When Lieut.-Commander Thomas G. W. ("Tex") Settle's big stratosphere balloon was jockeyed out of its air dock at Akron one early morning last week only a few hundred persons had turned out to watch. On hand were no admirals, no major generals, no tycoons such as graced the seven-hour ceremonies preceding the Settle flight last August which was brought to a quick and ignominious finish in a Chicago railroad yard by a defective valve (TIME, Aug. 14). Since then Soviet stratospherists had made the chances of a new record harder by ascending...
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