Flying Pigs and Balloons to the Moon (in June)

It is not always well-known that the invention of flying machines began with a bag of air, a stick and a piece of string. Pig bladders had been used for centuries for a variety of uses that exploited the fact that the lightweight, tough membranes could be stretched to a rather large size and stuffed with...stuff...which became known as 'stuffing'. Also sausages. It was during a Fasching parade in Bad Ausee (not to be confused with f___g parades of bad Aussies) in the mid-19th Century, during which inflated pig bladders tied to sticks were traditionally paraded in a parade (no, I am not making this up. Times were simpler, then; people had to make their own fun...), when one of the bladders seemed a little underinflated. 'Not to worry!' exclaimed the parade marshal, who was also the wealthiest burgher in the burgh, as well as the mayor, chief of police, dog-catcher and member of parliament. He grabbed the bladder, and with a few mighty puffs, inflated it to its maximum size. Imagine the surprise of the crowd when, upon being released, the pig bladder floated serenely away into the clouds, hauling its festive stick into the heavens! Decades of discussion and controversy followed: was it a specific kind of pig bladder? Was it a magic stick? Was it simply an unusual wind current? Sherlock Holmes finally solved the mystery, in his deducing way (see The Mystery of the Mysteriously Inflated Bladder) and fingered the mayor, who by now was a withered old man barely surviving on the largest pension he had been able to award himself, in fact the largest pension in the burgh's history, but that's another story. Confronting the old mayor, Sherlock asked him 'Please blow into this bladder, sir!', to which the mayor replied 'I haven't had a drink yet today, and besides, I don't even own a car...' (actually, it was rumoured that he had a dozen Mercedes Benzes, several Porsches and a Chevrolet because they were usually seen all parked neatly in front of his palace, though he claimed they belonged to 'temporary foreign workers').

why won't it fly?

would you like to ride...?

Not one to be out-witted, Sherlock stated in his best imperialist British upper crust accent 'It is for science, my good man!'. The mayor reluctantly huffed and puffed until the bladder was adequately inflated, at which point he died, but Sherlock, not to be upstaged, lifted the bladder above his head in front of the townspeople, released it, and as the town collectively gasped in amazement, watched triumphantly as the pig's bladder sailed away into the still-uncluttered heavens. 'Elementary', he was heard to remark, but not to Watson, who was off trying to discover the 'bad' in Bad Ausee...'hot air rises'. Several persons in the crowd were heard to mumble 'I still think it was the stick'. The resulting schism between 'Stick Persons' and 'Hot Air Persons' has plagued science ever since. The relationship between politicians and pigs is well-known, and continues to plague the rest of the world. Indeed, every promise made by a politician ever since has been met with eye-rolling and the observation '...and pigs will fly...'.

Be that as it may, people began to dream about flying. If a stick could fly attached to a pig's bladder, why not a human being? It's completely logical. Tests began, but as most people with any sense were reluctant to leave the ground tied to a bunch of pig bladders, human substitutes were used. To quell dissent from the Stick Persons, the Hot Air Persons showed that anything tied to a 'balloon' (the new scientific term for 'inflated bladder', thanks to Michael Faraday) could be lifted off the ground, a bunch of carrots, for example (now the famous 'carrot and stick' theory, of course). Other tests were less successful. The famous Pony Cart Experiment (above) just would not fly, but not to be easily defeated, the best minds in the world deduced that it was not just the balloons that needed to be inflated, it was also the pony! Thus was launched one of the greatest periods of scientific experiment ever known to ponies.

this could work...M. Testu-Brissy

Alas, after many unfortunate, albeit sometimes interesting, attempts to inflate ponies, it was deduced that 'pony balloons' were not likely to be a commercial success, with the possible exception of Monsieur Pierre Testu-Brissy, who made about fifty balloon flights on a horse in the early 19th Century. The subsequent invention of the automobile made this less attractive as a means of transportation; however, as we shall see, his experiments were not forgotten...

up...up...and aweigh anchor, b'y!

In any case, this didn't stop the dreamers, of course. Even children, entranced with balloons and the possibility of an exciting and lucrative career in science, were found conducting brilliant experiments in local parks. Many went on to become astronauts. Others continued their pointless experiments well into middle age, or to an untimely and frequently messy end, or the cancellation of their government grants, whichever came first. Some were able to scrape out a living by inflating ponies for special events. Some still believe, that if one has a large enough inflated pony, expensive trips by steam ship could be avoided simply by hooking up the family car with strong ropes, an unusual branch of string theory which has not, as yet, produced practical results; nevertheless, an interesting extension of Monsieur Testu-Brissy's work.

Perhaps the most interesting branch of study currently being pursued  is by a sub-group of Horse Whisperers called Horse Flyers (also known as the Pegasus People), who have dedicated their lives to teaching horses to fly. Again, successful results are spotty, and practical applications are still not well-articulated, but not everything in science is immediately apparent. After all, who would have thought that an inflated pig bladder on a stick could lead to such fantastic advancements in human knowledge and accomplishments? Think about this next time you're on a transatlantic flight feeling like stuffing in a sausage...you are, sort of.

A Horse Flyer brings her steed in for a smooth landing...