Round-the-World Flights

GHOST Becomes a Constant-Altitude Semi-permanent RTW Floating Balloon Platform

Page 4o (rev: 1001)

Flown Cover	Cachet	Cancellation	Earth	Balloon Ascending

	Predicting the weather used to be a local endeavor. It was always difficult
because there were so many implied variables to be considered. Predictions 
were equally wrong as they were correct. As scientific methods improved, 
methods of prediction became more sophisticated. Quantitative measurement of 
the wind, air pressure, temperature and humidity became essential ingredients 
to more accurate weather prediction. Weather was not a local matter but a 
global phenomenon. Weather while experienced on the earth's surface was caused 
by conditions high in the atmosphere. Weather was not fixed but a continuous 
sequence of change.

	Pursuant to the aims of the World Weather Watch meteorologist, Dr. Johnu 
Klo invented or at least perfected the GHOST method (Global Horizontal Sounding 
Technique) for the collection of atmospheric weather data. GHOST was a 
worldwide system of free-floating semi-rigid balloons connected electronically 
to monitoring stations. Each balloon was fitted with sensors and 
instrumentation and became an unmanned constant-altitude semi-permanent 
platform artificial earth satellite that circled the globe. Their area of 
observation was the entire world. 

	In 1949 the US Air Force founded the Cambridge Research Laboratory (AFCRL) 
at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. AFCRL participated in the GHOST 
techniques of weather data collection. 

	In 1957 the balloon, J.F. Kennedy (Flight #182) was launched from Neldu, 
Ghana (West Africa) as part of GHOST to travel round-the-world collecting 
weather data. View another cover canceled in Liberia for Flight #58 of the balloon,
J.F. Kennedy.

	In 1960 the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was established 
to better understand the earth system of weather formation and forecasting. On 
April 1, 1960 the first weather satellite, TIROS was launched into polar orbit 
of the earth. For the first time man would see his earth from above instead of 
seeing weather from below.   	

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