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Ballooning into Space
flyboy writes: "Two ballooners are going to attempt to get to 132,000 feet in a helium balloon named QinetiQ1. They are going to do this wearing spacesuits and sit in what looks like armchairs in an open gondola. From that altitude the sky is black and you look down on whole countries in one go. It looks like they might actually do it as well, since they have some serious backing, they are sponsored and supported by the former DERA, who have lots of experience in all things aeronautic."
Sounds like a lot of hot air to me.
I wonder how much taxpayer dollars the Coast Guard will spend to fish these guys out of the sea?
It seems like a really cool thing to do here, but I sure hope that QuinetiQ plans for the inevitiable failure. Frankly, the government should rethink its policy and seek reimbursement from thrillseekers.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Wasn't someone going to do something similar to this and then skydive out of the balloon? And break a couple records in the process?
OUT! OUT, Damned Spot!
It will be interesting to see how they get around the issues of buoyancy in thinner atmosphere and keep the balloon from exploding in a reduced-pressure environment. I'd take a parachute up along with my spacesuit, if I were one of those fellows...
:)
Boy. Parachuting down from 30 miles up would be a hell of a trip.
-djere
(And what would you call
"Old man yells at systemd"
Hmm, that's around 25 miles away from the surface of the Earth. And they plan on surviving the flight and coming back down to this ever-increasing hell-hole of a planet because...? If I were them, I'd strap a live webcam to myself and see how close I could get to the Sun before my port80 got FUBAR.
;-)
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
We intend to fly QinetiQ 1 on a clear day, enabling people to see it with the naked eye from up to 600 miles away. Potentially several hundred million people will witness the flight as a live event.
So if the thing is as high as the Empire State Building (~1400ft), is it still likely to be visible from 600 miles away? Somehow I doubt it - that's like standing on top of the Sears Towers and seeing the Empire State Building!
Ceci n'est pas une sig
Maybe there is a reason no one has tried this since 1961... No oxygen, Minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Good thing the ballon doesn't have to worry about re-entry. Next thing you know, they'll want to take a money up with them, to "see how it copes with the conditions".
Does anyone else out there think they should give up on the whole balloons idea? How many expensive, embarrasing failures have we seen in the last few years?
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
It's quite qlear the quest for qonquering the qlear blue sqies in balloons is a qonstant qraving qaraqteristiq of manqind, and it qannot be squelched by qonsterning ballooning qatastrophes that oqqured in past deqades.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Yeah, it's an Aussie who claims with a straight face that it's a scientific experiment, not a stunt. (Of course, he's already sold the rights to a television producer..."Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, Dorothy.")
Anyway, here is the story.
I wouldn't discount this as a hairbrain idea from some thrill seekers. If you look at the cost of launching any payloads to that altitude, it makes the cost of specialized ballons look a lot better. I'm not sure what the use of getting people up there is, but as stated in the post, there isn't much atmosphere above you and hence not much turbulance, so things like short, month-long telescope missions and other scientific observation could be done much cheaper.
If I can dig up some links I've seen about this, I'll post.
Cheers,
JD
Close but no cigar.
It's good to see they're thinking ahead. If with QinetiQ 1 you don't succeed, you can always build QinetiQ 2, and QinetiQ 3, and so forth. With numbering, failure is wisely considered a part of the program! Just don't tell that to the guys flying up.
As long as the funding keeps flowing in, they can always find someone to strap themselves into the gondola of doom.
Ceci n'est pas une sig
Have they washed today?
This sort of reminds me of the experiment where a guy in the US Military went up in a balloon about arround the same height and then parachutted down from that height. In the process, the guy actually lost a glove yet his hand managed to survive along with himself.
;)).
Though, I wouldn't even attempt to go that high in anything unless it had wings and an engine (with the exception of the Space Shuttle
There's an ad for suborbital space flights starting December 1, 2001. Price, $98,000. This has to be an old, bogus site; it's supposed to use the Vela "Space Cruiser", which was never built.
...look down on whole countries in one go...
If you're in the Vatican, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Andorra etc. you could see the whole country from the top of a tall building - if there were actually any tall buildings in these places.
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HmmmmmmmMMMmm. This sounds like another darwin award in the making!
Sounds like some serious Darwin contenders to me.
Why?
....Be careful of dueling with dragons - you are crunchy and taste good with tomato sauce....
