Vera Simons

Vera Simons (1920–2012) was an inventor, artist, and balloonist. She became known in the 1950s and 1960s as a leader in high altitude gas balloon development and exploration, belonging to a group of pioneers known as the "Pre-Astronauts."

Career In 1949, Simons co-founded one of the world's first plastic balloon companies called Winzen Research, Inc. with her then-husband Otto C. Winzen. To launch the company, she borrowed money from her parents and held two-thirds ownership in the endeavor. She became vice president and provided the needed management skills to launch the company and ensure its success. She worked at Winzen Research for a decade, during which time she secured four patents for her work improving construction techniques and envelope redesign. She also developed new systems that would ensure consistent quality across the Winzen line of products.

At Winzen Research, Simons trained a number of women—who were known as the "balloon girls"—to handle polyethylene and build giant balloons. Whenever a balloon was launched, Simons made sure that the team of women who worked on the balloon could watch. In an interview with Craig Ryan, Simons noted: "To see what you've made come alive, that's pretty damned exciting."

Simons and her balloon girls worked on a number of high-profile balloon projects for the United States government. Their high-flying balloons were used to transport scientific equipment to high altitudes. During the 1950s and 1960s, Winzen Research was hired to engineer balloons capable of carrying humans for the United States Navy projects Helios, Skyhook, and Strato-Lab; for the United States Air Force, they worked on Project Manhigh. Manhigh took advantage of Simons's thin polyethylene balloons, which were notably more flexible than the cloth balloons that predated them, allowing pilots to more effectively control their elevation. Several of her pieces drew from her expertise as a balloonist and engineer. In 1971, she exhibited her work at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Holland, and the museum commissioned her to fly a gas balloon launched from the museum's grounds, a project she called "Drift Amsterdam". Over the course of two years, Simons designed and supervised the construction of a polyethylene balloon and a double-decker fiberglass gondola lift. The first flight launched in 1974 over New Mexico and the second and third launched over St. Louis in June and July 1976. The flight set a Comité International d’Aérostation (or FAI Ballooning Commission) world record for the Longest Flight for a Female Pilot when it landed near Lima, Ohio, on October 1, 1979, after flying for 133 hours and 45 minutes.

Personal life Simons was born on November 23, 1920, in Heidenheim, Germany, to parents Max and Maja Habrecht. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1923, where she was raised in Detroit, Michigan. There, she attended Cass Technical High School, graduating in 1939. She met her first husband, Otto C. Winzen, who was studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Detroit; the aeronaut Jean Piccard introduced the couple. They were married on February 1, 1941, in Detroit. The couple later divorced in 1958 and, two years later, Simons remarried a physician-turned-balloonist David G. Simons, with whom she worked on Project Manhigh. The couple later divorced on May 5, 1969. On May 26, 1975, she married Clifford Charles La Plante in Arlington, Virginia. Simons died on July 31, 2012, in Austin, Texas, where she had lived for 22 years.