Page 16 - Demo

the first balloon across the English Channel. Piccard died in 2020.%u2022 Over the years, the balloon La Coquette was occasionally brought out of storage for demonstration flights. In 2010, it was donated to the International Balloon Museum in Albuquerque, NM.%u2022 It%u2019s unknown whether Charles Thatcher recouped his expenses by selling First Day Covers flown aboard La Coquette, but the covers are relatively scarce today.%u2022 Two months before Operation Jupiter, Postmaster General Summerfield said, %u201cBefore man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered The only know letter mailed on the Jupiter on August 17, 1859. Now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles...We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.%u201d While there were some rocket-mail experiments, his Buck Rogers-like prediction was never realized. Summerfield died in 1972.%u2022 The Jupiter stamp can still be used for postage, although several would be required to mail a letter at the current First Class rate. On May 1, 1977 Air Mail was formally eliminated by the Post Office as a separate service.%u2022 There was hope that a second Jupiter stamp would be issued in 2009 to honor the 150th anniversary of Wise%u2019s ascension, along with another re-enactment flight%u2014but nothing came of it.