Cigar shaped balloon satellite?

March 8, 2013 7:09 PM

When I was a kid, about 1961, my parents took me and my siblings out one night to watch the sky for a satellite. It was described as being a giant silvered balloon, which was oblong. They called it "Cigar" and it was easy to observe, and definitely tumbling as it went over us.

I can't find any reference to any such thing, and I'm wondering what it was. I can only find three such satellite balloons: Echo 1, Echo 2, and PAGEOS, and they were all spheres. Was it maybe something the USSR sent up? Or did I imagine it?

posted by Chocolate Pickle to science & nature (12 answers total)

Where did this happen?
posted by fshgrl at 7:22 PM on March 8 [1 favorite]

Portland, Oregon. I think the satellite was in a polar orbit, because it went right over us. It wasn't down on the horizon.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:03 PM on March 8

Was this with the naked eye? How big did it appear? What month or season was it?
posted by zamboni at 8:12 PM on March 8

Yes, with the naked eye. It was very large and bright and easy to see. I think it must have been summer because I don't remember bundling up.

This was 50 years ago when I was in first grade. I don't remember a lot of details. My parents said that it was a giant balloon like Echo 1, except that it wasn't a sphere.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:23 PM on March 8

Not cigar shaped, but Echo. Silver mylar balloon. Up until that time the largest and brightest satellite in the night sky, 100 feet in diameter.
posted by JackFlash at 8:29 PM on March 8 [1 favorite]

Yes, I know about Echo. (I linked it in my question.) I'm sure that isn't what I saw, because Echo wouldn't have tumbled the way I remember. And there's no reason why my parents would have called it "Cigar"; I was an avid space freak at that age and knew all about Echo.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:16 PM on March 8

Throwing this out there, just in case.
posted by unknowncommand at 9:20 PM on March 8

Oh yes, I'm totally wrong.
posted by unknowncommand at 9:21 PM on March 8

Is there any way it was a Corona low-orbit satellite? More likely, it was a plain old weather balloon, which can often appear cigar-shaped at a distance.

While perhaps unrelated, unidentified flying objects were commonly called "cigare volant", or flying cigar, in mid-century France.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 9:39 PM on March 8

I think the reason my parents took us out to see it is that they saw something in the newpaper about when it would be visible. That wouldn't have happened with a weather balloon. (Also they weren't in the habit of deceiving us, and they told us it was a satellite.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:13 PM on March 8

You may very well have been observing Echo 1. By 1961, one year after insertion into orbit, Echo 1 was reported to have deflated to just over half to three-quarters its original volume. As reported by AP in August 1961, "Some believe it may have shrunk to a diameter of perhaps 70 feet. Others suggest it has lost it's spherical symmetry and has taken somewhat the form of a football..." This article from 1963 reports the skin was 'wrinkled like a prune' (adding it was the only satellite visible to the naked eye). These effects could have explained the fluctuations in brightness as it passed overhead.
posted by prinado at 11:41 PM on March 8 [1 favorite]

It never occurred to me that Echo 1 might have partially deflated, but it's obvious that could have happened. I though my parents used "cigar" as a formal name, but they may simply have been using it as a description of the shape of the partially-deflated Echo 1. I think Prinado has it.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:29 AM on March 9