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."
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.
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.