Space Oddity
“In
the first part of a bird’s flight, as it rises, it launches obliquely as high
as possible, and if the obliquity of this first path approaches the vertical, that
is because it is hastening to get to a suitable height to glide.”
Georges
Racle, Direction des Aérostats, Auguste Ghio Éditeur, 1883
When the very first
hydrogen balloon in history crashed in Gonesse on August 27, 1783, it caused panic among the inhabitants, who received it with pitchforks and stones; the “diabolical” creature was tied to the tail of a horse, which dragged the shapeless object across the fields. An “Instruction to the people” was quickly published by the Intendant of the Généralité de Paris, specifying that “anyone who discovers such globes in the sky, which have the appearance of the darkened moon, must therefore be warned that far from being a frightening phenomenon, it is only a machine (...), which can cause no harm, and of which it is to be presumed that some day useful applications will be made to the needs of society”; the conquest of air and space was underway. Combining texts and images from various periods and sources, Space Oddity revisits and
questions this famous episode in Gonesse’s history.
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