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During the late nineteenth century, aeronauts tested the practical capabilities of the balloon with newly introduced technologies such as photography. Making his first ascent in 1844 at the age of twenty-five, the English aeronaut Henry Tracey Coxwell spent the next forty years developing the balloon as an aerial platform. He led the British Association for the Advancement of Science project to investigate the upper atmosphere and helped pioneer the fields of aerial photography and military reconnaissance. Several years after retiring, he published a memoir detailing his long and propitious career without a single serious accident. Our exhibition on the history of ballooning, "Into the Ether: Published Works on Ballooning and Atmospheric Studies, 1783–1910" is now on display in the Aviation Museum and Library. http://bit.ly/IntoTheEther This image was posted on August 16, 2018.

This post mentions the following things involved with the SFO Museum collection: