DIY Space Photography

Four Spanish teenagers sent a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere. The boys built the electronic sensor components from scratch. Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort attached a £56 camera to a heavy duty £43 latex balloon, and sent their science project 20-miles above the Earth. Team leader Gerard Marull, 18, said, "We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs, to send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible."

Comments

What kind of clearance

[syousef]

I wonder what kind of clearance this sort of balloon experiment requires. You wouldn't want to do this anywhere near air traffic routes for fear of hitting an airliner. I know the equipment is light but I imagine it'd still do some damage if it got sucked into an engine or hit a plane travelling at mach 0.85.

Re:What kind of clearance

[MrFlibbs]

A guy in our local Astronomy club researched this and gave a presentation on the requirements a year ago. As I recall, the FAA requirements were that the balloon launch site not be within X miles of an airport, that it must reflect RADAR (accomplished by dangling cardboard covered with aluminum foil), and that the cord used to tie the instrument package to the balloon must break easily. (Can't remember the spec, but it's something like 10 pound test line.) Part of the trick is calibrating the lift rate before launch so the balloon rises at an appropriate rate. Too slow, and the balloon will break too low in the atmosphere. Too fast, and it won't break close enough to the launch site to recover the payload. What's cool is you can have the package use a GPS to transmit data on altitude and position, and a thermometer to give readings at altitude. The temperature gets down to -50C, so the instruments must be in a styrofoam box to survive.

I thought everyone did this.

[conureman]

We just put on our return address back in the neolithic days, when I was a kid. Mine went from Livermore to Hollister.

wth is that?

[Ancient_Hacker]

What is a "camera-operated weather balloon"?

The camera did not operate anything.

And is it a weather balloon if it isn't doing weather observations?

Re:Next time I'm on an airplane

[e2d2]

In the US one can notify the FAA of such events and they will release a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) that will let them know the craft is in the area, with a description and advice. They require 24 hours notice. Every pilot in the US checks for NOTAMs along their designated flight plan and adjust accordingly. This is standard procedure before any takeoff and taught at the most basic level by flight schools before you ever leave the ground.

If you do launch _any_ craft into the air in the US it will fall under some sort of regulation that you should follow. In this case it's most likely part 101 Around the world governments have similar regulations in place.

My point? This has been done before and done right, safe procedures are in place.

Re:Next time I'm on an airplane

[LordKronos]

Nice way to mess up statistics. More or less zero is not equal to zero. Your odds of winning the lotto are also nearly zero, yet people win it on a regular basis. Heck, some people even win it twice. That doesn't mean I give any consideration to the fact that I could win it.

Kite Aerial Photography

[wooferhound]

Reminds me of Kite Aerial Photography . . .
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=yYl&ei=xI7BSZzrKoTM-AbvmeXsBg&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=kite+aerial+photography&spell=1