It really is quite incredible what they're doing. There are so many dangers to account for and things to take into account. Such as: what the hell are we going to do for three to five hours on the way up? Will my Gameboy work at 132,000 feet? What if we fart in our spacesuits? What if the "cosmic radiation" (sounds like bad news to me) turns us into horrible monsters and Captain _______ has to destroy us in order to save humanity? Why on Earth (pun intended) did we choose the hideous combination of brick red and sky blue for our flight deck color? Are we the same dumbasses who bought all the balloons from the guy at the carnival then jumped off the roof to see if we'd float? What kind of shrinkage can we expect at -25C?
These all must be taken into account before such an undertaking is... undertaken. I just hope they realize this. God be with you, you brave, misguided souls.
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"CREAM will be carried by the balloon to gather experimental data at these unexplored heights. The results could help provide data for the development of hypersonic commercial intercontinental travel." (It also goes great with pies)
Thank God for CREAM!
Just don't wind up in the Land of Oz!
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
ITN World News for Public Television had a short piece tonight with the balloonists cavorting around Trafalgar Square in their Soviet-made spacesuits. Andy and Colin seemed quite competent despite their stated goal of reaching outer space in a helium balloon.
Bon voyage!
I just looked outside and the sky is black. Help! Save me!! I don't know how to get down!!!
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OK. Just some crazy thinking...
Did you guys see this picture:
http://www.qinetiq1.com/gfx/large_balloon.jpg
That is a HUGE balloon!
Now here is my thinking...
Remember the Hindenburg? (sp?)
What if this actually worked and on the next attempt they fill the balloon with Hydrogen?
If they built a special gandola which was a SMALL spacecraft, they could use the hydrogen from the balloon as fuel and possible exit the earths orbit.
Would this work? I don't have access to any of the math behind this so someone with experience could help.
... and we all know that everyone on Slashdot is a Rocket Scientist!
Nice, but 132000 feet is only 25 miles, just half of what USAF awards astronaut wings for (50 miles, and some X-15 pilots earned them). Even less than half of the 100 km that the International Aeronautical Federation considers the edge of space.
Still, it sounds like a fun ride!
-- Alastair
Two ballooners are going to attempt to get to 132,000 feet in a helium balloon named QinetiQ1. They are going to do this wearing spacesuits and sit in what looks like armchairs in an open gondola
Why does this story sound eerily like an acid trip?
Stoner 1: "And then we went up really really high in an air balloon called the QinetiQ1"
Stoner 2: "And also we were wearing these really really shiny spacesuits man."
Stoner 1: "And we could see everybody and they were like these really really tiny ants..."
Stoner 2: "And also we could, like, read their thoughts... and see time as really really pretty colors"
I just pray that the "reentry" doesn't find them emerging from a cloud on a couch in front of MTV at 3am in the morning.
I was wondering if at that height they'd be floating about with or without a balloon due to lack of gravity. This is from the site:
;-)
It is a popular myth that weightlessness is caused by the lack of gravity in space. In fact, the apparent weightlessness is a consequence of astronauts and their surroundings all moving together without resisting gravity. Satellites and spacecraft are still subject to gravity, but because they are moving fast enough horizontally, gravity pulls their path into a circle or orbit. The balloon itself will float with the wind and will travel at no more than 10-15 mph in an upward or downward direction. So the weight of the pilots will not be affected by the height they reach.
I can just about buy the bit about spacecraft, centrifugal forces or whatnot, but I'm still trying to figure out if they're trying to imply that these balloonists will have sea-level like weight at that height. Anyone?
Anyone know how 'high' you've got to get before you do float about because of a lack of gravity (oh my, what have I asked
First thing I thought of, the open capsule, they could sky dive down. /. even ran an article on space sky diving.
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The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. - Douglas Adams
It depends on the distance to the earth's center of mass. Double the distance from the center of the earth, and you'll quarter your effective weight. Since the radius of the earth is roughly 3960 miles, and these guys are planning on going to about 26 miles up, they're going to weigh 98% of what they do on earth.
Talk about ultra slim-fast. Not much of an effect, really.
Terminal Velocity talks about Cheryl Stears (U.S.) and Rodd Millner (Australia) who are both going for a record skydiving attempt from 130,000 feet. It looks like QinetiQ is going for altitude. Millner and Stearns are going for altitude and extreme gravitational acceleration.
For every 1 kilo of Hydrogen you burn, you need 8 kilos of Oxygen. Where do you get it?
You can't carry it as payload, obviously, because when you multiply the weight by 9 you no longer have a lighter-than-air craft.
So, you have to rely on ambient oxygen. And there just isn't enough at that altitude.
Nice idea, though. Pity about those pesky laws of physics.
You could literally take a nap while in free fall!
