/tags/floating/Recent content in Floating on Gromet's Plaza ArchiveHugoen-usSun, 04 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000/stories/2014/05/04/balloon-ride/Sun, 04 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000/stories/2014/05/04/balloon-ride/<p>Her name, ironically, was Sapphire Skye. Ironic because Dr. Skye, as she was also known, was a leading expert in meteorology. She was also well known in meteorological circles as the designer of the newest generation of weather balloons. Especially ironic now, considering her situation.</p> <p>Sapphire woke slowly, her mind still foggy with sleep. Fuzzily, she remembered being in her lab, preparing for a test release. The space boys needed information about air currents over their launch sites, stating a concern for the effects of wind speed on launch trajectory. Sapphire had thus planned a timed series of releases, in order to gauge how upper atmospheric wind speeds changed during the day. Her last clear memory had been of inspecting the final balloon prior to launching the first.</p>