Slashdot Mirror
Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Space Photos
krou writes "With a budget of £500, Robert Harrison used cheap parts, a weather balloon, some duct tape, a digital camera, and a GPS device to capture some great photos of the earth from space that resulted in NASA calling him to find out how he had done it. 'A guy phoned up who worked for NASA who was interested in how we took the pictures,' said Mr Harrison. 'He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars.' The details of his balloon are as follows: he used 'an ordinary Canon camera mounted on a weather balloon,' 'free software' that 'reprogrammed the camera to wake up every five minutes and take eight photographs and a video before switching off for a rest.' He also ensured the camera was 'wrapped in loft insulation' to make sure it could operate at the cold temperatures. The GPS device allowed him to pinpoint the balloon's location, and retrieve the camera when it fell down to earth attached to a small parachute."
This is awesome, kudos to the guy who pulled it off.
Its also pretty sad that the engineers at NASA never thought of it...
when you can just push the shutter button from your lawn chair.
Nullius in verba
The little brother is taking pictures. And videos...
He posts them to the Internet for the rest of the little brothers and sisters to see.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Get with, eds.
This is not AMC, you know.
... can be found here: http://www.robertharrison.org/icarus/wordpress/?page_id=36
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Yeah, of course NASA is too stupid to think of using balloons.
The server seems to be down, any other useful link? Did someone had the time to host the pictures elsewhere before the server went down?
The guy's website was Slashdotted. Well done people!!!
There are pictures, and even nice videos that come out every few months from folks playing around with high altitude balloons. It seems kind of unlikely to me that NASA would have just suddenly discovered this and been amazed. Until there is confirmation from NASA, I'm just going to assume this is BS, either made up by the guy, or some prankster called him.
Shows how much thinking "out of the box" goes on in top engineering circles today...
Actually the government agencies that were the predecessors to NASA were doing that sort of thing in the 1940s/50s, maybe earlier.
It will require more than duct tape and £500 to resurrect his server after a slashdotting.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Slashdotted, pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30721501@N05/collections/72157621244472915/
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
He should send a complimentary set of plans to the Flat Earth Society. They could use the perspective.
This has bee done for year by amateurs. I have been following these people for atleast a couple of years: BEAR
They have some AWESOME video of their attempts.
I wonder why NASA is just now finding about about this stuff???
soo i guess i should do all those simple things and get nasa to call me up? what do u think? should i?
epic sig..... ya i got nothing
a balloon-mounted camera that can travel up to 21.7 miles (35km) above the surface of the Earth
According to most people, space starts at 100km. It's impossible for a balloon to get that high, because there is no atmosphere at that height - and balloons require atmosphere. Even the blog specifically states:
...pictures of the Earth from near space...
So, there it is. Not space. Only near space. Summary is wrong.
Umm a couple of college kids fom MIT did this last year for $150 dollars. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget/
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
I nominate Robert Harrison for the sequel series to MacGyver.
...this guy could be a leading US space pioneer for the next decade or so.
I keep getting "Error establishing a database connection"
Actually, thats a myth.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
The "space pen" was developed independently from NASA and NASA did in fact use pencils on several early missions.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Why are you surprised? NASA spent millions to develop a pen that could write in space... the Russians used a pencil. Sometimes people look for a really complicated solution instead of going for something cheap and cheerful that gets-the-job-done.
LOL!
I mean, no. No they didn't. This is an urban legend perpetuated by petty anti-government types. Educate thy self: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
NASA spent millions to develop a pen that could write in space... the Russians used a pencil.
Someday, people will stop repeating this falsehood.
I fear that day is not coming anytime soon, though.
Urban legend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen
Please tell me you are joking. This old chestnut AGAIN?
the Ruskies didn't use a pencil. A normal biro will work prefectly fine. A pencil would be great, snap the nip of and you have a teeny tiny bit of pencil floating around your space ship where it can lodge pretty much anywhere
Who was it? Someone from the cafeteria? It seems like NASA engineers should not be surprised by the idea of using balloons to loft instruments.
http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/balloon/
If the agency wanted to take equivalent pictures, I am sure someone there could figure out how to do it with less than millions of dollars and a rocket.
I wonder what the final altitude is before the balloon bursts? The next person to make one of these needs to put an altimeter in it, preferably one that can can stamp the images with the altitude.
Also how hard would it be to make one of these to carry a person? If Virgin Galactic is going to charge $200,000 to carry someone to the edge of space, wouldn't it be cooler to ride a balloon to space and then parachute back to earth?
Yes... This is fun stuff but nothing new here. Great going for the guys that do it and thanks for posting the pics but this is like reporting that someone stuck a camera in their model airplane.
Yawn.
Expect a repeat story in 4-6 weeks. Student-camera-GPS-balloon-NASA. Hohum.
BZZT! And that's the incredibly wrong answer that we were looking for!
Thanks for playing the "regurgitate-urban-legend-bullshit" game - you've won the ridicule of your online peers.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
Anonymous Coward? Tell him what else he's won!
Actually, NASA funded a weather-balloon launched space telescope. There's a great documentary called "Blast!" about it (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190065/).
$150 is just for the camera rig. How much did it cost to follow it and recover it after it falls back to earth?
I was more impressed when that bunch of Catalan Highschool Students did the same thing. They also had some fairly impressive photos as well.
...if some guy's kid was accidentally carried aloft and took the pictures: THAT would be a story!
I think I have seen this before with several small differences. Maybe the baloon altitude was not this much, but this is nothing new. Actually I think you can do much better with the smartphones available now, probably cheaper too.
Its easier to program smartphones (especially if you go with android). But kudos to the guy for taking nice pictures. I always enjoy these pictures.
From the pics available at both sites, I think the $500 version offers much more impressive pictures.
Only thing is that's a myth.
Previously, Russia used grease pencils, and NASA used mechanical pencils that were more expensive than the pens that Fisher pen co. developed with their own money. Russia also ended up using the Fisher pens
http://history.nasa.gov/spacepen.html
I mean... whats the big deal here that NASA would care?
It has its own high altitide balloon program - where they do real science - for weeks at a time - not just cool pictures for a few hours...
http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/balloon/
http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/
This is true, but don't forget that Harrison already reached an altitude far higher than the college kids (they hit about t18 miles, whereas Harrison reached about 22 miles--sure "only" 4 miles but I wonder if the cost is more in the balloon and material difference between the two).
500 British pounds, not US dollars. Around $750 according to the current exchange rate.
Do not anger the worm.
If you want to play with this kind of thing, attach a cheap digital camera to a kite. Set it for video recording (so you don't have to hack in some kind of repeating timer), and launch the kite. You'll proably see a lot of swaying of the camera (play with different mounts), but you should be able to get some intresting photos of the area. It wont be 22 miles, but even a couple hundred feet can be intresting.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"Petty anti-government types" covers a lot of the people on TV these days, and 41 members of the US Senate.
You are welcome on my lawn.
All of our supplies (including camera, GPS tracking, weather balloon, and helium) were purchased for less than a grand total of $150.
So the tracking part was included, and if you read just a little farther it says it landed 20 miles away. I don't know home much gas costs around MIT, But I'm gonna assumed they didn't stray past $200.
P.S. I should have posted that link as well earlier, its linked on the Wired.com page.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
UK and Morehead State universities teamed up to achieve this with no budget almost two and a half years ago.
http://ssl.engr.uky.edu/nearspace/balloon1
That is an interesting point, and I wouldn't be surprised if that did play a difference.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
He would have incurred LARGE costs on this one.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Flat != Rectangular
Just because the world is flat, that doesn't mean it has to be rectangular like the standard Mercator Projection map. A pizza has a circular shape, yet is flat-ish... It does have bumps and lumps due to what is placed on it. If you stand above a pizza and take a picture of the edge, low-and-behold, you get a pictures exactly like the ones supplied by the story. So, we now have experimental evidence that supports our hypothesis.
"A guy phoned up who worked for NASA"? Who? The gardener? Bollocks.
"He wanted to know how the hell we did it." Bollocks. Just bollocks.
Step 1 - Do something unremarkable with a balloon, duct tape and a camera
Step 2 -Submit story about it to Slashdot, complete with bogus claims regarding NASA adulation
Step 3 - Profit!!!!!
Are Slashdot editors becoming even more gullible, or are they that desperate for front page filler material?
