Slashdot Mirror
DIY High-Altitude Ballooning
The Ape With No Name writes "Ever wanted to see the black of space but just can't pay a cool 20 million to do so? Well, just build your own small-scale, high-altitude balloon like these guys out of styrofoam, duct tape, electrical kit and a 'consumer-grade' weather balloon. They reached an estimated 52000 feet, had all kinds of tech issues, including hacking code to fly the mission minutes before launch. Cool pics and video were taken throughout the mission. Next flight is in approximately 2 weeks with 100,000 feet the goal."
Mirror for videos: Launch & Prep - Just Launch - Recovery
I ask that you please do not stream them. Thanks!
It's almost as exciting as reading how NASA got Apollo13 back, but the fact that the payload just dropped back to earth "randomly" is quite alarming.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Ever wanted to see the black of space but just can't pay a cool 20 million to do so? Well, just build your own small-scale, high-altitude balloon like these guys out of styrofoam, duct tape, electrical kit
or alternatively, stick two pieces of aforementioned duct tape over your eyelids and experience the black of space right here at home.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Looks like we just launched their server to the edge of space.
>Ever wanted to see the black of space
>but just can't pay a cool 20 million to do so?
Yeah - just wait for the sunset.
This sounds like fun. I saw an article about something similar in Scientific American a few years ago, but this is the first time I've heard of flight code being changed so close to the wire.
>As anyone who works with modern electronics knows, hardware is only half the equation
☠
Oh well. I guess I'll have to wait.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
no...wait a second...that's some nerd's weather baloon..Regardless, alert the FAA!
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
Here's a cool webpage of a group that did something similar. Their baloon made it up to about 94,000 ft. The site has a cool writeup with pictures and such of their project.
The twenty million's not to see the black of space but to actually go there, or close enough to it anyway. I can see space from my back yard without a weather balloon. For free.
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
Blips on Google Maps
If they want to test their balloons with a live person, maybe they can send this guy; I am sure for a few beers he would happily go up.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Since I can not RTFA, ican only speculate it will be much more fun that these guys, that lofted a package on a weathe balloon too, but let it return to the launchsite by using a glider. They got a few flifghts out of it until it presumably crashed into a mountainside.
If these guys are going for 100.000 feet, they will need a very big accesible area to recover their instrument package. given that winds up high may be a stong as 100 km/h, that leaves a pretty big oval your package could drop in.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I wonder how high one would get?
Newt-dog
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
Although he was just an honorable mention, lawnchair Larry was funny. Here's what he did:
http://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-11.html
it appeared on mirrordot:
The UX-1 Story
by Mike Coffey (KJ4Z) and Dan Bowen (K2VOL)
Dan (K2VOL) and I originally decided we wanted to launch a balloon in the Spring of 2003. We had seen a few articles about hams launching balloons, visited a few websites about their adventures, and thought it sounded like something we'd like to get into. We made plans, did some research, and then life intervened. A year went by without any further real action. In the Fall of 2003, I acquired several Dakota Digital cameras with the idea that they might be useful for the balloon. In the Summer of 2004, we decided it was time to get our acts in gear. I assembled a Hi-Value Radio PocketTracker, and Dan bought two latex balloons from Kaymont and a parachute from Public Missiles. We also found a closeout on DigiTraveler GPSes at RadioShack, and bought all that they had (for $20 apiece). Then, once again, we got busy, and another year went by. It wasn't until March 2005 that the topic came up again in a UTARC meeting. We decided that it was imperative to set a date for the launch, or it would never happen. Half randomly, we chose May 14, 2005, with a rain date the following day. Little did we realize what we were getting ourselves into...
One day, a few weeks before the scheduled launch, it dawned on us that there was still much to do -- too much, it seemed. Although we had all major flight systems more-or-less together, overall assembly had not even begun, and we really had only the vaguest notions of what we needed to do to get everything ready. Dan put out requests for assistance on the UTARC email list, and we both began doing research about the next steps. Dan decided the best way to proceed would be to have separate launch and recovery crews. The task of the launch crew would be to get the balloon safely into the air; after that, the recovery team would take over and chase it, with the eventual goal of recovering the payload. Fortunately, several people piped up and volunteered to be part of the recovery team, and Jeff Napier (AF3X) volunteered to find a launch site for us. That meant it was up to Dan and me to get the balloon itself ready. We found a small styrofoam cooler that we thought would be a good container for the payload, as it was lightweight and would keep everything insulated. Dan built a circuit board to contain the various control systems for the balloon, and I built a half-wave dipole antenna for our tracking system. We requisitioned a canister of helium from Holston Gases, which turned out to be a bit of a bureaucratic ordeal, and then went to pick it up a few days before launch with the assistance of Don Riley (N4CZL). Physically, we now had all the parts of the balloon, but the fun was just beginning.
