The first measurements of air ionization on balloons were made in 1901-1903 by the German meteorologist F. Linke, carrying an electroscope to a height of 5500 m and found an increasing of air ionization up to 4 times. This result at those times was so strong contradicted with the general accepting concepts (that the main source of air ionization is radioactivity of the soil), that F. Linke decided: obtained results are wrong and they are not published. The real discovery of cosmic rays (CR) became only later by the Austrian physicist Victor Hess during his famous flight at August 7, 1912. German physicist W. Kolhorster, achieved in 1913-1914 five flights on balloons and attained the maximal altitude 9,300 m. His results completely confirmed Hess's observation data. Many measurements of CR on balloons were made after 1920s by American scientists R. Millikan and G. Cameron, by many Soviet scientists and others. A lot of experiments for CR research were made later on long lived balloons, which are very important up to the present time.
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