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More on High-Altitude Balloonists

Posted by michael on from the what-goes-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports on an attempt at the record for the highest balloon flight. 'A bag of helium the size of the Empire State building to challenge Nasa record.'" We had an article about them a few months ago.

6 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Re:We can replace the space shuttle by tjensor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Going a long way straight up is not the same as going in to orbit!

    --
    <fnord>OBEY</fnord>
  2. the curvature of the earth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The interesting thing, too me at least, is seeing
    the curvature of the earth. When I was a functionally
    check flight weapon systems officer for the F-4E some
    years ago, I used to see the curvature of the Earth at
    50,000 feet. And now, we didn't use pressure suits...

  3. Re:Boiling Blood by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The blood would only boil if exposed to the outside. What is never mentioned is that the
    body itself would keep the blood under pressure at least for a while so it wouldn't be a simple
    case of bubbling in the veins , it would be a far more unpleasent case of blood leaking out from all orifices THEN boiling.
    Remember that at most the pressure difference between inside and outside the body can only ever be 1 atmosphere which is equivalent to a
    a scuba diver coming up from a 30 foot dive too fast. Yes it'll case problems but no the body won't explode or anything like that.

  4. dangerous? by Blitzshlag · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They're ascending at 1000ft/min with a balloon the size of the Empire State Building, which is as thin as a freezer bag. So one bird strike and they're done right?

  5. Re:Blood heats in partial pressure? by mountain_penguin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    nasa say that this would not happen and that you can survive for upto a half a minute without ill effects. "You do not explode and your blood does not boil because of the containing effect of your skin and circulatory system. You do not instantly freeze because, although the space environment is typically very cold, heat does not transfer away from a body quickly."

  6. Re:We can replace the space shuttle by hubie · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It is much more than a conceptual idea. The US military did balloon-assisted launches in the 1950's, and recently amateur radio operators as well as amateur rocket folk have done it as well. For one link see here.

    You aren't going to get big payloads into space this way as the heavy balloons can carry on the order of several tons. I'm not sure if, in the end, this would be any cheaper or easier than launching a Pegasus from an airplane.

    One thing certainly would be neat is if they used hygrogen in the balloon, that would make quite an impressive fireball then the rocket is ignited.