BLAST High Altitude Telescope Launched

Xandu writes "BLAST, the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope, was launched on the 11th at 11:09 UTC from Esrange in northern Sweden, and is currently floating over Greenland. BLAST is a 2700kg telescope with a 2 meter primary mirror that hangs from a 1.1 million m^3 balloon floating at an altitude of 38km that will study the star formation history of the universe. It will float west at nearly constant latitude for about 5 days before the flight is terminated over northwest Canada or northern Alaska. Real time position and flight track is available from the NSBF. Two of the graduate students working on the project have photo blogs of the entire (8 week) prep period, including several launch photos. The press has more traditional coverage as well. And if that isn't geeky enough to make it on Slashdot, the flight computers run Slack."

Comments

in other news, NASA will lose all gov't funding...

[avi33]

...for their controversial and unproven theory about the star formation history of the universe.

They should just look this up in the Bible.

Re:Sometimes Balloons are good enough

[Fyz]

Which reminds me of a cartoon in NYTimes at some point about NASA, outlining an idea of a major overhaul in their manned mission plan to replace the shuttle, consisting of hot air balloon missions that fly up to a certain altitude and throw out huge bags of hundred-dollar bills "to see if they swoop around in pretty patterns", because it:

1. is safer.
2. is cheaper.
3. has greater scientific payback.