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
>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.
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
Although he was just an honorable mention, lawnchair Larry was funny. Here's what he did:
http://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-11.html
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
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
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.
Aha! This is just what I need to conduct my clandestine terrorist operations! I mean, forget model rockets! Those were so last month!
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.
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.
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.
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!
http://www.clusterballoon.org/
Photos here
http://www.clusterballoon.org/intro/intro.html
Oh well, what the hell...
"Ah," the pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach."