Show Cosmic Ray Balloon Tracked race to Earth art artan by an Airplane A Washington A star fell on a tobacco row at a farm near the little town of Aquasco Md some 30 miles from Washing Washing- ton Moreover an airplane chased the star to earth Or at least that is what Franklyn Irvin Gibbons thought as he stopped hoeing his tobacco recently and watched a plane following a shining object coming down from the sky into his nearby cornfield The star was a radio balloon sent aloft by Dr L. L F F. F Curtiss of the national bureau of standards which ascended some 17 miles and transmitted back to earth cosmic ray data The zooming airplane was from the United States naval air station flown by W. W B. B Fuller radioman radioman radio radio- radioman man first class and O. O T. T Cooper chief radioman They noted the shining bag of the radio balloon falling at the rate of about miles an hour at an altitude of feet and dove to follow it to its landing The coincidence is the first ever known to occur in the new field of radio by which scientists scientists are now probing the upper air to learn its weather and cosmic ray ray secrets Tiny radio transmitting sets carried carried carried car car- ried aloft in small unmanned balloons balloons bal bal- loons are reaching far beyond the limits of human flight in either airplanes airplanes airplanes air air- planes or balloons |