Balloon expedition across the Atlantic

In 1978, two Americans flew a hot air balloon across the Atlantic for six days, and the news became one of the most sensational at the time.

　　To this end, several newspapers in the United States trumpeted the superiority of white people. This time deeply stimulated Tuttle, who had just graduated from Stanford University. He was from the Republic of Mali and was a person of color. He didn't believe in what white people could do, so he couldn't do it himself, so he found two classmates from his university and decided to also Go on a balloon expedition across the Atlantic.

　　After some preparation, Tuttle and his classmates bought a large, beautiful and strong balloon and named it "Athena". It was filled with 250 kilograms of lead, 30 bags of sandbags and a lot of food.

　　On August 3, 1989, they boarded a balloon and took off from Massachusetts. Thus, an expedition flight of people of color to challenge whites began.

　　Three days later, the "Athena" came to a place about 960 kilometers away from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Because the pod was open and roofless, the three people felt the biting cold wind.

　　That night, Tuttle received a message from the weather station that there was a storm cyclone in front of them and that if the balloon remained 4,000 meters in the air, it was in danger of being blown away by the cyclone.

　　What should I do, return to the United States? Tuttle pondered for a moment, gritted his teeth, and said in and out of his mouth: "Don't think so much, raise the balloon and pass through the storm cyclone!"

　　The "Athena" quickly rose to an altitude of 6,000 meters and finally avoided the terrible cyclone. However, as soon as the temperature dropped from minus 4 degrees Celsius to minus 26 degrees Celsius, Tuttle and the others were shivering from the cold, so they had to eat and dance disco non-stop, because only in this way would they not be frozen.

　　Two more days later, Tuttle had broken a white record of 107 consecutive hours, and by this time he was not far from the coast of Ireland.

　　Just as the "Athena" had just drilled into a dense cloud, a cold current suddenly jumped towards it from the sea, and the helium in the airbag suddenly contracted. A few seconds later, the balloon began to descend sharply, and it actually fell from more than 6,000 meters. It dropped to 1200 meters at once, stayed at this height for a while, and then descended again.

　　Seeing that the situation was not good, Tuttle hurriedly shouted: "Quick! Throw the lead out!"

　　His two companions woke up like a dream, quickly grabbed the lead block and threw it down. Although the balloon's descent slowed down a lot, it couldn't be stopped, and it was about to fall into the sea. At this critical moment, Tuttle shouted again: "And sandbags!"

　　The three of them were in a hurry for a while, throwing all the lead blocks and sandbags away. At this time, the balloon finally stabilized and floated east at a height of 800 meters. Two hours later, the "Athena" airbag received enough heat under the sunlight and finally rose to a safer height. Tuttle then let go of a hanging heart.

　　The next afternoon, the Athena entered France. Along the way, Tuttle was really excited to see people watching the balloons with binoculars everywhere.

　　When the "Athena" passed the Dewey Racecourse, Tuttle knew that the end was near, so he and his companions threw away the debris in the balloon one by one, and let the balloon slowly land in a wheat field.

　　The three walked out of the balloon hand in hand, and were surprised to find that most of the crowd were blacks, Indians and some people of color. They immediately understood that it was their successful expedition that made these people of color feel proud. Come to share happiness.

　　When Tuttle was hugged tightly, he couldn't help it any longer, letting the tears of excitement flow.