As anyone who works with modern electronics knows, hardware is only half the equation, and so it was with the balloon. Dan spent a great deal of time in the runup to launch programming the software for the Basic Stamp microcontroller that would govern the balloon's overall operation. Basically, this device is a small computer that controls the GPS, radio, siren and strobe. If the microcontroller does not function properly, there is an excellent chance that the balloon and payload will be lost. At the same time, I was working to apply software patches and hacks to the digital camera so that it could take more photos on our flight. By this time, it was the Friday night before the scheduled launch, and I went home, thinking Dan would also be wrapping up in a few hours. What I didn't realize was that he would actually never go to bed that night.
Dan spent the entire night working on final assembly of the payload and programming the microcontroller. At 4:30 AM, he discovered that the expensive, lightweight lithium batteries we had bought from surplus were completely dead. Without the lithium batteries, we could either postpone for a week, or fly with regular heavy alkaline batteries, which would put us outside of our known weight calculations. With only 20 minutes remaining bef
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
The black of space is amazing, but it is great to see that you can do this with a few items that people can find at most stores. Yeah the Helium is pretty expensive, but definately a lot of fun... Especially if you inhale a lot Great site, got slashdotted next time make a torrent of the site :)
-A321..
Ever wanted to see the black of space but just can't pay a cool 20 million to do so?
I could beat you over the head with a pipe until you think that's what happened...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
The sites down, but I'm very impressed that they are going to 100,000 feet and managing to create a safe experience for whoever is going up using styrofoam and duck tape!
This compares very well with spending $20 million if true (somehow I doubt the writeup).
I'm assuming that this is more then just taking pictures in space (as I can look up thousands of them already). The $20 million referenced as a comparable is for an actual flight into space, and in fact is actually an orbital flight.
Still very cool. http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/
..finds this story in the archives, enters a wormhole and ends up in 1947 Roswell,NM...hmmmm
Well we bought this balloon and we figured how neat it would be to launch it up! Shame we lost the instructions for putting the helium in but no problem cause we bought an air-bed at Wal-Mart and used those instructions instead mkay? Then we stayed up all night writing kewl software and and GPS tracking plan but then just before launch we noticed the batts were kerflooey so hey we threw away the computer and fixed up an old PCB from a transistor radio which looked quite a lot like it could have been just the right thing. Balloon came down somewhere and we couldn't find it right away but eventuaqlly we stumbled on it and look at these neat pix!
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Here is a map of the others: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48556057@N00/13647471 /
Other that the whole issue of where it comes down (say, in the front yard of that reactor in the background, completely freaking out the security people), doesn't this sort of thing pose a hazard to commercial aviation? Like, say, jet engine ingestion, that sort of thing? I know the odds of an intersection are slim, but I seem to recall that the high altitude model rocket folks have to get some clearances and permission, and all that sort of thing. Just curious what the drill is. No doubt some balloon enthusiasts will chime in - but 52k feet means you're passing through (twice!) many, many common through-flight altitudes.
Full credit on the geek factor, but if this had gone wrong somehow or been perceived as an inbound Scary Payload coming down in the wrong place, it would make the idiots that get busted pointing mid-power lasers at aircraft cockpits look like they're not the only guys not thinking the whole thing through...
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I was disapointed that this was not a manned balloon.
I always thought that a high-altitude balloon ride to 100,000 feet would be a lot of fun. With the whole low pressure thing, being able to see the curvature of the earth, seeing a black sky, it would be the closest that a normal person can hope to get into space. And this is completly do-able to make it within the budget of the average person from North America, Western Europe, etc. Yes a few people have done manned balloon rides to those heights, but they have always been super-funded. Never normal people doing a hobby project.
"earth "randomly" is quite alarming."
Not really.
1 The earth is mostly empty land.
2. It will have a parachute so it should do no damage with it hits.
3. Even if the parachute fail odds are pretty good that unless it hits someone on the head it will not hurt anyone.
4. Noaa and the USAF have been doing the exact same thing for years and no one has been hurt yet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This is not news...
