Word: balloon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...electrowriting machine that uses telephone wires to transmit facsimile handwriting and sketches, 5) an automatic merchandiser that dispenses clothing, makes change from dollar bills, 6) an electronic system linking an airline's ticket offices throughout the U.S., 7) a cart for big-chef barbecues, 8; a plastic balloon building, 9) a 50-ton log stacker, 10) a tree crusher, 11) a transistor radio as small as a sugar cube, 12) a language-translating machine, 13) an underwater torpedo retriever, 14) a movable island crane, 15 ) a high-speed ditch digger, 16) a "pickle picker," 17) a hay pelletizer that...
Millions of people have watched Echo, the U.S. balloon satellite, as it crosses the sky. And most of them have noticed that it twinkles like a star and also brightens and dims slowly in a way that no star does. Why does it perform in this odd fashion? Last week the explanation came from Dr. Leonard Jaffe of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Echo's quick twinkling, said Jaffe, is caused by the same atmospheric irregularities that make stars wink. Some of its slower dimming may be due to thin patches of clouds, invisible at night-but most...
Promptly at 5:30, the ground crew un leashed the tugging balloon and Kittinger started soaring off into space. As the atmosphere thinned out, he noticed that one of his pressure gloves wasn't working right, was cutting off circulation and causing his hand to swell. Being Joe Kittinger, he did not mention that detail in his radio reports to the ground until it was too late for the medical team to order him down without completing his mission...
High above the earth, Kittinger studied a frontier that few men have seen. "Up there,'' he recalled afterwards, "the sky looked dark enough to see stars as one would at twilight on earth." Up, up, up the balloon rose, to 98,800 ft. above the ground (102,800 ft. above sea level), higher than any human being had ever soared before in nonpowered flight. Shortly after 7 a.m., Kittinger ticked off his go-second countdown in radio communication with the ground. Then he "asked the Lord for help," flopped over the side of the gondola, and began...
...Down. Within 18 seconds, Kittinger's stabilizing chute opened, but for more than four minutes more he plummeted in free fall, reaching a velocity of 614 m.p.h. "I fell on my right side for about eight seconds," he says. "Then I found myself on my back watching the balloon recede above me. The sky was almost black. It was a beautiful thing to see. I had a sensation of lying still while the balloon raced away from me. I didn't feel hot or cold, just the right temperature. There was very little spinning...