High winds at the launchpad in the Australia outback have forced the lift-off to be put off for at least five days.

It was originally scheduled for December 27th, but has been postponed repeatedly. The space-age balloon is designed to avoid weather problems by cruising at a height of 130,000 feet. But it is vulnerable to winds at launch.

The Australian-American RE/MAX team is aiming to become the first to circle the earth non-stop in a balloon by skirting the earth's atmosphere.

No other team has yet attempted to fly so high, at the very edge of the stratosphere where atmospheric pressure will be a fraction of that at ground level and crew members will have to wear Russian space suits.

Sky high flight

One of the pilots likely to stay on the ground

The balloon will be 900 feet high at launch before it is rounded out with helium. It is made of thin polyethylene with 178 supporting straps attached to an aluminium gondola.

The gondola was originally going to carry three balloonists, Australian John Wallington, the most experienced balloonist, real estate tycoon Dave Liniger, who has largely financed the project and Bob Martin, an American science journalist.

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But one of them looks like missing out on the adventure of a lifetime. The RE/MAX team have warned a band of extreme cold temperate at about 60,000 feet could jeopardise the mission unless one of the three men stayed on the ground.

Crew fine-tuning balloon

Despite the delays, the pilots and support staff at the Alice Springs mission control have maintained high spirits and are using the extra time to fine-tune the balloon.

The trip is expected to take 18 days and will return the balloon to Australia.

Two of their rivals, Britain's Richard Branson and American Steve Fossett were plucked from the sea off Hawaii last week as bad weather forced them to abort a similar round-world attempt.