In the days before duct tape, we were getting at LEAST that high from smoking cellophane and vinyl!
do() || do_not();
Aha! This is just what I need to conduct my clandestine terrorist operations! I mean, forget model rockets! Those were so last month!
.. but I wonder if they will be somehow screwed by that picture of the PowerPlant in the backround ....
"Ever wanted to see the black of space but just can't pay a cool 20 million to do so? "
ok, this is about building something to go to an extremely high altitude. The pictures are secondary.
I mean if they just want pictures of space, NASA has lots.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
the "Icarus" project? ;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
JP Aerospace has been doing this for years.
http://www.jpaerospace.com/
That if a baloon, or a styrofoam box happens to get in the way of a jet engine, the mechanics wont' have a clue unless the pilot tells them.
You've got a piece of metal, designed to pull air in at 600miles an hour, heat it up, and eject it back out. Latex is not even worth worrying about.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
I scoured past articles for this.. but could not find it. There was reference to the steps a guy had to go thru to get FAA approval for launching a balloon- contacting the airport controller, etc, and no one had any clue how to do it.
I saw no mention of permits (before slashdotting) of this sort of information being obtained.... which has me rather worried.
Yes, the odds of coming in contact with a commercial jet at altitudes between 11,000 and 29,000 is probably very small, and and yes it was only a small payload (talk about scaring the shit out of a pilot seeing it up there), but I'd still feel rather safer knowing that the FAA was alerted to a possible flight hazard on a lane- perhaps it should have had a simple radar reflector to show its location?
Wish I could have seen the photos, but I was too busy reading.
Actually, they fly a helicopter over and catch the falling parachute and bring it down, so technically there is no manner in which anyone could be 'hit on the head' since the object rarely ever touched the ground. These returns were too valuable to allow to crash uncontrolled to the surface- their point of return was very carefully mapped and controlled.
t m
http://spacecovers.com/articles/article_corona2.h
Let's make a high-altitude flight in a craft you built yourself a requirement for all 18-year old kids.
Then you'll see the little urchins paying attention during math and physics class!
Looks like they didn't have a cool 20 million to spend on their web server, either.
Now I have an idea for a practical joke for the guys at NORAD. Lunch a thousand of these at the same time.
This group http://eoss.org/ has been doing this sort of thing for some time, check out their lastest flight http://eoss.org/ansrecap/ar_100/recap90.htm.s of good info at this site.
Lot
Getting to a high altitude (over 35,000 feet) in a manned balloon would not be a trivial undertaking. Or else lots of people would be doing it already.
- You have to choose between popping the baloon at altitude and parachuting back, or taking a huge amount of ballast to keep you from plummeting back to earth once your balloon envelope begins to shrink alarmingly on the way back down. If you don't drop ballast, you will die.
- Above 55,000 feet or so you need a full-fledged pressurized space suit. If your suit depressurizes, you die.
- Parachuting from extremely high altitudes is difficult, tricky, and very hazardous. You can break the sound barrier in freefall. If you don't get everything right, your parachute will rip to shreds, and you will die.
That being said, I wonder if you could take a group of people up to 100,000 feet or so in a rigid, dirigible sort of thing. Heck, around the world at 50,000 feet woudl be pretty darn cool.
Still, I think Rutan's approach is probably safer.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
My standard deal is 20% off for balloons and other educational uses. I also donate freebies from time to time for good causes.
Oh, and of course, it's all Open Source. BSD license. And the firmware's recently been rehosted on SourceForge.
...to create a balloon that stays up there for, say, three months? At that height you could also mount a solar cell on top of the balloon, which may even be lighter than the batteries. Of course, adding a propeller to be able to control the position (at least sometimes, when it's not too windy) would be uber-coolness.
I am very very impressed by these people. infact, since im posting anon i can say that i shed a little tear.
The UX-1 Story
by Mike Coffey (KJ4Z) and Dan Bowen (K2VOL)
Dan (K2VOL) and I originally decided we wanted to launch a balloon in the Spring of 2003. We had seen a few articles about hams launching balloons, visited a few websites about their adventures, and thought it sounded like something we'd like to get into. We made plans, did some research, and then life intervened. A year went by without any further real action. In the Fall of 2003, I acquired several Dakota Digital cameras with the idea that they might be useful for the balloon. In the Summer of 2004, we decided it was time to get our acts in gear. I assembled a Hi-Value Radio PocketTracker, and Dan bought two latex balloons from Kaymont and a parachute from Public Missiles. We also found a closeout on DigiTraveler GPSes at RadioShack, and bought all that they had (for $20 apiece). Then, once again, we got busy, and another year went by. It wasn't until March 2005 that the topic came up again in a UTARC meeting. We decided that it was imperative to set a date for the launch, or it would never happen. Half randomly, we chose May 14, 2005, with a rain date the following day. Little did we realize what we were getting ourselves into...
