In 1935, a year before the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish colonel Emilio Herrera Linares designed a device that captivated the world: the stratonautic diving suit. It was comprised of an inner layer of vulcanized silk and an outer layer of folded and jointed metal and it was designed for flying in the stratosphere. The suit was tested in 1935 in a low-pressure chamber, but was never actually worn during a flight. A test in a hot air balloon, planned for 1936, had to be cancelled due to the war. Promoted to general, Herrera exiled in 1939. He passed away in Switzerland in 1967, just two years before the first Moon landing. Were his projects continued, who knows what he could have achieved.
La escafandra que cautivó al mundo
