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Students Take Pictures From Space On $150 Budget
An anonymous reader writes "Two MIT students have successfully photographed the earth from space on a strikingly low budget of $148. Perhaps more significantly, they managed to accomplish this feat using components available off-the-shelf to the average layperson, opening the door for a new generation of amateur space enthusiasts. The pair plan to launch again soon and hope that their achievements will inspire teachers and students to pursue similar endeavors."
Groups like EOSS have been doing this for at least 30 years, probably more. It's very common for a balloon launch to be a featured event in a ham radio conference. Their budgets per payload are similar, although they are able to do more technical work than featured in the MIT students work and often design their own radios, command devices, etc. None of this, though, is out of the range of a dedicated amateur. Note that there is a software-defined GPS in development that might be the best way to get around the 20K foot altitude limit of consumer GPS devices. Its component cost is pretty low, despite the $495 cost charged for an assembled device at that site.
Bruce Perens.
Anyway, pretty neat. I thought at first they were talking about a rocket, which I thought must cost much more than $150 to get 20 miles up. But I guess a balloon gets you much higher for much cheaper. Not as cool as a rocket though. I think really big amateur rocket launches go about 10 miles up? There are some impressive videos on youtube.
20 miles up is very high, but it is NOT space. The edge of space is more like 65 miles.
Their site mentioned that the antenna of the phone got embedded in the ground, and it's not clear from the pictures if they had a parachute on it at all, or if it was just too small.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Obligatory:
You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got.
Set them free at the break of dawn
'Til one by one, they were gone.
MITards
http://space.1337arts.com/
My ACME Slingshot Cam may actually have a chance. I'm inspired again.
Table-ized A.I.
"The cell phone was secured to the camera and constantly reported its GPS location via text message."
Sure the GPS part of the phone would work, but is anyone skeptical of the SMS bit? How could this possibly have been within tower range?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
NN
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/18/1645216
This is a fairly standard high-altitude photography method, that is just being hyped up. You attached a camera to a helium balloon. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Doesn't have anything to do with space.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Great idea! Now I'm thinking about more balloons and a DSLR with a circular polarizing filter...
>Yeh stressed the groundbreaking nature of their work
Ah, best not tell him that the BBC science show "Bang Goes the Theory" did exactly that a few weeks back. Photo's on the way up looked great, and it must have been fun tracking and then retrieving it. I think it would make a great sunday activity.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Cambridge University did something similar. http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/09/19/2312240/Space-On-a-Shoestring?art_pos=31
... for this kind of story.
This has been done numerous times.
But speaking of low cost space flight. I've seen lots of tricks used to protect the equipment from being burned up in the atmosphere... have there been any attempts to exploit a reaction with the earths atmosphere and harness the resulting energy?
According to the Federation Internationale D'espace, space begins at 62 miles, about 100 kilometers. Often referred to as the 62 mile club.
Cheers.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
there are enough photos on the web, no need to waste money -.-
I realise that mobile phones are dropping in price all the time, but to buy a phone from a store that has GPS built in ...... for $50? Did they accidentally drop a "0" off the end of that price?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Cost of space cam? ~$150
Having FAA and FCC investigators show up at your dormroom? Priceless
Really, one would think MIT students would know better.
http://www.amazon.com/Boost-Mobile-Pay-2dAs-2dYou-2dGo-Phone-28i290-29/dp/B001T9CSYW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1252870081&sr=8-1
Some High School Students from Bilbao, Spain, did the same thing earlier this year for less than $100. Looking at the photos, it seems they got better shots.
Story here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html
Photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/sets/
Why not just leave it up and have it transmit the pictures to you. This way there is no need to retrieve it later to get your pictures.
Internet classic site: http://www.rocketryonline.com/rolpresents/index.php?site=gbr
These amateur guys (although rich amateurs...) have kicked seriously ass. If you want to see best of amateur rocketry to space, check out the site. Especially the videos of launches.
In my opinion, it's an incredible feat!
But most of all I'm amazed of how they've been able to successfully retrieve the device after its landing. It could have landed in a sea, or even in another country. It also could have been disintegrated before it had reached the ground.
P.S. Because of such enthusiasts we can be certainly sure that NASA isn't fooling us: there are no elephants out there and the Earth is round indeed.
I think Laurie Anderson said it best:
Common kids, this was not even near space.
!nearspace
Cambridge University and some UK high school (US Middle school) kids did this in 2008 - http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2008120401
Anyone know where a step by step guide for this is and a list of parts. I'd like to do this with some of the kids in the small town I live in, to give them a sense of accomplishment and encourage them to become involved in science.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
This article actually pissed me off enough to log in and make a post. This is nothing new. A group of us did this a few years ago and have a set of similar pictures. We actually intend to launch another balloon in a few weeks, with revised radio gear. See.... we don't use cellphones for that, and we use a GPS unit that will actually give us a correct altitude and speed that high up. Ham Radio / APRS FTW....
This was done by some poor Mexican kids about 6 months ago. Slashdot even reported it.