One day, a few weeks before the scheduled launch, it dawned on us that there was still much to do -- too much, it seemed. Although we had all major flight systems more-or-less together, overall assembly had not even begun, and we really had only the vaguest notions of what we needed to do to get everything ready. Dan put out requests for assistance on the UTARC email list, and we both began doing research about the next steps. Dan decided the best way to proceed would be to have separate launch and recovery crews. The task of the launch crew would be to get the balloon safely into the air; after that, the recovery team would take over and chase it, with the eventual goal of recovering the payload. Fortunately, several people piped up and volunteered to be part of the recovery team, and Jeff Napier (AF3X) volunteered to find a launch site for us. That meant it was up to Dan and me to get the balloon itself ready. We found a small styrofoam cooler that we thought would be a good container for the payload, as it was lightweight and would keep everything insulated. Dan built a circuit board to contain the various control systems for the balloon, and I built a half-wave dipole antenna for our tracking system. We requisitioned a canister of helium from Holston Gases, which turned out to be a bit of a bureaucratic ordeal, and then went to pick it up a few days before launch with the assistance of Don Riley (N4CZL). Physically, we now had all the parts of the balloon, but the fun was just beginning.
As anyone who works with modern electronics knows, hardware is only half the equation, and so it was with the balloon. Dan spent a great deal of time in the runup to launch programming the software for the Basic Stamp microcontroller that would govern the balloon's overall operation. Basically, this device is a small computer that controls the GPS, radio, siren and strobe. If the microcontroller does not function properly, there is an excellent chance that the balloon and payload will be lost. At the same time, I was working to apply software patches and hacks to the digital camera so that it could take more photos on our flight. By this time, it was the Friday night before the scheduled launch, and I went home, thinking Dan would also be wrapping up in a few hours. What I didn't realize was that he would actually never go to bed that night.
Dan spent the entire night working on final assembly of the payload and programming the microcontroller. At 4:30 AM, he discovered that the expensive, lightweight lithium batteries we had bought from surplus were completely dead. Without the lithium batteries, we could either postpone for a week, or fly with regular heavy alkaline batteries, which would put us
If you carry enough ballast, wait for the right weather, stay below 10,000 feet (hypoxia), do your math (re. ballast), and get the FCC to certify your lawn chair as an experiental aircraft, the lawn chair approach is perfectly safe.
The only trouble the lawn chair guys got in was for 1) operating an uncertified aircraft and 2) busting the LA class B (highly controlled but still VFR) airspace.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Some of the posts have talked about what would happen if a jet sucked the thing in, but as a balloon gets higher and higher, it also gets REALLY REALLY big and much easier to see. If "sucked in", it's more likely that it'll get chewed to pieces and incinerated. The heat of the engine is more than high enough to reduce the whole thing to ashes, and the inertia of the engine would probably blow it right out the other end as dust. The engine might hiccup a bit, but it'd probably still keep rolling.
My boss is an ex Air Force guy that used to ride the B-52, and he's heard of much larger and stranger crap getting forced down jet engines without them quitting. Apparently the worst part isn't so much the thing that goes through, but cracks and imbalance in the fan blades and turbine that force engines to be shut down after the fact. The engine is still running, but shutdown is one of those better-safe-than-sorry kind of things. Losing an engine because of shutdown (only to have it dismantled and fixed on the ground) is better than losing an engine by having it vibrate itself out of its housing and plummet to earth.
Remember, jet engines are tested at some point by throwing big chunks of ice, broken fan blades and frozen chickens down them -=while operating=-. In any event, if an engine were to stop, all commercial passenger jet planes are more than able to control flight for a landing with the remaining engine(s).
