Human beings flying for the first time

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Professor Fiona Stafford imagines the thrill of the first human balloon flights. Photo: An illustration of French aeronauts Jacques Charles (1746 - 1823) and Nicolas Robert descending at Nesles in France, watched by the Duc de Chartres and others, after travelling 27 miles from Les Tuileries, Paris, in the first manned hydrogen balloon flight. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)