Looks like a college sponsored event, with help/participation from a local middle school. I assure you they did not do it with "no budget". Somebody has to buy a the equipment. The US gov also sent up balloon like this back in the 40's, its not a achievement because it hasn't been done, its and achievement cause they did it so cheaply.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Slashdot has
http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/10/24/1813205/Huge-Balloon-Lofts-New-Telescope
reported on this
http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/12/21/1328206/BLAST-Telescope-About-To-Launch-From-Antarctica
several times
http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/09/19/2312240/Space-On-a-Shoestring
over the past
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/05/05/16/1845220/DIY-High-Altitude-Ballooning
few years.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/03/18/1645216/DIY-Space-Photography
And each time
http://www.sbszoo.com/bear/sable/sable3.htm
people are surprised. Maybe I read Slashdot too much. Yeah, that's the problem...
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
wat?
But why was NASA spend any money on this at all? They already have lots of really nice pictures from orbit pretty much any time they want them. The project, while fun, doesn't do anything new, doesn't do it any more accurately or in any greater detail. It doesn't have implications for new future launch platforms or any other new kind of science. If the balloon had be smaller and had climbed less high, he'd have been little more than a peeping tom using a camera on a kite or balloon to see into neighbors yards.
I think it's awesome that the guy was successful and had a great bit of fun with it. I hope he teaches his kids to think on their own as well. I think it's a bit pathetic that NASA would care, and is more likely true that someone from NASA cared rather than the organization as a whole.
Either that, or someone with a security role just wanted to make sure the kid wasn't developing his own rockets -- which, now that I think about it, is pretty likely.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Headline reads: "Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Space Photos". First of all, shouldn't it read "Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Photos From Space"? Even so, I'm pretty sure this balloon was not in Space when the photos were taken. The whole rig must have been in Earth's atmosphere. If not, we've been spending way too much on rocket technology.
Exchange rates between pounds and dollars are a bit tricky. Sure, 500 pounds will get you $750 at the bank, but, especially when dealing with high-tech stuff, 500 pounds will buy you about the same amount as 500 dollars.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
why does the temperature drop while the altitude is going down quickly. Presumably, that's once the thing is using a parachute. But why does it get so cold so fast? It didn't get that cold on the way up.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30721501@N05/4111728280/in/set-72157622821010632/
Funny how being against bad governance gets translated into being against all government by the left.
Interesting that Pro-Constitution is regarded as anit-government. I mean, I guess it's true in a sense. I've just never really seen it phrased that way.
I work for NASA too. I see the big rockets all around me and now wonder how we could have possibly missed the weather balloon concept. The sheer novelty of the idea I am sure. I mean, who ever dreamed that a balloon could go so high? or that we could use micro-electronics for a timer, or just use a cheap digital camera. I am submitting a proposal tomorrow that we scrap the international space station, hubble telescope support, and next generation shuttle programs immediately.
We can just hire this Brit away from his backyard shed and use all the money we save on our empty-or-leaky pen project. Surely, there must be some type of writing utensil which would be cheap, not leak, could write even upside down, and perhaps even be erasable. If only such a thing existed.
Shows how much thinking "out of the box" goes on in top engineering circles today...
Why are you surprised? NASA spent millions to develop a pen that could write in space... the Russians used a pencil. Sometimes people look for a really complicated solution instead of going for something cheap and cheerful that gets-the-job-done.
To be fair, though, NASA saved billions by faking the moon landing.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Perhaps you were just trying to be funny... But no, we aren't.
We europeans have a lot of negative stereotypes about americans: A man combining all of them would be slightly overweight, would never read books, would be ignorant about the rest of the world but still overly patriotic and confident that USA is the best place on earth. He would shout out odd political statements such as "I oppose the war but support our troops!" and "I disagree with the president but still support him because he is our president!". He also might chant "free trade free trade free trade..." fanatically... You get the idea by now.
However, impoliteness is not one of the stereotypes. I've personally never heard anyone claim that americans would be extraordinarily rude... In fact, that is a word that most of us would probably associate with the french.
The question is, instead of a camera, have a ton of balloons bring up a rocket launcher of some sort, like these guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfJNNXTt85Q
Could you then make the first satellite made by hobbyists...
Funny how being against bad governance gets translated into being against all government by the left.
