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NASA's Space Balloon Smashes Car In Australia
Humunculus writes "Of more worldly issues, NASA's latest multimillion-dollar stratosphere-bound balloon launch has gone horribly wrong and crashed into a car, turning it over and narrowly missing two elderly people who were observing the launch. The payload fared worse, reportedly being smashed into a 'thousand pieces.'"
First splat
The director of the Balloon Launching Centre, Professor Ravi Sood, says no one was hurt. But he says the scientists involved in the NASA-sponsored project are crushed.
It says right there, some NASA scientists were crushed in the accident.
I think the old couple needs to sue, sell chunks of their car on eBay, and retire rich!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
that Australia is upside down
Quite high if you had a car parked next to the launch rig. Which is what happened. If you bothered to click the link.
The lead baloon engineer, known for his cocky attitude and general air of superiority, had his ego severely deflated.
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He said the balloon was then seen lying partially-inflated above a paddock "like a white Uluru".
what's a paddock?
and what is with the reference to an albino version of a star trek character?
i know you australians typically speak german like your neighbors to the north, but if you are going to write a story in the american language, try to more precise
thanks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I find this response insulting. Australians do not drink Fosters! It's for export only. Nothing is too bad for the rest of the world.
I know we lost, what I assume is, millions. (Probably $150 per screw) Someone's car got smashed. We almost killed people. We probably set the program back X amount of time. X amount of time is going to cost, what I assume is, millions. But still...
We laugh at Fail Blog so...can't we laugh at this a little? Or maybe at least chuckle?
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
After watching the video, I can't help but think there was a massive miscalculation of the lift. And ignorance of real launch conditions, consisting of a mild breeze.
Keep Doing Good.
Why did you think a big balloon would stop people?
It seems in the very beginning of the clip that there was not enough upward force on the cable for a proper lift off. The launch release caused the payload to immediately swing like a pendulum and there was not enough launch height for the amount of vertical lift being applied to avoid the payload swinging into the ground.
I'm assuming that the actual near vertical crash was due to some kind of abort procedure initiated as a result of the payload being dragged across the ground because there was an (off screen) catastrophic balloon failure at that point.
Slashdot posts link to articles?
Why didn't someone tell me this earlier?
because you're the kind of fuckin' idiot who hijacks conversations by asking dumb questions that well-meaning but not-so-bright people waste time answering, creating thread after thread of redundant posts (usually modded Insightful for some reason) that any intelligent reader has to sort through before getting to read any actual conversation. like when you ask something that you'd know the answer to if you read the fucking article, or sometimes even the fucking summary, and some big-heart-but-little-brain person answers your question instead of telling you to stop being so damned lazy.
you might have a really high IQ but if you need other people to find, read, and process your information for you, then you're still a moron
freud, schwarzenegger, mozart, schrodinger...
ok, that's respectable
respect to you australians then
but you really should stick with your native german language
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Is this piece of junk costing NASA millions?
Or is the R&D costing millions and does this thing itself cost a lot less to reproduce?
Just a minor question, of course...
Here be signatures
I remember when NASA could sling shot a satellite 40,000+ miles looping around a planet 32 times, ricochet of an asteroid and drop a golf ball in a cup of coffee in the middle of Denver blindfolded with both hands behind their back.
Now they can't remember to convert metric to imperial (and back again) and can't launch a ballon...
Damn NASA used to be the best and the brightest. I worry if we'll be able to feed ourselves by the end of the year :P
NASA's performance was once the measure of the USA's intellectual success... I'm worried... apparently more money on education doesn't = smarter people...
I mean come on it's not rocke...errr wait...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Was there a little boy in it? Is he OK??
If it isn't broke, tinker with it till it is!
Then it comes slowly in a few days and crashes into a car ;)
That would be understandable.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
austria before world war ii was known as the empire of austria-hungry
this was solved by the invasion of turkey
turkey is a delicious country, especially on thanksgiving day, which is the day turkey was able to remove the hungry part of the austro-hungryian empire
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I find this response insulting.
Australians do not drink Fosters!
It's for export only. Nothing is too bad for the rest of the world.
Not everyone has an Australians refined taste for wood alcohol. Most can't tell which car's radiator was used in producing the alcohol or how many hours old it is.
If you don't like the way I drive, stay the hell off the sidewalk.
If you don't like the way I fly, keep your damn car the hell out of the field.
P.S.
He said the balloon was then seen lying partially-inflated above a paddock "like a white Uluru".
What the hell is an Uluru?
I guess it's something that kinda looks like a partially-inflated balloon over a paddock, except it's not white.
Ah... yeah... something like that.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
you compare a country to a misspelling of its name and you have the audacity to question my grasp on geography?
put another shrimp on the barbie and go watch the sound of music kid, the part where crocodile dundee teaches julie andrew's eight kids how to sing
learn something before you spout your ignorance, stupid child
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It may be a bad day for balloon launches, but at least jokes seem to be flying right past some people.
According to the BBC, the equipment was not damaged.
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