Below is the link Slashdot provided:
http://www.switched.com/2009/03/18/students-take-space-photos-with-simple-latex-balloon-and-digi-ca/
The Wiz
...for some whack-job fundamentalcase televangelist to declare that this is all a fraud because everybody who isn't going to hell knows the world is only 6,000 years old, and flat as a pancake.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I love articles like this, and I've dreamed of doing a similiar project. While the costs of the equipment is doable and with a little know how you can get a rig together for less than $200 it's the flight that cost so much. Does the $150 cover the weather balloon and the tank(s) of helium it took to get the payload there? If so I'd love to know where they bought it. Last time I priced a modest balloon it was in the $500-$1k US range (just for the balloon).
This article was cool and it would be nice of you to actually contribute to slashdot instead of whine, bitch and moan. You know, talk shop. Tell us about your time.
So please, elaborate on your adventures in (near) space photography so that others like myself might be inspired to go try some of this stuff ourselves. $150 ain't much for a project like this!
But pissed off? Why are you even here? I thought this was a nerd site. Seems to be more a "whine about new technology and pine for the good old days" website. *That* should piss you off. Or just make you move elseware.
What other website offers content like this, but has coherent, smart comments like slashdot? Seriously! I'd love to know...
I had no idea that stuff like this has become so cheap. Even for $300 or $400, when split between a few friends it is within reason for a badass project!
So how's this for an idea. Have a little larger balloon carry a small but heavy dart (made of a dense metal). Attach a small GPS guidance unit with moveable fins to the back. Lift the payload up to 20 miles.
A few minutes before the target is at its predetermined spot cut the cord. Something heavy, dense and streamlined falling from 20 miles could make quite an impact. (If not you could always tie on a grenade). It should be able to avoid all but the most sophisticated anti-aircraft/anti-missile defenses. It should be able to hit targets at least a few miles away by "gliding" a little so you can avoid most local ground based security. Add a tiny camera in the front for terminal approach and you might be able to hit specific individuals.
Think of it as a (very) poor man's guided ballistic missile. Except you are using kinetic energy from gravity instead of rocket propellents. Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.
and what is with moderating the project page hah is it because it's from MIT and that's why there is all the hype ???
Why do all these designs have an internal parachute for use after the balloon pops? What comes to mind is to just put a spring-action pressure relieve valve at the fill nozzle of the balloon, set to perhaps 10% under the experimentally determined burst pressure of the balloon. Then, as the balloon ascends and the differential pressure increases, the relief valve will periodically outgas enough helium to prevent the envelope from bursting. This approach allows one to start with a FULL FILLUP at ground level, and likely achieve much greater altitude than the apparently current scenario of having to operate between the static boundaries of "just enough" fill to ascend at start, and "pop pressure" at what is stated to be about 20 miles up. I'm not a physicist insofar as lift calcs, but common sense would seem to dictate that the pressure relief setup could yield MUCH higher apogees?
Space starts at 100km, not 29km. You'd think the reasonably clever folks at MIT would know that.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Because there's still no cure for cancer.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
It's not as sexy to report "University of Kentucky students take pictures from space on $150 budget".
Actually, I'd expect MIT students to do stuff like this. Podunk U students doing it would be more newsworthy.
Yeah, no smart kids outside MIT.
You're a fucking asshole, you know that? Total fucking gaping asshole.
Hm. Can't tell which one is the actual troll.
MIT's a good school, no doubt -- easily one of the best. However, I will agree that the amount of praise it receives in the press (and by the general public) is hyperbolic and tremendously overstated.
The one thing I'll concede is that MIT's marketing department must be excellent.
(Full disclaimer: I graduated from a public university, and have a great deal of respect for MIT. However, I'm %*#ing sick of reading job postings that contain the phrase "We are only recruiting Ivy League (or equivalent) graduates for this position.")
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Anyone who puts that sort of thing in a job posting (or does not but lets it stand unsaid) should be shot in the fucking face. full stop.
>Hm. Can't tell which one is the actual troll.
MIT has done some great things. Inventions like X windows and Kerberos are still (sadly) decades ahead of their time. Lisp has its uses - Emacs does a lot. And MIT was the home of Multics, the forefather of "cloud computing."
X and Kerberos are mature projects, done by mature engineers, in an idealized, ivory-tower environment. What MIT undergraduates do, is more along the lines of, "Let's spend $150 like we're the first people in history to get our hands on that much money. Also, I want a soda." It's small, and it's sad, and it's nothing like the big projects the university staff is known for.
Point being, this is very typical of MIT undergraduate work. Napster was not invented here.
Mostly joking, but have these kids put their project online? I'd love for my kids to get this kind of project going at their school.
In 2000 GPS chips cost much more than they do now, probably several time the cost of a cheap phone.
What you call "GPS" is actually trilateration, which works by measuring the distance between the terminal and 3 base stations whose location is known. Basic geometry. It also does not require any info being sent back by the phone, and there's nothing you can do against it without dropping off the network.
It's a simple consequence of how cell networks work: it has to know in which cell you are so that it can reach you should someone call you.
What phones can do now wrt trilateration that they couldn't in 2000 is get the localisation info back from the network. I have this on my corporate blackberry, it works well and arguably better than GPS in a city, where base towers are aplenty and buildings block satellite signals.
Newer phones (such as iPáone 3G) can combine both techniques.
You're a fucking asshole, you know that? Total fucking gaping asshole.
I got my own balloon pics. It wasn't in space but in a pretty interesting place anyway.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
the Teddy Bears from last year... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1091896/Out-world-British-teddy-bears-strapped-helium-weather-balloon-reach-edge-space.html
Balloon 1.0