There's a difference between being "against bad governance" and simply putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "NO!" louder and louder until someone gives in and gives you a cookie or your throat explodes any time someone from the opposite side of the aisle says anything, even if you actually agree with it, debate and civility be damned.
but the photos are only of where the balloon landed. A better dad would have shown them how to use GPS and a timer. At least we answered the question "Where does the wind go?" http://www.ualconsulting.com/joshua-and-ari/weatherballoon.htm
FA is a troll and the article likely would not have been published if it wasn't a UK news outlet and didn't include a jab at NASA. NASA funds Spacegrant Consortiums doing high altitude balloon research at several US universities. The one I worked on was very similar except we had a license amateur radio operator so we could legally use an APRS system for tracking the balloon. Back then where was no CHDK to use for a cheap Canon camera so camera was controlled by a 555 timer circuit wired to the shutter button. The highest cost was the helium when you figure in the cost of storing large tanks of compressed gas. Our system was slightly more expensive because the payload usually also contained a logging system that stored additional sensor data like temperature and pressure.
a bored bloke will attach a camera to a baloon and make it to Slashdot. Just as every now and then another bored bloke will come up with a Google Maps mashup for the iPhone or , calling it "virtual reality". Move on people, move on... Now, on topic. I'd rather raise an eyebrow when some dude goes into deep sea diving using off the shelf stuff.
I recommend a subscription to Nuts and Volts mag - they have been publishing high altitude balloon projects using low cost microprocessors and embedded systems for years now. Great resource for h/w, robotics, and embedded systems hackers. They are online at www.nutsvolts.com
Poor guy's website is fully choked with requests. Hats off to our British overlords !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
He should have taken the fish!
True and like this report they acted like they were trailblazers.
The media really needs to learn how to google "college weather balloon science".
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
...in scientific ballooning. They do this, pretty much all the time, year around, *all* over the world, and have invested a great deal in programs to allow missions eventually last for several months on a regular basis. In the past, they have put sizable balloons up for a year or more at a time (in the 60's, no less).
Scientific ballooning is my current profession. Stunning inroads in astronomy and earth science are being created every year. The mission profile is rapidly growing.
They provide a large body of resources to amateur DIYers for their own EOS operations as well.
It's a troll of an article if I ever saw one. Very odd.
http://wiwgcap.org/wing/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/limit,8/limitstart,24
This is an urban legend perpetuated by petty anti-government types.
Praising the communists' approach is not anti-government pretty much by definition.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Trust me, you do not want any organized government to extend beyond the 2-dimensional plat of land that you built for it to exist.
Why does California need to know that it has neighbors?
If you knew there was more land outside your crib, wouldn't you go harass others to take their land? That's the point of Flat-Earth Society, to let everyone know that to be productive in this world you should not think of things that don't concern work ethic to complete your tasks where you stand.
Get out your level, and you'll know that man makes land flat as to domesticate it and all living things that derive benefit from such improvement.
Nobody makes anything. They shill privateers with fake money to build the bullshit they use to assemble together and make fly in the sky.
Where they fail to ploy privateers to accept paper money, they trick them with medical care for environmental problems that government fabricated or caused.
Notice how everything now is aiming at the pockets of privateers, so-called Sales Tax has now been met with a Income Tax that hurts everyone but those whose wages are payed in it's collection.
Over and over again, the need to scrounge for resources has shown to improve the quality of the product, from people bootlegging resources from their company (see Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine about how an underfunded and overworked group developed Data General's Eclipse 32-bit VAX competitor), to the reports in In Search of Excellence how excellent companies encourage scrounging and "borrowing" time and resources to work on new ideas.
One writer in a book about the show told a story how the original 1966 TV show Star Trek had to develop a special effect and there was only enough money in the budget for something like $562.00, which, given what it costs to develop things in television, was I think 1/3 of what it could expect to cost, and the guy didn't think he could do it, but he figured out a way.
Over and over again, it's the companies that have to scrounge and figure way to do things cost effectively and work with low amounts of money, that, long term, figure out how to survive and grow. Creative companies do more with less; it's the ones who have "too much" money that get in trouble.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
You must've traveled here frequently and become quite familiar with the natives!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Been there, done that on March 2009:
Spanish students beat Nasa with balloon and £56 camera
Spanish students balloon
Google: spanish+students+balloon
"March 19, 2009
Spanish students beat Nasa with balloon and £56 camera"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5939123.ece
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html
My school (University of Advancing Technology) did this 2 years ago (google for UAT Near Space). Not sure why NASA would be surprised it could be done on the cheap.