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

Ballooning, will it never end?

[DavidBrown]

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.

Balloons AGAIN?

[OzJimbob]

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?

Named for failure

[Man of E]

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.

Darwin Award

[Maskirovka]

HmmmmmmmMMMmm. This sounds like another darwin award in the making!

QuinetiQ, DERA, balloons and AWACS TNG.

[rasilon]

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.

Re:this won't work.......

[ai0524]

Uh?!

Ballons float because they (the ballon, the pilots, the gondola, everything that is tied together) are less dense than the atmosphere at the ground and are the same density as the atmosphere at their ceiling.

Helium does not need to stay "dense" to provide some lift. The less dense it is the better.