Although I doubt they'd be able to sleep. That's crazy to think they could be falling and just fall to sleep. They need some sort of board to lay on that will keep them from flipping around while falling.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
This does not really strike me as a major aeronautical achievement.
Col. Kittinger did a 102,800ft rise in a balloon back in the early 60s (Project "Man high"). The thing that makes this ballon trip unforgettable to history (at least for me and at least until somebody pushes the limit) is the fact that he opened up the gondola he was hanging in to throw himself out into the hands of gravity for 18 1/2 miles.
You can read up on it here and here
+++ath0
They will have VERY close to sea level weight at that altitude.
Don't think of weightlesness as being "away from the influence of gravity", instead think of it as being "in freefall" i.e. not resisting gravity but rather just falling with it.
Astronauts in earth orbit feel weightless, even though they are still subject to (almost) 100% of earth's gravity. Why? Because instead of resisting gravity (by standing on an immovable surface), they are just letting themselves free fall under the influence of gravity.
A circular or elliptical orbit may not obviously seem like freefall, but it is if you look at the vectors. If you superimpose centripetal acceleration (towards the center of the earth due to gravity) on top of just the right tangential translational velocity (orbital speed), you get a constantly curving path, that parallels the curvature of the earth. That's an orbit.
The reason the astronauts feel weightless and yet the baloonatics feel whightfull(?) is that the baloonatics are resisting gravity, rather than freefalling with it. If you could hypothetically accelerate the baloonatics to just the right orbital speed, in a direction tangential to the earth's curvature, they would be in orbit, and would be weightless.
Whole countries? Liechtenstein or Vatican City: easy. Russia or Canada: not so easy. :-)
chongo (was here)
This could be done with a small stabilizing chute. It was used in the legendary Kittinger jump (Project Excelsior). This guy was jumping from 19 1/2 miles up, and 16seconds from jump time a small stabilizer chute would automatically open to stop spinning. Tests with Dummys back then have shown that an aerodynamically unstable object like a human can easily hit 200rpm in free fall. 140rpm for a minute are considered fatal.
Oh, and if you are tired, remember it will be short nap - 19 miles are crossed in less than 14 minutes.
+++ath0
The best time and place to do this would be over Australia on November the 18th!
Whatta show with meteorites coming down all over the place.
...and says to the security guard, "What's up with the big Q's"?
LOL...or something
Man, abuse that. Take two people up and some super soakers. With the increased pressure in the cannisters, and very little wind resistance, those babies should go for miles.
Wait, why not take up a couple of colt revolvers and some afghans. Did I type that out loud?
Where do you think they are flying from?
Darwin award anyone?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Now hopefully these guys will avoid painting their balloon with aluminum powder...
Look, people, it even says in the story that QuinetiQ used to be DERA. For those who don't know, I'll spell it out, Defense Evaluation and Research Agency. This may be a civillian do, but it is a government project. Why? Replace "132000 feet" with "well beyond the maximum altitude for any current or projected missile system" and it makes more sense. The latest rumour down the grapevine says that this is an AWACS replacement. You lose the turbulence and engine noise that requires lots of fancy signal processing to get around, you lose the cost of the airframe. Current AWACS are low, slow and expensive, a perfect target which is why you can never take them near the front line where they are really needed. Whilst these balloons will need set up in advance, they can cover whole countries at once whilst still being in conventional radio range, unlike satellites.
Yeah.. from what I read and saw in this morning Metro, the 'astronauts' didn't have any kind of parachute.. and they actually sit _on top_ of their 'shuttle' strapped to the bottom of this huge ballon..
Not that i've actually done this myself, but strapping yourself to the top of what looks like a dingy and going up to 130,000+ft in the air - surely that's a recipe for some white-knuckle turbulence?
Something I saw once on TV from one of these transatlantic balloon flights.. Concord flew a couple of thousand feet above them and the sonic boom/shockwaves made the cabin attached to the ballon literally jump up into the ballon and then back down again (lucky the string didn't snap!).. That'd be one hell of a ride in this ride-on-ballon....
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story..."
Some background on QinetiQ: The Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in the United Kingdon, became the company QinetiQ on 1st July 2001 The company is a Public Private Partnership and is currently owned by the MOD (Ministry of Defence). Our current research areas include: Space, Aeronautics, Radio comms, Satilite comms, radar, balistics, computer security research, and many, many more areas. For further information on QinetiQ, check http://www.qinetiq.com, for more information on the ballon, http://www.qinetiq1.com Mark. Mark.
is it just me, or are they trying to make their website look like an advertisment for some pill?
Big Toy balloons I grant you, but still fun.
For the real scoop...
Go to the Sun (UK) newspapar.
