#satelloons

[gregdotorg]

Nic Brunsdon's (This is) Air will be realized outside the National Gallery of Victoria in December as part of the 2023 Triennial. It will inhale and exhale, making visible the air it embodies. [h/t Andrew Russeth, always keeping an eye out for giant inflatable sphere projects for me]

These ideas of volume and undulation also bring to mind Martin Creed's balloon works, and Paul Chan's Breathers. But here it will be at architectural scale, 14 meters high.

[riversidearchives]

Happy Birthday, NASA!

On this date in 1958, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) became an official government agency, succeeding NACA (National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics). 

Since it is NASA’s birthday, why not celebrate with some space balloons, or satelloons? In 1960, NASA launched Project Echo, which consisted of balloon satellites designed to reflect microwave signals and bounce them back to earth. 

There were two satelloons--the first one named Echo I launched in 1960, and Echo II was launched in 1964. Echo I lasted until 1968 and Echo II lasted until 1969.  

The images we have shared show an artist's conception of the satellite before being inflated, how the satelloon would be deployed in space, and a sample of the material used to make Echo II’s skin. 

To learn more about NASA’s Project Echo, please visit https://go.nasa.gov/2KWtlv7. 

Series: Historical Photograph Files. Record Group 181: Records of Naval Districts and Shore Establishments, 1784-2000.

[ustribunenews-blog]

Back in time, 2016 NASA Image: Goldstone Tracking the Echo Satelloon.

Back in time, 2016 NASA Image: Goldstone Tracking the Echo Satelloon.

This image was taken in 2016 by NASA/JPL-Caltech. It remains mesmerizing to this day.

This archival photograph shows the first pass of Echo 1, America first communications satellite, over the Goldstone Tracking Station managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, in the early morning of Aug. 12, 1960.

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL’s…

[alternative-eyes]

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eGO0h4w_uy4/V-54kWFrztI/AAAAAAAAgaw/ElI_6DEKPpco77UxhNBREBgPk3qJhdMbACLcB/s1600/Roswell%2BInformation%2Bis%2BSlowly%2BFading%2BAway.png

      Well, we have a new solution to the Roswell case. No, it’s not a weather balloon as the Army Air Forces claimed in 1947 and no, it’s not a Project Mogul balloon that many skeptics and the Air Force have claimed, starting with Robert Todd in the early 1990s (or late 1980s) but something called a satelloon. This was, is, a huge polyethylene balloon that had been covered with a thin layer of aluminum to enhance the reflective properties and create a passive communications satellite or something like that.

By Kevin Randle A Different Perspective 6-14-18

Dr. Bob W. Gross appeared this last week (June 12) on Martin Willis’ show, UFO Live. Gross, who had lived in New Mexico from 2001 to 2010 and who traveled all over the state, thought that he had the solution to the Roswell case. Naturally, I was skeptical. You can listen here (Roswell begins in the second hour). And you can read more about his theories here:

An Extraterrestrial Flying Disk Crashed Near Roswell in 1947: Not a UFO An Extraterrestrial Flying Disk Crashed Near Roswell in 1947: Not a UFO -PT2-

Here’s the problem as I see it. Gross has cherry-picked his evidence to bolster his theory. He talked of the debris field and the metallic residue that had been collected there. These were fragments of one of these aluminumized balloons that had exploded and rained down the debris or so he claimed. Apparently, they can explode. See The Odyssey of Project Echo. But the problem is that he has ignored the other debris found there as described to me by Bill Brazel. Brazel said:

There was only three items involved. Something on the order of balsa wood and something on the order of heavy gauge monofilament fishing line and a little piece of… it wasn’t really aluminum foil and it wasn’t really lead foil but it was on that order…

Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

While the piece of aluminum-like material could have been the remains of one of these satelloons, the other two pieces were not. According to Brazel, you could shine a light in one end and have it come out the other, or, in other words, he was talking about fiber optics. And the balsa like material was so strong that he couldn’t get a shaving using his pocket knife.

Gross also said that these satelloons took on a disk shape, at least the early versions did and that some of them were tested in New Mexico, hidden in the Mogul arrays. In my many communications with Charles Moore, among others, nothing like that was ever mentioned, and I suspect that if the Air Force could have connected these two events together, they would have done so.

Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

The real problem with this theory is that I can find nothing to support the idea that the testing was going on in New Mexico in 1947. In fact, there is quite the history available on the topic and the research around it. You can find more about all this and Project Echo satelloons here. And the history of these “Giant Spheres” here:

A Minor History Of / Giant Spheres

And here:

NASA's Early Inflatable Spacecraft, the Satelloon

'History Detectives' investigate the case of the mylar mystery

While I can find nothing that suggests any of this was going on in 1947, Gross alluded to witnesses and documents that could do that. If true, then he might have something. However, it is difficult to ignore the information about the debris provided by Brazel and Jesse Marcel, Sr., and several others who handled it in 1947, which doesn’t fit with his descriptions. And, while Gross said that he found no testimony of anyone seeing the flying saucer crash, there are those who reported seeing a more intact structure, not on the debris field, but on a secondary site some distance away. That testimony seems to have escaped his research. No, the problem is that all the information that I have been able to find does not put any of these strange balloons in New Mexico in 1947. Unless he can do that, this falls into the same category of the anthropomorphic dummies that Captain James McAndrew used in his attempt to explain the bodies reported by some of the witnesses. The timing is just flat wrong. If the dummies weren’t being dropped in 1947 and the satelloons weren’t being tested in 1947, then the explanations fail at that point. We must wait, however, for Gross to provide the additional documentation and witnesses that he claims to have before providing a final analysis. That will be coming in his book.

Continue Reading ► See Also: An Extraterrestrial Flying Disk Crashed Near Roswell in 1947: Not a UFO An Extraterrestrial Flying Disk Crashed Near Roswell in 1947: Not a UFO -PT2- Roswell Witness Described 'Morphing Memory Metal'

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A New Roswell Solution? http://www.theufochronicles.com/2018/06/a-new-roswell-solution.html

[keithgaboury]

No Balloons for JPL’s Birthday, Just a ‘Satelloon’

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[gregdotorg]

Palomar Observatory Sky Survey X Satelloons at the National Academies of Science

So apparently the talk I gave about the show I organized has been on YouTube this whole time?

[gregdotorg]

Ah Paris, the City of Lights, the City of Love, the City of Balloons, and the City of Lighted Balloons I Love.

[gregdotorg]

The Chinese Star

Nazi-American Werner von Braun suggested the US should launch a giant, white balloon into space just so it'd be visible to the [teeming masses of the uncivilized/non-Western] world. He called it The American Star.