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
This guy who did a similar project:
http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/
was very careful to follow the regulations. Not sure if the UT guys knew what they were doing in that regards. Basically, you do not necessarily need FAA permission if the balloon is small enough, just so one does not end with one's payload smashing through an airplane windscreen or blowing up a turbine. To quote above link, one generally doesn't need to file a flight plan unless the balloon:
(i) Carries a payload package that weighs more than four pounds and has a weight/size ratio of more than three ounces per square inch on any surface of the package, determined by dividing the total weight in ounces of the payload package by the area in square inches of its smallest surface;
(ii) Carries a payload package that weighs more than six pounds;
(iii) Carries a payload, of two or more packages, that weighs more than 12 pounds; or
(iv) Uses a rope or other device for suspension of the payload that requires an impact force of more than 50 pounds to separate the suspended payload from the balloon.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
" but this is the first time I've heard of flight code being changed so close to the wire"
/.er are the miracle-working exception, but the vast majority of us don't write flawless code. We don't write it well or fast while under pressure and running on lack of sleep, without testing, for a critcal payload, after a last minute change in hardware and performance requirements. That might be considered "high risk" so typically we try to avoid doing it.
There is a good reason for that.
I realize
I am very happy this thing worked out for these guys, but I would have expected the whole unit to die about 10 minutes into the flight and be unrecoverable.
There is a reason they call all that stuff "Best Practices". I realize this was a fun excecise, not a life and death struggle to save the Universe, but still, you gotta admit they got lucky.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Sounds like the blind following the dumb.
Back before they instituted minimum cabin pressure requirements for commercial airliners I flew LA-Sydney in a 747SP at 45,000 feet(cabin altitide 10,000 feet). Let me tell you, it's pretty cool. In the middle of the day, the sky is dark and the horizing had a LOT of curve to it. Thank you Pan Am
So, if you can do the balloon thing, GO FOR IT!
Been there, done that, flew 2/3's across town on accident.
5 8&tid=159
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/02/16162
I'm going to mod the plan and add my own lawnchair. I'll carry a pellet gun too. YeeeeHaaaaa!!!!!!
To operate at the tremendous energies they do, jet engines are very finely engineered and machined. Something as small as a piece of gum, if sucked through the intake, can damage a jet engine. Something as large as a weather ballon, or a beer cooler full of electronics, is easily big enough to damage it severely enough to shut it down.
It's almost counter-intuitive, but it's usually true that the more powerful a machine is, the more fragile it is outside of its operating envelope. Passing solid objects is definitely outside the operating envelope of a jet engine.
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary /kittinger/DI29.htm
At the time, he was a captain, but I think he is mostly known as "Col. Joe". Freefall from 102,000
feet. I remember seeing this on the discovery wings (now military channel) years ago. What a way to free fall! 600+MPH.
of your being arrested by Homeland Security for your terrorist attack on the airport...
Mumia Abu-Jamal is *laughably guilty*. Check the evidence.
Yep, I've seen just about every history channel show on anything ;)
I pretty much have stopped watching network TV, too
boring...other than "Cops", History, Discovery is about it.
Site is down. Coral cache
Read my blog: HansMast.com
I don't know much about flying, but I do know that one needs a balloon pilot's certificate to pilot a balloon.
I do know the requirements for hobby rockets: (1) for rockets under 1 lb AND under 113 gm of propellant, no permission is needed; (2) for rockets of 1.0-3.3 lbs AND under 125 gm propellant, you must notify the FAA beforehand but don't need permission; and (3) for rockets of >3.3 lbs -OR- >125 gm propellant, you need to have the FAA give you a waiver of the rules (Federal Aviation Regulations section 101); they will specify your allowed maximum altitude.
You need to request the waiver months before your intended flight. Our rocketry club has been using our current site for about 5 years and we submit our waiver request in January for the May-October rocketry season; we usually hear back from the FAA in April.
I hope they keep up the flights and more people try their own hand at it. I'd like to try but the prevailing winds and storm conditions here in south west Florida might make this project a bit dodgy.
Too lazy to create a sig...
The code they had was not really "flight" code - the code did not control flight in any way - it was just a sealed baloon that went up and popped. The code was just controlling when to turn GPS / radio and camera on and off. In the end they wrote code to run it for 2 hours, then turn it off. Not exactly the most complicated code on the planet.
Although we were (just barely) a grade above DIY, we had our share of problems. One of the balloons (not ours) lost its GPS transmitter, and had to be tracked otherwise. These went to around 100,000 feet. Ours had a bad parachute, which caused the camera to be wrecked when it crashed- we ended up desoldering the (surface-mounted) flash memory and putting it in a working camera to get our pictures. Definitely a fun project, though.
hopefully extreme DIY like this will become a more and more open possibility. materials keep getting better, and hopefully costs will continue to fall. with integrated design, manufacturers should be able to simply host a file with their machines spec's, allowing amateurs to sort out for themselves what they need built.
