Updated 3/22/01 Flying High Scientist-Adventurer Bertrand Piccard Tells Tale of Balloon Flight OAUG-Europe Keynote Speech, March 20 Cut from the same cloth as visionaries and adventurers like Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong, and Chuck Yeager, Bertrand Piccard told attendees at OAUG's European conference, "There is in life a way to be sure to never fail, and that is to never try." Although it took several attempts, Piccard and co-pilot Brian Jones were the first men to fly a balloon non-stop around the world. Descended from a long line of scientists and explorers, Piccard is a scientist-adventurer, psychiatrist, and aeronaut, and combines science and adventure to explore the human soul. A pioneer in hang gliding and microlight flying in the 1970s, Piccard said he often scoffed at balloonists, going so far as to say that he would never be caught flying in one. However, his thirst for adventure made him eat his words in 1992 as he agreed to participate in a balloon race across the Atlantic Ocean. He explained that the thought of having to trust the wind for 5,000 kilometers intrigued him, so he explored ballooning in more detail. Piccard said he received a sign from "life" that made him think that ballooning was the sport for him. Before the Trans-Atlantic race, Piccard was spending time in China and came across a medallion with a Chinese proverb which read, "If the wind is going in the same direction as your path, it will lead you to great happiness." Before the race began, the pilot of Piccard's balloon told a journalist that they would win because an ancient Chinese medallion let them know how to trust the wind. And they did. Piccard explained that they won the race because their competitors were fighting against the wind, wasting fuel trying to go through thunderstorms and constantly changing elevation. Piccard and his pilot didn't fight the wind; instead, they put their trust in it and let it carry them to victory. He said winning was strange, because they felt they did nothing to win other than just letting the wind guide them. The magic of ballooning is that since you are pushed by the wind, you have no idea what is going to happen in the near future. Your only certainty is the unknown and that you always need to be ready for anything. The unknown is a beautiful stimulus to help us escape from the walls that make us prisoners of life. The unknown stimulates our creativity. "Adventure is not necessarily something spectacular; adventure is something extraordinary - something that pulls you out of the ordinary. Pulling you out of what you know obliges you to be efficient and much more connected to yourself." Many want to connect to the entire world, but they have never learned that the first step is to connect to themselves. Adventure is not so much what you do, but how you do it. Adventure is a state of mind. Crossing the Atlantic inspired Piccard to give up control and do something that had never been done - fly around the world in a balloon. Piccard explained that there is always a price for achieving one's dream. Within thirty minutes of take-off on their first flight, Piccard and his co-pilot knew they would have to abort the flight. Once they had to abort, their next challenge was finding a flat place to land. Piccard said the Mediterranean was perfect because there were no obstacles. Six hours after take-off, they were floating in the Mediterranean Sea. Although the failure was humiliating and embarrassing, one year later, he had built another balloon and was ready to give it another try. On the second flight, Piccard was optimistic, but there proved to be one little problem. When he and his partner took off, they had not received permission from China to fly through its air space. Thinking positively, Piccard assumed they would find winds to carry them around China. But because China wouldn't give them permission and they couldn't find the winds they needed to get around the country, they were forced to abort the mission. But there was a consolation prize--they broke a world record for a balloon flight by traveling for ten days nonstop. By time Piccard was ready to for the third attempt, there were many other well-funded adventurers looking to be the first to balloon around the world. He began to wonder how he could compete with people who had so much power and money. By this time, Piccard felt similar to David battling Goliath. He said he was of the opinion that if his team wasn't the richest and most powerful, they would be the smartest. Piccard said he saw his competitors fail time and again. They never seemed to learn from their mistakes. Not falling into this trap, Piccard, co-pilot Brian Jones, and the rest of the team made history on March 20, 1999 by being the first to circumnavigate the world in a balloon.