currently, there are several people trying to make this flight. Most of them are from the Chicagoland area. One of them, Steve Fossett, has made several efforts to make the flight around the world, and has failed repeatedly within the last few years.
Steve Fossett is a millionaire who is a Chicago businessman and quite probably the world's most insatiable adventurer. In January of 1996, Steve had his third attempt to be the first to fly a balloon non-stop around the globe. Libya's reluctance to allow him to cross its borders, causing him to use more fuel than planned. The lack of fuel ended the flight for Steve Fossett. Still, flying for more than six days, and traveling 10,377 miles, he broke two world records. Although Steve's world flight attempts have failed, he was the first man to ever cross the South Atlantic Ocean by balloon.
Steve Fossett's next attempt at this flight departed from Busch Stadium in January of 1998. This was his third failure to try to complete the flight. Steve is one of two men trying to complete this flight solo. All of the others are in groups or teams of two or three men. The other man who has been in the race to complete this flight is a man named Kevin Uliassi, 34, who is a Chicago architect. The two men have been considering joining together as a team to make the journey easier for the both of them.
Steve's most recent attempt was in August of 1998. The flight had been going very smoothly until six days into the flight, his capsule buckled and was brought down by hail, lightning, and high winds, just above the shark-infested Coral Sea. Fossett was spotted by a French military plane, and pulled out of the water to safety. Again Steve was grounded. Kevin Uliassi has also been failing at his recent attempts to complete this mission.