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."

Comments

Whatever happened to the guy in the lawn chair?

[xmark]

Sounds like a lot of hot air to me.

132,000 feet?

[ekrout]

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.

;-)

Re:132,000ft and then what?

[FrankBough]

By the look of those chairs they're sitting in, I think they're actually just researching whether you can still get the soccer on satellite TV at 132,000ft. The world's highest couch potatoes.

I wonder what would happen to their tinnies at 1% atmospheric pressure - that would be some really fizzy beer.