The Chemical World This Week
MANNED BALLOON GEARED TO STUDY LOWER ATMOSPHERE In an age of rocketry and highspeed aircraft, the scene to take place at Las Cruces, N.M., next month might seem merely a nod to the current nostalgia craze. But when Project da Vinci gets off the ground physically on Oct. 12—and if it gets off the ground figuratively —a new tool may well be available for studying a layer of the atmosphere rather poorly characterized until now. Dangling below a 70-foot, helium-filled balloon, four crew members—pilot, copilot, scientist, and photographer—will be riding a gondola packed with 28 different instruments. They will be floating free at altitudes between 4000 and 14,000 feet. After a planned 36-hour flight taking them east to Carlsbad and north to Clovis, N.M., they expect to land near Lubbock, Tex. Main support for the project— about $300,000—is being provided by the Atomic Energy Commission. The National Geographic Society is supplying about $30,000 and the U.S. Army's atmospheric sciences laboratory about $35,000. Other organizations also are involved. At a press conference in Washington, D.C., last week, AEC meteorologist Rudolf J. Engelmann, the on-board scientist, noted that the aim of Project da Vinci is to determine the usefulness of manned balloon flight for studying the relatively neglected lower atmosphere. Although this part of the atmosphere is critical—it controls pollution drift and is the site where inversions are created and where regional air circulation takes place—less is understood about it than about very high or very low altitudes. Manned balloons, Dr. Engelmann explains, can drift with a single air parcel so that experiments on that parcel can be made over a prolonged time—in contrast to towers and airplanes, which only see one parcel after another. Experiments make up five groups: atmosphere structure and turbulence, atmospheric constituents, electrical fields, infrared radiation, and balloon dynamics and response. As part of the atmospheric constituents group, a chemilumi4
C&ENSept. 2, 1974
Karl Stefan holds balloon model
nescence device mounted on a 3foot boom will measure ozone concentration. A 30-foot-long intake tube will provide air for a sulfur dioxide sampler. Aerosol layers will be detected by a ground-based lidar (laser-radar) for comparison with measurements from the gondola. A membrane sampler will be analyzed chemically after the flight to determine chemical composition of aerosols. And a developmental aluminum oxide sensor as well as a conventional carbon sensor will measure water vapor levels. Balloon systems engineer Karl Stefan of Balloon Works, a balloon manufacturing company in Statesville, Ga., notes that conventional practices are being used for the polyethylene balloon—leaving new concepts to the science. The 10foot-square, 5500-pound gondola (total load) is being built by Grumman Houston division of Grumman Corp. It is made of aluminum and glass-fiber foam and built with an upper level for experiments and a lower level with crew quarters, batteries, and storage.
OSHA regulations on chemical upheld The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia last week refused to overturn the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's permanent rules regulating ethyleneimine as a suspected
human carcinogen. The regulations, which went into effect Feb. 11, cover worker exposure, work practices, and medical surveillance for contact with solid or liquid mixtures containing more than 1% by weight or volume of the chemical. OSHA based its classification on two separate controlled animal studies. When the rules were issued, three chemical trade groups and nine chemical firms sued for judicial review of the OSHA regulations. In its suit the group maintained that there was not substantial evidence to show that ethyleneimine is carcinogenic; that the record did not support the ethyleneimine standards; and that the Secretary of Labor failed to make sufficient findings of fact or to provide sufficient statements of reasons for the standards. The court, however, judged otherwise. It found that in setting permanent regulations, OSHA has adequately indicated why the substance regulated is considered harmful, which data in the record are being relied on, and why the particular standards were chosen. The court said that in reaching a decision the Secretary of Labor's "reasons for action may include policy determinations as well as factual findings." Thus, the court said, "It seems to us that what the Secretary has done in extrapolating from animal studies to humans is to make a legal rather than a factual determination. He has said in effect that if carcinogenicity in two animal species is established, [provisions of law] require that they be treated as carcinogens in man." The court's decision probably came as a surprise to the industry group backing the suit, since what had been hoped for was some clarifying definition of what has to be shown before a chemical can be classed as a carcinogen. However, an industry spokesman said that no decision has been made on whether or not to appeal the court's ruling. The decision will have no effect on the regulations covering worker exposure to ethyleneimine, since they were in effect until overturned by a court decision. However, the court did rule that because of lack of notice, provisions of the regulations regarding the chemical's use in research laboratories were vacated and remanded to OSHA.
