Ask A Scientist General Science Archive

Question:  A student at Sandburg Jr. High would like to know:  
How high will a helium balloon travel before it pops?
 julie h

Answer 1:
It will float (being lighter than air) until the pressure inside is
so much greater than the pressure outside that the rubber that
the balloon is made of can't handle the strain anymore. That
will depend on how strong the rubber is that the balloon is made of.
Weak balloons will pop lower down, while strong balloons
can rise very very high indeed (like weather balloons). So
it's kind of hard to answer the question. Maybe one could make
a reasonable set of assumptions and calculate when it would happen
for a toy balloon, but I'm not sure how.

-dr topper
 
Answer 2:
Weather balloons used by the National Weather Service upper air
program are designed to go up to around 100,000 feet.

Allsopp - NWS