World Absolute Record for balloons? 

The flight will be sanctioned with the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) and Federation Aeronautic International (FAI) for homologation as the World Balloon Absolute Altitude Record. 

We will do this  even though it will be far different from any previous tropospheric or stratospheric ascension and will utilize aerostatic apparatus hardly recognizable as a balloon, apparently not fitting into any of the officially recognized categories.

While the object and motivation for XAP is not an FAI Record, per se, nor even a Guinness Book World Record, the flight will far surpass any previous efforts.  This flight, into the base realms of "Space", will exit the stratosphere and penetrate well into the mesosphere for the first time by any non-powered craft. That sovereign territory of the limitless space world has previously only had transitory visitors , or been passed through, by rocket planes and orbiting spacecraft. XAP will linger there for the first time.

To characterize this expedition merely as a record attempt would trivialize the real value and intent.