The article is here...
Packed with insightful scientific observarions such as:
"Their vast balloon -- 400 times bigger than normal ones -- should be visible from the ground as it ascends."
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
and I am sure some one else has explaind why but I am going to throw mine in also.
the helium will not be able to stay dense enough at higher altitudes to be able to give proper lift. there is a practicle limit on ballon travel.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Actually, there are two people (that I know of) that are going after Col Kittinger's record. Cheryl Stearns and Rodd Millner are both involved in independant efforts to break this record in the near future. As they prepare with modern technology, the wonder of Kittinger's jump almost a half-century ago seems even more incredible.
mC
----- I hate sigs.
Hey math person, post a link to mapquest from the perspective of this ballon, using the zoom in/out feature. say from over NYC or something. then we can all click it and see what these people would be able to see. thanks math person!
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
At what point does re-entry become a factor? Parachuting in from space definately sounds exciting, as long as you don't become a screaming class A in the process.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I've spent weeks out in the cold (about -30C) during a military exercise. Of course we had lots of clothing, and we slept in tents with stoves. But trust me, the only thing that shrinks markedly is your bagpipe.
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The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
nt
The Gimp's splashscreen...
Check out this nicely detailed account of a trip on the Vomit Comet, a modified KC-135A.
:)
Man that looks cool, as long as you don't succumb to the Technicolor yawn along the way.
Didn't somebody get a Darwin Award for trying something similar.
I thought you brought the parachutes....
I read about this elsewhere, and that little snippit unfortunately leaves out the interesting bit.
One of the points of this journey is to become the first people to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. Their top speed will be upwards of 900MPH on the way down, due to the vastly reduced air resistance. Seriously, think about creating a sonic boom with just your own body...
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
When are these kooky kids gonna stop playing around?
The mov file is about 11.1Mb and a little large for dial up guys. Go here for Real Media versions weighing in between 159 to 704 KB.
The origianl project that spawned the Kittinger jump was Project Manhigh. It was the Air Forces early attempt to simulate space travel. At 132,000 feet, there is barely any air. When Kittinger jumped, it literally felt like he was floating, because there was no air resistance. He broke the sound barrier during that jump because of the low air density.
Project Manghigh was basically a space capsule suspended below a giant helium balloon. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than using a rocket and actually reaching orbit. The only problem was that of gravity. Any spacewalk was automatically going down at 9.8ms^2.
There were a lot of questions about heating and cooling that were answered, but NASA and the government ignored them.
The party's over
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never seen that error before.. maybe its because I do have javascript enabled..
Already have it Well, something like that at least. I also remember seeing something about a Navy project looking into using balloons to replace the E2C (you know those little mini-awacs they fly from carriers) Seems like a crazy idea since I doubt you would want a tethered balloon if you ran into rough weather and an untethered balloon would just float around on the wind (what little there is at that altitude) not going where you want it to go.
Frankly, the government should rethink its policy and seek reimbursement from thrillseekers.
Um, these particular thrillseekers ARE the government (UK government that is). From their website: "QinetiQ comprises the greater part of DERA, the British Government's 'Defence Evaluation and Research Agency'" While many posts about this story seem to think that this is a couple of guys puttering about their garage looking to get an honorable mention in the Darwin Awards they are in fact doing military research. For a quick explanation on why a modern military might be interested in balloons check out this Scientific American article on modern "observations ballons" or "Aerostat Radar System" as the U.S. military calls it.
Do you think they are unaware of these things?
A large enough balloon, and it's no problem.
From what I've seen, HUGE partially-inflated balloones are used.. they can go fro looking more like a giant upsidedown condom to a really huge round balloon.
As for the parachute.. of course you take one. Thing is.. you don't open it for a long, long time. At that altitude, if you opened a chute, it wouldn't help one little bit.. it would fall at the same rate as you.
from space is only a problem because you are entering from orbit... it's not the downward motion into the atmosphere that kills you.. it's the sideways motion as you slow down from your near orbital velocity.
IF you were literally simply droping straight down towards the earth.. it wouldn't be too much of an issue.
This
...
picture shows Col. Kittinger jumping out of the gondola. This has to be one of the most incredible pictures ever taken...
here's some more
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Must be a crappy site. It won't even load with Javascript disabled. Well there goes my specialized screen reader that uses wget to fetch pages. ;)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I saw Sputnik1 when the Russians first orbited an
artificial satalite!
On one of the first Space Shuttle flights, the US
craft was a really brilliant sight reflecting
sunlight off its delta profile.
BTW- Sputnk1 was qute small, compared to susceding
orbiting objects!
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"