Day Fourteen: First Human Flight

Over the summer I created over 35 achievement badges for the Withings Health Mate fitness app.

Day fourteen is the first human flight.

-------------

“The modern era of flight lifted off in 1783 when two brothers demonstrated their invention, the hot-air balloon, before a crowd of dignitaries in Annonay, France. Joseph-Michael and Jacques-Ètienne Montgolfier, prosperous paper manufacturers (a high-tech industry at the time), began experimenting with lighter-than-air devices after observing that heated air flowing directed into a paper or fabric bag made the bag rise.

The Montgolfier brothers built a balloon made of silk and lined with paper that was 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter and launched it — with nobody aboard — from the marketplace in Annonay on June 4, 1783. The balloon rose 5,200-6,600 feet (1,600-2,000 meters), stayed aloft for 10 minutes and traveled more than a mile — about 2 kilometers.

On Oct. 15, 1783, they launched a balloon on a tether with Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, a chemistry and physics teacher, aboard. He stayed aloft for almost four minutes.”

(From Space.com)