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."

Comments

Exciting but risky

[fembots]

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.

The black of space?

[Humorously_Inept]

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.

Umm... hazard considerations?

[ScentCone]

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...

Cool, but...

[RexRhino]

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.

FAA Approval for a launch?

[purduephotog]

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.

Re:Movie Mirrors

[MynockGuano]

Not very useful as a stress test.

Lucky

[Tiger4]

" but this is the first time I've heard of flight code being changed so close to the wire"

There is a good reason for that.

I realize /.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.

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.