Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility

There's a balloon going up tomorrow morning, It's being launched from Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The story is a bit confusing because it says the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, which Google puts in Palestine, Texas. However, both the site in New Mexico and the one in Texas are both run by the University of New Mexico. The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility lists both sites as well as some others.



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This is the one in Palestine. The big circle is about two thousand feet across. I find it gratifying when I look up a place on Google Maps and find something there that corresponds to the information that led me here. This is East Texas, a couple miles West of Palestine, just down the road from Nacogdoches and roughly equidistant from Dallas, Houston and Shreveport, Louisiana. The name Nacogdoches (pronounced Nak-a-doe-ches, by me anyway) sticks in my mind for some reason. The only thing I've come up with is that the Stephen F. Austin State University is there, though I have no idea why that might be important.