Circumnavigation of the world - Balloons
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<BODY>While it is no longer known how many of the 16th century Portuguese nobility laughed heartily at Vasco da Gama before he set out on his wrong way voyage to
the Indies what they would not have laughed at was his mode of transport. Ships could get a long way.<BR/> Nothing had, at that time, been invented which could take man around the globe faster and more reliably.<BR/>
If anything would do it, it would be a ship.<p>
In the early twentieth century pundits weren't laughing either at the voyages of Louis Bleriot (first to cross the Channel in 1909) an of John Alcock and Arthur Witten Brown (first to cross the Atlantic in 1919). This is probably because aircraft are fast, fairly reliable, powerful and steerable. In fact because they were the early twentieth century equivalent of the ship.<p>
However, rather than looking for new modes of transportation late twentieth century attempts at circumnavigation have consisted most especially in a method
of transport which was long ago abandoned by all but the least hurried, un-worried of travellers. <p>The balloon.<p>
It is important to point out at this stage that balloon transport was abandoned in favour of airplanes some time after the first world war. This was because it was unreliable, unsteerable, unsafe and slow.<p>
The distinct lack of laughter surrounding most of the late twentieth century attempts to use this mode of transport for any purpose at all has been seen by some as indicative of extreme boredom in the minds of the Western 20th century population.<p>
Or extreme indifference.
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