The Age of the Aeronaut
Aeronauts were the first voyagers and navigators of flight. Ballooning made celebrities of aeronauts, whose adventures filled newspapers, sold books, and inspired works of fiction. Flight offered a sense of freedom and a radical new frontier for exploration.
Flights of fancy did not stop with ballooning, as inventors, engineers, and scientists devised navigable airships and early planes. The search for new modes of flight continues to propel science and the imagination today.
