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I'm going back 66 years ago, tomorrow night August 12th, 1960. Echo 1A was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a three-stage door delta rocket. I suspect I know some of you are probably thinking like, how do you launch a balloon bigger than a basketball court in orbit? I'm aboard a rocket. Well it was folded tightly inside a canister. That's in orbit. They had some chemistry going on. They had inside the balloon. They had benzoic acid and anthroquinone, which went warm by the sunlight. It's these two compounds sublime and degenerative vapor, which fills the balloon. So, you know, gently inflating Echo into this brilliant silver sphere, the aluminized mylar kind of mirror surface. You have this giant sphere.
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