Pushkin

Irving Langmueur stood in the control tower at the airport at Schenectady, upstate New York.

He was gazing intently upwards, who binoculars a little single propeller aeroplane.

Langmueur was in his mid-60s.

Grey hair, round glasses, every inch, the distinguished scientist.

The year was 1946, a cold and crisp November morning, barely above freezing, with an almost completely clear blue sky.

Almost.

There were some clouds, 50 miles away, and that's where the little plane was heading.

The plane had four seats, two were occupied.

In one, sat the pilot.

In the other, Irving Langmueur's assistant, a man called Vincent Schafer.

He had with him a cardboard box containing six pounds of crushed dry ice,

and a motorized dispenser he'd rigged up back in the lab.

The little plane had taken 40 minutes to climb to 10,000 feet,

but the cloud that Vincent Schafer wanted to fly into was higher still.

Can we get to it? He asked.

The pilot pushed the plane upwards.

At 13,000 feet, they reached the cloud.

Just a little higher.

Schafer looked at his thermometer, minus 17.5 degrees Fahrenheit,

27.5 degrees Celsius.

He fired up the dispenser.

...