PCB manufacturing is a pretty remarkable case study. there are some extremely low cost pcb manufacturers who will run any very small batches of PCB's. this has driven down costs across the board. its was simply a matter of waiting for all the manufacturer's to have online quote & order systems; from there market competition was all it took for the prices to drop.
i'm hoping to see the same sort of effects for all sorts of custom made parts. the price of invention is too high; inventors need access to the same cutting edge advanced materials as the MegaCorps.
Suffice it to say, integrated design is going to whoop some ass kiddies.
-Myren
The Mars Rover software is still referred to as "flight software", even though both rovers have been ground-pounders for over a year now.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
This was a fun hunt...
0 .jpg
6 2&spn=0.029655,0.029697&t=k&hl=en
8 .jpg with http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.600982,-84.77750 3&spn=0.029655,0.029697&t=k&hl=en
Compare:
http://sunsite.utk.edu/~mcoffey/ux-1/ballooncam/2
with:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.621495,-84.7365
Also
http://sunsite.utk.edu/~mcoffey/ux-1/ballooncam/1
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
How feasible is it to, in some way, initiate and maintain a wireless TCP/IP connection to a weather balloon at this height?
I know omnidirectional wireless technologies like 802.11 work only a few hundred feet max without tremendous signal boosting, but what about a more focused, directional approach? Could it somehow really reach nine miles up? What about a sattelite intermediary to create a the connection like airplanes use? Granted, that would need some pretty fancy tracking software.
Also, how long could a balloon like this maintain its altitude? A few hours? Days? A week?
Haha, how awesome would it be to stick a webcam with a trackerpod on that balloon and snap space shots in real time?
this http://www.tvnsp.org/
I note they were getting altitude from the GPS, and had some trouble with it. The way we usually do it is grab a cheap absolute pressure sensor, like from Sensym. Atmo pressure is roughly exponential with a scale height of about 7 km, so an estimate of your altitude is -7 km x ln(pressure / 1 atm). Better yet, get two, one with a 1 atm full-scale and a second with something like 0.01 atm full-scale to give better accuracy when you're way up there.
this guy seemed to be a bit skeptical before launch.
"It's like my pool is TEARIN' ASS 'round my backyard!" --Carl, From Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Here's his website - he's been planning this for a few years now and the schedule is set for this month.
I remember reading about one of the previous jumpers and he said that without any wind (no air), there was no sensation of falling for the first few minutes -- it was just like floating.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
We once had to hack the flight software at the last minute for a major scientific balloon funded by NASA; the launch was happening in the early hours of January 1, and we found a fencepost error in the navigation software that cropped up when the year turned over. Note that this was not a NASA error, it was my lame-ass grad-student self at a university I will not name who screwed up. But we did get it fixed just a few hours before launch.
With UFO sighting in decline, I think one should be able to make something more high-tech than crop circles.
Metallized kevlar high altitude baloons were probably responsible for most UFO sightings. Airforce used lot of them from late 40s to analyse radioisotope falout from Soviet nukes. Close to sunset, metalized baloons make for realy impresive sightings.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
I'm less concerned about that blip than I am about the giant bird that apparently took a monster crap on one of the houses in my neighborhood:
9 3&spn=0.007939,0.008583&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.345632,-83.3058
A non-profit called Edge of Space Sciences has been doing this locally for over a decade.
They actually have great video of lots of flights, they have their payloads nailed down to designs that work and are practical, and they've been involved with helping University students all over the U.S. fly payloads for their aerospace engineering students.
Almost every major city has a high-altitude ballooning club similar to EOSS already.
This isn't news.
Reading about a bunch of guys strugging through dumb stuff they could have by-passed by asking some intelligent questions on a couple of ballooning mailing lists isn't interesting at all, other than the "let's enjoy this train wreck" factor.
If they were discovering something new about high-altitude weather ballooning, perhaps it would be worthy of a front-page post.
+++OK ATH
I think I read somewhere that buried down in the fine print of FAR 103 is the weight limit for ultralight baloon is less, like 135 lb - that would be the total gross weight AFAIK, precluding the use of lawn chair balloons as a vehicle except for really small people.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
2 guys stuck a camera and a microcontroller to a weather balloon they just bought, and let it go into the sky. That's neat, but is it news? People do this exact thing with high-end hobby rockets all the time.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard