Brooklyn Father And Son Launch Homemade Spacecraft

Adair writes "A father and son team from Brooklyn successfully launched a homemade spacecraft nearly 19 miles (around 100,000 feet) above the Earth's surface. The craft was a 19-inch helium-filled weather balloon attached to a Styrofoam capsule that housed an HD video camera and an iPhone. The camera recorded video of its ascent into the stratosphere, its apogee where the balloon reached its breaking point, and its descent back to earth. They rigged a parachute to the capsule to aid in its return to Earth, and the iPhone broadcast its GPS coordinates so they could track it down. The craft landed a mere 30 miles from its launch point in Newburgh, NY, due to a quick ascent and two differing wind patterns. The pair spent eight months researching and test-flying the craft before launching it in August. Columbia University Professor of Astronomy Marcel Aguera said, 'They were very good but also very lucky.'"

Comments

One reason why it won't be in the press...

[Anonymous Coward]

No 8 year old kids stuck in the craft after launch.

Re:One reason why it won't be in the press...

[Darkness404]

The other reasons it won't be in the press: It didn't make it to space and it seems like everyone else is doing it too. Yeah, its a nice accomplishment, yeah, they should be proud of it but its not unique in the least, it seems like the past year everyone has been doing essentially what they have done.

Re:One reason why it won't be in the press...

[dwillden]

Isn't this at least the third time /. has had an article about somebody who has stuck a camera to a weather balloon? What exactly is newsworthy about this?

Re:One reason why it won't be in the press...

[tehcyder]

What exactly is newsworthy about this?

It contained the magic phrase "iPhone" and is therefore automatically cool and stuff.

Cool!

[raddan]

This is a very clever use of an iPhone. I would love to see this one used as a yearlong high school science project. The ROI on materials is incredible here.

Re:Cool!

[bornclimber]

http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/florida/space/2010/04/14/experiment-off-the-ground-for-erau-students.html

Re:Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is a very lame attempt at karma whoring. How about you shut the fuck up, and try to come up with some originality next time, ok?

Citation needed.

Re:Cool!

[Mitchell314]

I could reply with some clever and ironic counter-point for "+1 funny"s, but sadly my self-referential humor would likely go unnoticed or unappreciated and my karma whoring would end up as being negative.

So I won't say anything at all.

Oh . . . dammit.

Re:Cool!

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Even better is you can use a $30 Boost phone to do the same thing.

Way better than risking a $1000+ iPhone that may not be recovered.

This is cool, but not original, The Register has something a little cooler in the works.

Still, major kudos to this Father/Son team.

_

Re:Cool!

[lokiomega]

$1000 plus? You paid too much man

Re:Cool!

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Actually I didn't.

I use a $30 Boost phone, hence I know its abilities. It may not have the bells, whistles and "hip" value but it does what I need for what I can afford.

My bad. The $1k was pulled out of the air, I think I had iPhone and iPad mixed up somewhere in the brain. A quick Google has informed me that even when the iPhone first hit the market it was a high of about $600.

As lion-O would say "Now I know!"

Re:Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

so how did $600 become $1000+? also, ipads aren't even $1000

Re:Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

iphones cost more than $1,000 over the life of the device, what with the monthly charges from AT&T.

Re:Cool!

[houghi]

Just connect the iPhone to this app

Re:Cool!

[daveime]

How about you shut the fuck up, and try to come up with some originality next time, ok?

You first, Steve.

Re:Cool!

[Duradin]

Oh but it does have "hip" value, otherwise you wouldn't be trotting it out and saying it isn't hip.

It's hip to hate on Apple. I hate to break it to you, but you're a hipster too.

Re:Cool!

[ebuck]

But by using an iPhone, you ride the tailcoats of Apple's marketing. The media currently has a disproportionate love affair with Apple, so you might get your story out a bit further with a iPhone than a Boost phone.

Re:Cool!

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Noooooo!!! It can't be!!

Your wrong!!

I'm never hip!

I wasn't hip in high school and I've never changed!

Stop trying to ruin my non-hip reputation!

_

Re:Cool!

[Geoffrey.landis]

This is a very clever use of an iPhone. I would love to see this one used as a yearlong high school science project. The ROI on materials is incredible here.

Since there is a nonzero probability of losing the payload, the Return On Investment on a project flying an I-phone is definitely negative.

Is there an app for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there an app for that?

Re:Is there an app for that?

[AigariusDebian]

There is one on n900 - it measures how high can you throw you n900 and how high is the drop, using the timer and accelerometer.

Re:Is there an app for that?

[6Yankee]

If it were my n900, I would hope that those are the same number!

Re:Is there an app for that?

[SleazyRidr]

Not necessarily. What if you throw it up on the top of a building... Or off a cliff?

Re:Is there an app for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

It only seems to use the accelerometer to determine when it is thrown and when it has landed, then determines the height based purely on the time of flight. I threw mine up ~1.5m and caught it just after it reached the apex of it's flight, flyn900 recorded a height of ~0.8m.

19 miles isn't "space"

[stjobe]

19 miles is still in the stratosphere.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[InfiniteWisdom]

It's not even a matter of trying to draw a fuzzy boundary. This was a balloon, with no propulsion. By its very nature there's no way it can go above the atmosphere regardless of how you define the boundary of space.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mcornelius]

Actually, there is. It's called the Kármán line, and it's 62 miles or 100 kilometers.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[ehud42]

There is no clear "line" where the Earth's atmosphere ends and Space begins.

If an person must reach an altitude 62 miles to be considered an astronaut, that would be where I would draw the line.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[denshao2]

It's an overly sensationalistic title. Reading this was very disappointing.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[tverbeek]

When the atmosphere gets thin enough it's "space"; 19 miles is stretching the definition a bit, but people of good faith can disagree on where that is. The WPIX article saying they sent into "into orbit" is of course dead wrong. It wasn't even a suborbital ballistic flight (like Alan Shepard's first).

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mapkinase]

Actually, my childhood definition of "reaching space" was reaching escape velocity.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[arth1]

19 miles (30 km, 100000 ft) is not in the upper atmosphere. It's in the stratosphere, which is considered part of the lower atmosphere along with the troposphere.
For comparison, the SR-71 cruised at 85000 ft, and the International Space Station is at ~350 km, and that's still considered well inside the atmosphere.

While it's impossible to say where space begins, I think a minimum criterion is to reach low earth orbit, or at least 160 km. This wasn't even a fifth of the way.

Yes, it's impressive to get a home made balloon up to more than three times the height of Chomolungma, but you do these guys a disservice by comparing it to space.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[ColdWetDog]

Actually, there is. It's called the Kármán line, and it's 62 miles or 100 kilometers.

Hey, I just pulled out my trusty Celestron - I don't see it. Did they mark it with anything?

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Auto_Lykos]

To be fair, atmospheric pressure at 19 miles is just a little under 1% of what is at sea level and about equivalent to the atmosphere of Mars.

But we've seen these kinds of cheap high altitude balloons cover by Slashdot for about a year now and every time it happens, it seems to be picked up as a "new" event.

The thing that is really annoying though is that they all are doing the same thing without any improvement. Next time I have to read this story, please say someone floated a model rocket with an M engine up to 20 miles and got it the golden suborbital height.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[iammani]

Look closer, its the blue (actually sky blue) coloured thing in the sky.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[u17]

It's entirely possible to go to space without reaching escape velocity. You will get there as long as you're moving up and your thrust is greater or equal to the force of gravity. Escape velocity only concerns something moving up without any thrust at all. Of course, we can't build anything that will maintain thrust equal to the force of gravity for long enough, but if we could, we could go to space... at a snail's pace!

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mrsquid0]

This is essentially a bureaurcratic definition. 100 km serves as a convenient line for dividing air travelers from astronauts, but there is no physical change in the atmosphere at that point. It is just an arbitrary line in the sky.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you're traveling from two miles up directly towards the ground?

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is essentially a bureaurcratic definition. 100 km serves as a convenient line for dividing air travelers from astronauts, but there is no physical change in the atmosphere at that point. It is just an arbitrary line in the sky.

It's not arbitrary, it's a practical definition. At 100km in an aircraft, you need to fly at orbital velocities just to stay aloft, so effectively you need a spacecraft instead.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[nedlohs]

So hubble isn't in space? They really should give it a different name...

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mcornelius]

That's not the bureaucratic definition. That's a practical definition. (The bureaucratic definition is either 50 miles or 76 miles , depending on whether you're coming or going. (No, I'm not kidding; NASA calls it spaceflight once you get above 50 miles, but reëntry (end of spaceflight) occurs when descending to 76 miles.) You seriously misunderestimate the stupidity and omnipresence of the bureaucratic mentality if you think they could adopt anything so practical a definition as the approximate boundary where ends most atmospheric drag.)

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

But its 19 mile ascent showed the plucky determination of the American family unit, and as such it may as well have reached the moon! That's what really counts here, and it's important that people are told about this feat so they feel better about things.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are sending an actual spacecraft to the moon. But, whatever... .

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[CODiNE]

Perhaps like a balloon held deep under the surface of a pool... as it flew towards the edge of the atmosphere the momentum carried it *PLOOP!* over the top before gravity brought it back down.

Yo I'm just kidding man, relax. ;)

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Lobachevsky]

The Karman line is the defined boundary for space. Your claim that "there is no clear 'line' ..." can applied to most anything, including boundaries between land and sea.

There is no clear line, or particular grain of sand, that divides land from sea. There is a wetness gradient, where you go from completely dry, to moist sand, to ever more moist sand, to fairly wet sand, to very wet sand, to sand with frothy puddles, to turbid water, ankle high water, knee high water... you get the drift.

Everything in nature lacks a clear boundary - due to planck's constant and such. All you can say is, with error bars, what the boundary is. We know the coastal boundaries of nations, within +/- 25m error. Similarly, the Kamran line is a decent boundary for when space stars from the Earth's surface. Is it exact to the millimeter? No, doesn't have to be. But the property is that buoyant crafts (bouyant due to density or due to propulsion with wings) cannot exist at the Kamran line. Just as the coastal boundaries of nations, while not defining the exact grain of sand land stops and sea begins, generally define the point at which you're dry or wet, within +/- 25m.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Neoprofin]

Apples to Apples, cynic.

Why can't people ever be happy when enterprising amateurs do something cool?

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Mitchell314]

I think the minimum requirement is when orbital mechanics starts becoming more influential than aerodynamic lift when managing altitude. Which I think is near ~100km.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about 65000 penises. Well, for me it's 65000, probably a lot more for you.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

hubble orbit is around 300 miles, not 20.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Nehmo]

I'm afraid this thread is an example of how sensational wording by the submitter caused useless commentary. If the original post could have been more accurate and omitted the word "space", the discussion would have been approving and inquiring. As it is, we're dealing in semantics, and we'rt indirectly critical of the boastfulness.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[fishexe]

19 miles is still in the stratosphere.

What, after the last six times this was pointed out in response to an article like this, you think repeating it will make the Slashdot editors finally get it?

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[wowbagger]

"Of course, we can't build anything that will maintain thrust equal to the force of gravity for long enough...."

All you need is a bit of wien from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick , or failing that, some monohydrazine.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[buback]

a sealed capsule is not really a spacecraft anymore than a submarine is a spacecraft.
Any balloon, no mater how high it goes, REQUIRES the atmosphere to reach "space".
another example: a boat is not an airplane, even though it can be thousands of meters above the ground

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. Space is widely recognized as starting at 100 km above the surface, or 62 miles. While I will admit there is some fuzziness around that number, there is no way 19 miles is considered 'space'.

Nor is a balloon regarded as a 'space craft'. There is no way it was built, or capable, of traveling through space.

This is just a over-hyped story, written by an idiot.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[dadelbunts]

Several Blackbird pilots earned austronaut wings tho. Just saying.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[vlueboy]

Why can't people ever be happy when enterprising amateurs do something cool?

We are! Whenever you see the hardhack tag, someone was very happy and envious for a fellow geek.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know when China's society has enough disposable income that an average family can send a camera 19 miles into the atmosphere as a family science project - "for fun".

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Somegeek]

I might be missing a joke somewhere in your post, and appologize if I am, but I'm getting the distinct impression that you're misinformed as to what the hardhack tag is for.

Hint: It involves hacking hardware as opposed to software....

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[M. Baranczak]

I'm happy for the enterprising amateurs. I'm not happy for the guy that stuck a blatantly false headline on this.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[gumbi west]

But helium regularly escapes the Earth's gravity field... so maybe it isn't so crazy to think you could take a balloon into space.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[turbidostato]

"But helium regularly escapes the Earth's gravity field..."

Brownian motion.

"so maybe it isn't so crazy to think you could take a balloon into space."

Archimedes' principle.

So, yes, it's quite crazy.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[vlueboy]

Meant to be [pf]unny on the "hard" part. Thanks for checking :)

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[pottymouth]

Which would be totally awesome but I've always wondered about the danger of this causing problems. I mean, the chances of hitting something are fairly small, but still .... hit an aircraft and now you're endangering lives (not to mention in VERY DEEP S**T). And who knows who might pick the thing up on radar and again, you're in trouble.

Still, it wouldn't be that technically difficult to do....

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[milkmage]

whatever.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheedl/sets/72157624448891934/
apple wouldn't be there if there was no market.

http://micgadget.com/8615/beijing-apple-store-closed-due-to-scalpers-reselling-iphone-4/
the one in Beijing had to close temporarily because people were buying up to 30 iphone4's at a time.

http://www.physorg.com/news204955403.html
100k sold in 4 days.

what are you talking about? there's plenty of disposable income for plenty of people.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Garble Snarky]

"practical" and "arbitrary" not mutually exclusive. Virtually every unit of linear distance is arbitrary, though obviously practical in some context, because it was defined and used by someone.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and it's amazing how many people will argue the contrary. "It's teh LAW OF SPACE! Ecsape velocity or you dun get there! Hurrr"

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[quenda]

In other news, Montgolfier Brothers are recognised as the world's first astronauts.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[91degrees]

At 100km in an aircraft, you need to fly at orbital velocities just to stay aloft, so effectively you need a spacecraft instead.

Never understood this. Surely this makes the Kármán line different for a flying brick like the Space Shuttle orbiter than it is for something with high lift to weight ratio like a glider or U2.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Herby Sagues]

I won't say I would have done a better job than they did (because I certainly wouldn't), but I might suggest an improvement to the experiment for their next launch. Since at 20 miles they still have considerable ascent force (2KG minus the weight of the baloon if my calculations are right) they could add a pressure valve to the baloon, so after it approaches it's maximum diameter it begins releasing small quanitites of gas to keep it close to that volume. Given that the diameter of the baloon is basically derived from the difference in pressures, by setting the valve to release gas after that difference in pressures is reached the baloon could continue to raise until its load is equal to its lift capacity. If my calculations are right you should be able to reach about ten more KM with slow gas release (assuming a payload of 200 grams). You would probably have to switch to hydrogen from helium to get that sort of "mileage" but it sounds like a doable thing. The problem with this approach is that it makes recovering the load more difficult, as you have to have another trigger. But a timer or a mechanical, altitude based release also seems doable. Now, if I were to do this, I would put as a payload a hobby rocket with a timed launch. The rocket wouldn't add much to the total height, but would account for the highest rocket launch by an individual, and that has to be worth something.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Teancum]

I really love this particular Space Shuttle image that shows off the various layers of the atmosphere:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Endeavour_silhouette_STS-130.jpg

What is so awesome about the photo is that you can clearly identify the various layers of the atmosphere, with the Troposphere having clouds (a storm is visible), the Stratosphere with even the various "stratification" showing up as bands in different colors, and the Mesosphere gradually thinning out into nothingness. Essentially you can draw the Kármán line right on this photo as it is pretty clearly identified.

And no, the Space Shuttle silhouette is not photoshopped into this image. That was a photograph from the ISS after STS-130 was preparing for landing and had just separated from the station. From that vantage point during "sunset" you could pull out the various layers of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, they didn't use a Celestron to make the photo but then again I don't think it was really needed either.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mapkinase]

In physics, escape velocity is the speed at which the kinetic energy plus the gravitational potential energy of an object is zero.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mapkinase]

I know. But it did not happen so far as far as I know and then the definition becomes quite atbitrary.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't coastal boundaries fractal, and therefore infinite?

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because they could only go down to the atomic level. A fractal boundary would have variations smaller than that (infinitely small in fact, by definition).

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Vectormatic]

even if you temporarily forget about the whole "space" thing, this still isnt that big of a deal, it is done by high-school students, reaching the same altitudes, and can be done on a budget of a few 100 bucks (and you can get some damn snazzy pics from up there)

Cool DIY project to waste a summer week on? sure.. News for nerds? Stuff that matters... hardly.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[ebuck]

It sounds like they should try a second attempt. They need to put a second auto-inflatable balloon in the compartment with the iPhone. That way their two-stage balloon rocket will go 38 miles into space and quell all these anti-plucky determination naysayers.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[ebuck]

Actually, there is. It's called the Kármán line, and it's 62 miles or 100 kilometers.

Hey, I just pulled out my trusty Celestron - I don't see it. Did they mark it with anything?

It's marked with a dotted line, in black chalk.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

We use meters. Thank you, but keep the thumbs and other parts for yourselves.

Not that I expected any mature comment about units, that is...

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[tehcyder]

When you have an eighteen inch cock, you only use two thirds of it as a rule.

*rimshot*

Ow.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[gumbi west]

Interestingly, your answers actually point out that this can happen, which I thought was wrong when I made my first post. Individual atoms of Helium escape due to being kicked up past the escape velocity in the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution of atoms. But this is a statistical property of the atoms in the gas, so a macroscopic particle is not likely to get that much energy... but Brownian motion is a property of a macroscopic object within a fluid and says that sometimes large objects can take on particle like properties. This is doubly true when the interactions are rare enough (i.e. when the air pressure is really low).

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Man Eating Duck]

Several Blackbird pilots earned austronaut wings tho. Just saying.

They might have earned astronaut wings, but not while flying a Blackbird. While it's an amazing aircraft it didn't even get close to the 80 or 100 km (depending on who you ask) you'd need for that.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA calls it spaceflight once you get above 50 miles, but reëntry (end of spaceflight) occurs when descending to 76 miles. ... You seriously misunderestimate the stupidity and omnipresence of the bureaucratic mentality if you think they could adopt anything so practical a definition as the approximate boundary where ends most atmospheric drag.

Actually, that's exactly what NASA is doing.

A launching spacecraft doesn't reach orbital velocity inside the atmosphere, most acceleration is above the atmosphere. Because of the relatively low speed, aerodynamic forces at launch become insignificant at about 50 miles altitude.

On the other hand, a spacecraft returning to earth enters the atmosphere at orbital velocity. Due to the higher speed, aerodynamic forces become significant at a much higher altitude, about 76 miles.

IIRC, the Apollo missions that went to the moon used an even higher altitude boundary because with a direct to re-entry return orbit they were going much faster than orbital speed on re-entry.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mcornelius]

Yes, I understand the reasons for the nuanced meaning, but it still prevents the bureaucracy from defining a boundary.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[mrsquid0]

No. That is not correct. The 100 km line is just a convenient round number. Physically the atmosphere at 100 km is not significantly different from the atmosphere at 90 km, or at 110 km. There have been many aircraft flying at 100 km that have had speeds much less than orbital velocity.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[SleazyRidr]

I had the idea a while ago that if you had a balloon that could generate enough lift, it would still have upwards inertia when it hit the 'edge of the atmosphere' that it would continue up a little way and technically be in space.

(Yes I realize that this is so far beyond our current technology that it's barely worth thinking about.)

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Dare nMc]

we could go to space... at a snail's pace!

yes, but if his definition of space is "will never return to earth by gravity", then he must exceed earths escape velocity at some point have to reach that. As such earths escape velocity would be 0 once in "space".

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[budgenator]

Title 14: Aeronautics and Space, PART 101—MOORED BALLOONS, KITES, AMATEUR ROCKETS AND UNMANNED FREE BALLOONS when in doubt consult the pertinent regulations.

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[Anonymous Coward]

an average US family earns somewhere about $20K per year, so a $1000 iPhone wouldn't be affordable for it either

Re:19 miles isn't "space"

[dadelbunts]

No No, it was while flying the blackbird.

This is not a spacecraft

[selven]

Seriously, it only goes up 30km. And there is no improvement that can possibly be made to a helium balloon that can make it actually go any higher than Earth's atmosphere. It's a good accomplishment but calling it a spacecraft is a bit disingenuous.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Yvan256]

Not to mention that we hear about similar stories every three to four months now.

This isn't news at all.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that...
many, and I repeat MANY amateurs have already flown such "video recorded" high altitude balloon flights... we have discussed this on Slashdot previously plenty of times...
Whats truly remarkable is to downlink data and images making it truly like a spacecraft.
For example these students in Florida http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/florida/space/2010/04/14/experiment-off-the-ground-for-erau-students.html

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, it only goes up 30km. And there is no improvement that can possibly be made to a helium balloon that can make it actually go any higher than Earth's atmosphere. It's a good accomplishment but calling it a spacecraft is a bit disingenuous.

I'd hardly say theres no room for improvement - Personally I'm waiting to see a He balloon lifter (maybe 3-4 of them spread out) with a stabilized platform holding a model rocket.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[allcoolnameswheretak]

And there is no improvement that can possibly be made to a helium balloon that can make it actually go any higher than Earth's atmosphere.

Yes there is. Attach rockets.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[JeanBaptiste]

the impressive part here is that this was done by people in Brooklyn.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[JustOK]

Rockets EXPLODE!

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[bornclimber]

We have given plenty of limelight to launching phones etc and data collection post-landing. What we haven't discussed is using the high altitude balloon platform as an space systems design education tool... and downlinking data rather than just collecting it after landing... Check out these florida students... http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/florida/space/2010/04/14/experiment-off-the-ground-for-erau-students.html

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[pckl300]

Seriously, it only goes up 30km. And there is no improvement that can possibly be made to a helium balloon that can make it actually go any higher than Earth's atmosphere. It's a good accomplishment but calling it a spacecraft is a bit disingenuous.

It may not fit our anal definition of 'space', but it's an awesome effort by a couple of regular people to do something most people would never try.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Teancum]

And there is no improvement that can possibly be made to a helium balloon that can make it actually go any higher than Earth's atmosphere.

Yes there is. Attach rockets.

What is so sad is that joke of a "spacecraft" this gets a strong mention in the press (and on Slashdot) while a real spacecraft... using a helium balloons as a 1st stage to get altitude is being used in a genuinely innovative fashion for something new with rocketry. See:

http://www.arcaspace.com/en/home.htm

ARCA was successful with their last launch attempt.... which was launched yesterday. No video links yet, but the official page says that the launch attempt was successful. Yeah, attaching rockets to a balloon is something being considered.

FYI, ARCA (Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association) is using this flight as a part of the testing regime in order to get TO THE MOON! They are a Google Lunar X-Prize team who is making some real progress and sending stuff up. They are also doing it on a budget of a mostly volunteer team in Eastern Europe. The main reason for using the balloons is not really the altitude issue, but that does simplify the rocket nozzle designs as it can be tuned to a near vacuum rather than having to deal with atmospheric flight (it makes a difference). Also, if something goes "boom", that explosion happens high up in the sky and over the Black Sea instead of over a populated area, making the issues of a launch pad much less of a problem.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[andy1307]

This isn't news at all.

Now if only the father had put the boy in the balloon....

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[cloricus]

http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/

These guys are doing some thing almost as cool though sticking to purely amateur ideals. Luckily for science loving people they've gotten a lot of press coverage. Unfortunately their latest launch failed on the pad, due to an issue with power, and they wont be able to attempt another test for six months odd. Still it is great to see people attempting to move past the generic rocket club stuff people have been doing pre-fab for 40 years.

They definitely, along with some other examples, inspired me to push my friends to start doing serious engineering projects for fun. So far our list of things to attempt comes from any thing cool on TV that come with the stupid warning 'don't try this at home!'.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[turbidostato]

"It may not fit our anal definition of 'space', but it's an awesome effort by a couple of regular people"

Reaching 100.000 feet with a $150 weather balloon is *trivial*.

"do something most people would never try."

I'd never put my tonge on a live electric cord either.

Sorry to break your dreams but the feat is not awesome. It's just lovely that a father will entertain/instruct his son with something like this, but that's all.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[pckl300]

Reaching 100.000 feet with a $150 weather balloon is *trivial*.

Maybe so, but the effect of the video is astounding. It's one thing to watch NASA footage of the earth from that height, but it seems so much cooler to make your own. I'm commending them for that.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Oceanplexian]

As far as I understand, using balloons as a 1st stage doesn't really make sense. Most of the energy required to reach orbit is accelerating to orbital velocity. Getting up there is not the problem. Getting to a minimum 15,000mph tangent to the Earth is.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Teancum]

A difference though: ARCA has actually launched stuff and Copenhagen Suborbitals hasn't. Don't get me wrong here, I love Copenhagen Suborbitals too and they are on my short list of very cool organizations that has a chance to make a huge change in how manned spaceflight works, but they do need to get some stuff "up there".

I watched them do their launch in the Baltic and it was disappointing that they weren't able to get that test launch to work.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

xD Well, at least I understood the reference.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Teancum]

They are using balloons as a means to avoid having to build an expensive launch tower with all of the necessary features that can cause death and destruction to ground personnel. It isn't being used for altitude so much but rather as a means to get the thing launched in the first place.

As I mentioned before you posted this, another purpose for this is to have the engines tuned with the bell performance so it will operate more efficiently in a near vacuum. Some of the fancier rockets have adjustable nozzle bells that expand as they gain altitude (with a variety of systems including pure mechanical systems). The reason this is a big deal is because the approach that ARCA is doing here is mainly a cost-savings approach where they aren't necessarily pushing the performance envelope like a drag racer but going more for a Volkswagen Beetle type of standard performance that is easy to mass produce and gets the job done.

ARCA is certainly pushing for economies of scale where they are going to be building rockets by the dozens or even hundreds once they settle down with the final design. Unlike other staged rockets, the ARCA design is going to be using multiple stages that are all mostly identical. The balloons enable that design to work. Seriously, it is worth at least looking at the site and watching a couple of the videos to see how they are pulling this concept off.

Considering that they are trying to land a vehicle on the Moon, the "15k mph tangent to the Earth" is at least going to be exceeded by a little bit more velocity. I think they are well aware of the difficulties involved. In the case of ARCA, they aren't even really pushing to get to the Stratosphere so much as simply getting to the upper Troposphere. If the remote sensors determine that something is amiss and they need to scrub the launch, the balloons can also bring the rockets back down again as well.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

What about attaching a rocket to it?

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Preface: I'm an aerospace engineer. I've worked for two NASA contractors, but those contracts were software related, not rocket related. None of what follows is going to be particularly advanced, though.

This TO THE MOON business from ARCA seems disingenuous to me. Do the energy calculations yourself: the kinetic energy term is going to totally dominate the potential energy term for any orbital flight. A translunar injection is hardly going to notice the energy difference between launching at sea level and launching at 100,000 ft.

ARCA's tethered-stages concept is also something I can't believe will be useful for a lunar payload. If you run the rocket equations for some reasonably-staged rocket (say three or four) with reasonable propellant/payload mass fractions and specific impulses, then take the limit as the ultimate payload to the moon approaches zero (coming from the positive side, of course) you'll find you cannot avoid having a very large, fairly thrust-heavy rocket. Check out any video of a Saturn V launch--do you really want to tow anything behind that first stage? You honestly have a tether that will survive being exposed to supersonic, superheated exhaust in that acoustic environment, that's both long enough to keep the second stage far enough out of the plume that IT doesn't basically have to be designed to withstand reentry, AND provides a weight savings over standard staging even when you account for the additional tether drag on the first stage burn plus whatever drag from the dynamics of the trailing stages?

The idea that any of what ARCA is doing will apply to any future lunar flight is a truly extraordinary claim and I have yet to see any extraordinary evidence to back it up.

Re:This is not a spacecraft

[Teancum]

Yes, it is an extraordinary claim. I get that and perhaps these guys are full of it. BTW, they aren't claiming to put people on the Moon, but rather a small package about the size of a suitcase on the Moon, but none the less it is something that does take a bit of a leap of logic.

They are involved with the Google Lunar X-Prize as one of the registered teams, which shows at least the ambition of its participants. This most recent flight only went to 40km of altitude, but that was but a single 1-stage (two stages if you count the balloons) rocket. It is noteworthy too that they were one of the original Ansari X-Prize teams with Armadillo Aerospace, Scaled Composites, and several other groups that have long since disbanded. It is the persistence of these guys that impresses me as much as anything else.

All I know is that ARCA is bending metal and throwing hardware in the sky. That to me sounds like a good thing and generally those who are launching stuff eventually get their designs to work with some persistence or discover in a real hurry that they are chasing a dead end. If the situation is going to flop, I expect that it will flop soon and they will be forced to come up with a more traditional launcher plan.

The only reason I'm bringing this spacecraft up in this way is because it is an example of a balloon-based launcher concept showing that you might be able to apply balloons for something useful in spaceflight, that it was something very newsworthy (the ARCA flight happened just before I posted the reply), and due to the fact that ARCA is at least trying something different that other aerospace engineers aren't doing. You can doubt that a particular system will work, but how do you know until the approach is tried?

Yes, remain skeptical. What makes me excited is that ARCA isn't the "only game in town" and that there are dozens of different launch approaches now being tried in many different countries. One of them is going to work out eventually, but there are a whole lot of people trying really wild and crazy ideas here. I think ARCA is just about as extreme on originality as can be had and being in Romania also gives them some freedom where they aren't fighting so many skeptics.

Hang on

[Anonymous Coward]

These two sent up an iPhone into the stratosphere which contains aircraft. They used GPS to track their device. They are obviously terrorists.

Re:Hang on

[camperdave]

These two sent up an iPhone into the stratosphere which contains aircraft. They used GPS to track their device. They are obviously terrorists.

Riiight, because a radio receiver is a threat to aircraft.

Re:Hang on

[dkuntz]

Of course it is.. they were using the Plane Finder AR app! They were trying to steer the balloon with telekinetics towards a plane!

Re:Hang on

[palegray.net]

Whooooooosh.

Re:Hang on

[pspahn]

So, in fact, there really is NO reason to make us turn our cell phones off during takeoff and landing? I thought so.

Original video

[lavagolemking]

Since apparently nobody linked to the original video as far as I can tell, here it is:

http://vimeo.com/15091562

Re:Original video

[lavagolemking]

Oops, only saw one of the links.

This again?

[HelioWalton]

How many times are we going to see the "Camera put in styrofoam box and floated up with a weather balloon" story. Is this one special because they threw an iPhone into the box too?

Re:This again?

[surveyork]

+5 Insightful. The 'helium balloon + styrofoam + camera + GPS-enabled device' trick has been done before. Just an example.

Also, 30 Km-height != space.

Re:This again?

[nomadic]

You sure told that 8 year old. Kudos.

Re:This again?

[HelioWalton]

Sure, it might be a fun and cool thing to do as an 8 year old (Or any age, really), but it isn't like we need to see it once a month on Slashdot.

Tape in a Big Model Rocket

[Black Gold Alchemist]

I wonder how high this could fly if a big model rocket was added, so it started when the balloon burst?

Re:Tape in a Big Model Rocket

[Spy Handler]

that 19 inch helium ballon doesn't have much of a payload, so you can't stick a big model rocket in there.

You *could* possibly stick a small model rocket, and have the iPhone fire it when they reach high enough an altitude. A small rocket with 5 seconds of thrust maybe.

You could even modify the shape of the exhaust nozzle for optimum vacuum performance since there's almost air there .

while that would be cool, it's still nowhere near enough to actually get it in space....

Re:Tape in a Big Model Rocket

[sjames]

You could use either a larger balloon or more of them to carry a more significant rocket up there

Re:Tape in a Big Model Rocket

[xda]

Would a model rocket engine even work properly in the upper atmosphere? Don't they need oxygen?

Re:Tape in a Big Model Rocket

[pspahn]

there's an app for that.

Re:Tape in a Big Model Rocket

[BiggerBoat]

A rocket engine, by definition, uses on-board oxidizer. In the case of a solid rocket engine, like those used in most model rockets, the oxidizer is mixed with the fuel to form a solid, which forms the grain inside the engine itself.

This is news how?

[Onomang]

Nearly the same exact thing was done over a year ago for a budget of only $150 by college students from MIT.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget/

Re:This is news how?

[bornclimber]

Better than MIT is the Florida attempt... Florida students transmitted some science data, and not just download from a phone after landing... http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/florida/space/2010/04/14/experiment-off-the-ground-for-erau-students.html

Re:This is news how?

[nametaken]

And the students in Spain...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html

How is this different from...

[garompeta]

From this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/digitalcameras/mit-students-snap-space-photos-of-the-earth-with-40-canon-a470/1805
And this?: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1260323/British-aerospace-enthusiast-takes-NASA-style-photographs-using-helium-balloon-pocket-camera.html

Seriously, are we going to be calling it spacecraft? What is it going to be next? The Flip based UFO?
pleaaaseee.... gimme a break...

Re:How is this different from...

[apoc.famine]

It's all part of the downward trend here. Any ideas on a better site, with functional editors and useful comments?

Re:How is this different from...

[SleazyRidr]

Slashdot is a terrible news aggregating site. The only thing worst is the rest of them!

not actually a 'space craft'

[scharkalvin]

As others have already pointed out you have to be at least 60 miles up to be in outer space so this wasn't a true space craft. It probably did get high enough to see the curvature of the earth and a black (or at least violet) sky. Aircraft with air breathing engines have gotten up this high so there is still atmosphere up this high. Maybe someday someone will try attaching a large model rocket similarly equipped to a balloon that will ignite at 100K ft. Something like that might get into space. (This has been done in the past with sounding rockets).

Feeling of déjà vu...

[Nemyst]

I remember many similar stories already making the headlines here. I don't want to downplay their achievement, it's cool, but it's not really new or exciting anymore for anyone but them. I was hoping a real heavier-than-air craft, not another weather balloon.

Re:Feeling of déjà vu...

[BraksDad]

Stories about another UFO:weather ballon, What is the difference. They are all full of hot air.

Cool, but

[glrotate]

Couldn't they have launched on a clear day so that you could see something other than clouds?

Never!

[camperdave]

Sigh! You can never reach space in a balloon. Something that floats in the atmosphere cannot rise above the atmosphere. It's as ridiculous as thinking you can rise above the surface of the water in a submarine. This thing doesn't even get a third of the way to space.

Re:Never!

[Sir_Lewk]

Actually, you certainly can rise above the surface of the water with a submarine. You just need a good deal of momentum, and you're not going to stay up there very long... Try holding a beach-ball below water, as deep as possible, then letting go.

But yeah, not really going to happen with a weather balloon.

Awesome dad

[josgeluk]

Being awesome: your doin it rite.

Re:Awesome dad

[makubesu]

Going to have to return that "best dad ever" coffee mug, this guy just raised the stakes.

Orbit

[Here be giant clams]

"A Brooklyn father and his 7-year-old son made a homemade spacecraft that traveled into orbit -- and they have video to prove it." Orbit, really? Cool! Somebody contact NASA/ESA/FKA and tell them that you can now orbit the Earth while only travel 30 miles!

Re:Orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's an interesting question. Has anyone done the calculations for the lowest altitude you could actually make an object - let's say an aerodynamically-shaped chunk of uranium or something else ultra-dense - orbit the earth at least once if you just got it moving fast enough in the right direction. I have a feeling it would be lower than the official edge of space, but how low? I suppose the answer probably depends a lot on whether or not you allow elliptical orbits that leave the atmosphere. For example, you might be able to allow something that starts out close to ground level if it's ok for it to take an elliptical orbit that starts out in the atmosphere, goes quickly out of the atmosphere, then gets really close to sea level on approximately the other side of the earth, then hits the ground somewhere past its original firing point (hopefully not making a messy hole in anyone). Anyone know if anyone has figured this out?

Re:Orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has figured it out, and the answer is trivial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_speed

v_o = orbital velocity
v_e = escape velocity at earth's surface

v_o = v_e / sqrt(2)
  = 11200/sqrt(2)
  = 7.92 km/s

This is about 23 mach at sea level.

The orbital speed decreases as the altitude increases because gravity falls off with distance (reducing the needed escape velocity). This question is interesting though because it answers the question, how fast would something need to fly without an atmosphere? (And of course, mach number would then be irrelevant.)

Re:Orbit

[phek]

Without an atmosphere things can't "fly" so it's not all that interesting of a question.

Re:Orbit

[Lord Kano]

"A Brooklyn father and his 7-year-old son made a homemade spacecraft that traveled into orbit -- and they have video to prove it." Orbit, really? Cool! Somebody contact NASA/ESA/FKA and tell them that you can now orbit the Earth while only travel 30 miles!

Have you ever jumped? One could consider that a low altitude orbit. You can orbit the earth and only travel a few mm.

LK

Re:Orbit

[turbidostato]

"Has anyone done the calculations for the lowest altitude you could actually make an object - let's say an aerodynamically-shaped chunk of uranium or something else ultra-dense - orbit the earth at least once if you just got it moving fast enough in the right direction."

If you are not meaning about the real engineering problem but a theoretical one, no need to do the calculations: sea level.

Well, that's theoretical, since you still would need to find a clear path in order not to hit a land mass, a vessel, etc.

For an absolute without-problems altitude, just about 2,5m meters over Everest peak (to account for the fact that there could be a mountaineer at the top raising his arms in satisfaction just when your thingie passes over there).

But if you want to do the math, you can take a shortcut on your way from the "typical" orbital speed calculations: you just need to take into account that your object has to be speedy enough to make about 40.000 Km (the Earth's perimeter) in the time it takes for the object to reach ground falling free from the height it starts the motion from.

So, if you start from 1 m of height, since it takes about half a second to reach the floor (well, it's 0,45s), you need an object starting at about 80.000 Km/s, or about 65 mach (being sound speed at see level something like 1.225 Km/h).

All that said, well... there *is* a limit even in theory since a massive object can't go beyond light speed as per special relativity theory, so the theoretical lowest altitude would be the one that it takes falling from it about 0.13s (which the time an hypotetical photon would take to orbit once the Earth at sea level), or about 8 cm.

Re:Orbit

[tehcyder]

let's say an aerodynamically-shaped chunk of uranium or something else

Mod parent -1 probable nuclear terrorist.

good

[roman_mir]

good way to waste some helium.

Isn't this

[JustOK]

Isn't this some sort of aid to terrorists? Combined with the Plane Finder AR app, oooooo spooky. They should ban helium.

Another reason you won't see this in the press

[shoehornjob]

Because the craft made it so high and the fact that they put an Iphone inside it now becomes a threat to our spy staelites (read"we may not be able to spy on our own citizens")and the NSA has deemed it a security threat and removed the story from most major news outlets. Sheesh this country's gone to hell.

If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[gmhowell]

If slashdot ever allows real article moderation (and not that firehose abortion), in addition to 'flamebait' and 'troll', can we have a '-1, pedant bait' article? Seriously, at the time of this comment, of 35 articles, at least half are arguing over whether or not this is truly a spacecraft. It's really easy to shit on others from the safety of your parents' basement. Whether it has been done before is also irrelevant. This father and son is doing something. There's too many complainers to call someone else out specifically, but what have you people done lately? I don't claim to have done anything interesting of late, but I also am not shitting on what others have done.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[BitHive]

People are mostly objecting to the headline, not 'shitting on what others have done', unless you're referring to sensationalizing this story.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[sirrunsalot]

Can I get an Amen?! Let's see... next to articles about iPhone apps, data centers, and frickin' laser beams, this article was a lot more fresh and inspiring whether or not the concept is new at all and whether or not a reporter knows what altitude qualifies as 'space.' This sort of project is exactly what drove me into engineering in the first place, and the pedantry of academia is why I now hate it. So thanks, Luke and Max, for reminding me why I'm here!

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[causality]

If slashdot ever allows real article moderation (and not that firehose abortion)

Slashdot staff consists of the "editors". Real article moderation would make it more difficult for the "editors" to remain in denial that they are failures as editors. Therefore Slashdot staff are unlikely to implement real article moderation.

in addition to 'flamebait' and 'troll', can we have a '-1, pedant bait' article?

That'd just be another form of trolling.

I don't claim to have done anything interesting of late, but I also am not shitting on what others have done.

I'm not seeing much of that. As another person pointed out, most of those comments disputing the summary are about its accuracy. Nineteen miles is not space, that's just a fact. This balloon is an aircraft, not a spacecraft and that's just a fact. Basic facts like these that directly relate to the core of the story are exactly what an editor is supposed to get right. The Slashdot "editors" have failed miserably to do their jobs, yet again. That's the only thing anyone is shitting on and it's a worthy target for some fecal matter.

It's not really pedantry when you expect paid professionals (such as Slashdot "editors") to perform at least a mediocre job. If they finally achieve mediocrity it might even make sense to discuss whether it's reasonable to expect excellence.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[nomadic]

There are plenty of comments that are filled with contempt "this joke of a 'spacecraft'". I think a lot of it is jealousy.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw "flamebait" and "troll" in your post so many times I was really torn which moderation to use.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[gmhowell]

There are plenty of comments that are filled with contempt "this joke of a 'spacecraft'". I think a lot of it is jealousy.

This. Jealous of jocks for getting the hot chicks, jealous of musicians for being able to tap out a beat, jealous of MBAs for making lots of money, jealous for real nerds for getting out and doing something.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[gmhowell]

It's pedantry when the masses who comment (including myself) comment on the meta-issues rather than on the actual achievements of this father and son.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[nloop]

I agree! Good for them for doing something! Every time someone launches a weather balloon with a camera we should have it on slashdot! I for one could use a weekly uplifting story about the inane.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it is one thing to accomplish an interesting, even astonishing deed, it's a very thing to misrepresent the accomplishment as something greater than what it is. We have definitions of where space begins, and they didn't reach that. Balloons are also useless vehicles in space, so that should be another indication.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[buback]

My annoyance is that calling this a spacecraft craps all over groups that are working very hard to develop ACTUAL spacecraft. This is a balloon, which has a well defined definition.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[SteveWoz]

Not only that, but think of what it's doing to inspire his kids.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[penguinchris]

I completely agree with you, and I certainly fall into the nerd jealousy trap sometimes, but there's a limit.

In this case, they've done something that several others have already done. Those other people already figured out most of the problems one will run into along the way, and came up with good designs. The MIT student group that did it recently had a website with a lot of detail, so one could easily duplicate what they did.

So at this point, essentially what they've done is little more than a science kit project. This is something that almost anyone reading Slashdot could do in a couple of weekends.

I think it's awesome that this dad and his son actually did something interesting. Really. If/when I have kids I plan to be a cool dad like this too.

But is this really news? That's what people are complaining about. The first time someone did this trick, sure, it was cool and I appreciated there being a slashdot article because I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise. Later attempts where people upped the ante (with GPS tracking, science data collection, simply reaching higher, etc.) might warrant an article on a slow news day. The only thing different this time is that an eight-year-old kid "helped" his dad do it.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[gmhowell]

Read the post above you by 'SteveWoz' and others under my top level comment. It serves as inspiration.

I agree that the newsworthiness of this post is questionable, however, at the time I wrote my top level, there were only a few dozen posts, many that had nothing to do with the contents of the article (beyond picking nits about word choice). Can we complain about slashdot story choice, headline editing, and slanted text? Sure? But why waste the time.

And incredible amount of nerd effort around here is spent whining and moaning about all sorts of stuff. Much less effort is spent on getting shit done. Focus on the latter; it's harder, but the rewards are much greater.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

Of course this is a cool "father and son" project. I think it's great that there are fathers out there doing this with their kids. However, there are lots of cool things parents can do with their kids that I'm not interested in reading on slashdot. It's simply not newsworthy. Thus, it *is* relevant that it has beed done before and that it did not actually reach space.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[drinkypoo]

It's really easy to shit on others from the safety of your parents' basement.

That's good, because I would like to take a gigantic shit on whoever wrote the title of this story submission. Do I just aim my ass out the window, or what? It's hard to get my asshole up to street level when I'm in the basement.

It's pretty clear that a balloon cannot get to space. I was waiting for the part of the story where the rockets fired and it never came. It's still a cool deed, but it doesn't involve space.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[syousef]

If slashdot ever allows real article moderation (and not that firehose abortion), in addition to 'flamebait' and 'troll', can we have a '-1, pedant bait' article? Seriously, at the time of this comment, of 35 articles, at least half are arguing over whether or not this is truly a spacecraft. It's really easy to shit on others from the safety of your parents' basement. .

Well if we're going to be sloppy about it, I'll just define my basement as the boundary for outer space and revel in being the first astronaut in my family. Fuck it I'll define it as the heliopause and boast about my success in being the first person outside of the solar system.

It's really easy to shit on people making wild ass stupid claims that don't bear any resemblance to reality. It's called skepticism, and it's a healthy and natural part of the scientific method.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU whiniy bitch.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[causality]

It's pedantry when the masses who comment (including myself) comment on the meta-issues rather than on the actual achievements of this father and son.

The cause and effect of that is easy to establish. Had the editors produced an accurate headline/summary few (if any) of those comments would have been made. You can hack at the branches of this if you like but I prefer to call out its root.

Re:If slashdot ever allows article moderation

[BJ_Covert_Action]

It's just too bad that the father son team didn't document the project themselves. The news articles are definitely interesting, but I would love to see their own website with information on it like pictures and video taken of them actually building the craft and such. I wish more nerds documented their hobby work so others could easily follow in their footsteps.

Has anyone used one as a launch platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought about using a balloon as a way to launch a rocket. It might need several balloons linked to provide an open space for the rocket to clear the balloons or some way to burst the balloon seconds before the rocket fired. The point is it gets you a 90,000 to a 100,000 foot extra boost and the gravity will be much lower so a hybrid hobbyist rocket would have a chance at gaining some real altitude and at least achieve a temporary orbit for very little money.

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Re:Has anyone used one as a launch platform?

[colinrichardday]

The point is it gets you a 90,000 to a 100,000 foot extra boost and the gravity will be much lower

The earth's radius is approximately 4,000 miles. Going up 20 miles doesn't cut gravity down by much. Compare 4000^{-2} with 4020^{-2}.

Re:Has anyone used one as a launch platform?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Erm -- only eight other people have suggested that so far. My question is: why doesn't any one of you get out there and do it, and find the answer for yourselves?

Epic fail in article

[Anonymous Coward]

They recognized that converting miles to feet was hard enough that they had to do it FOR you, but didn't bother to include metric.

I think we here at Slashdot should create a set of objective standards for summaries and such. That could really help things. I propose a rule that all units are in metric, and only metric, in the summaries. As a person born and raised in Nebraska, I think AS is part of the reason we're so far behind the japanese in engineering. I buy foreign because I don't have faith in the competence of people raised in an educational system that gives even a mite (about 1/63 of the weight of a King Henry the 3 1/2's big toe), of respect or coverage to such a pathetic measurement system. I have been frustrated and confused by AS since kindergarten, long before I knew that metric existed. I remember, for example asking my kindergarden teacher what happened at 0 degrees farenheit or why it was the way it was and her having no idea. I don't care where you're from, this is the internet. This is Earth. We use metric here.

Also, Helium is precious. They should have used hydrogen, imo. I really think we learned the wrong thing from some disasters in our history-- humans have the polymer and electric engineering expertise they'd need to make use of hydrogen instead of helium for such a project, and it would have been both more effective and more elementally conservative. Seriously, even rainforests can kind of grow back. Helium is basically just gone forever.

!Spacecraft

[DynaSoar]

1. It is a balloon. Not even the people who fly these for a living call them spacecraft. Says WikiP: "A spacecraft is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight." This thing popped when it rose above too much atmosphere. It was not designed for space. It was still in the stratosphere when it failed according to design.

2. The Karman line is the generally accepted edge of space at 100 km (62.5 mi). This is where an aircraft would have to fly so fast to get lift from the thin air that it would achieve orbital velocity in the attempt and so wings would be superfluous. The US has awarded astronaut wings to pilots flying above 50 miles. This doesn't change the objective criteria of the Karman line.

3. The CSXT GoFast achieved space altitude (72 miles) on May 17 2004 and is the only unmanned civilian craft to do so to date. It was designed for a flight profile carrying it into space and so was a spacecraft. As was SpaceShip One, the only civilian manned spacecraft to date.

4. Reaction Research Society hit 50 miles in 1996. Hunstville L5 passed this 19 mile mark, but was ballooned launched and so not entirely spacecraft.

5. No amateur spacecraft made from off the shelf or home made components has achieved even a 50K ft altitude according to Tripoli records. With Tripoli and the National Association of Rocketry's recent facing down ATFE over the definition of 'explosives', the FAA et al. is redefining amateur rocketry to include power up to 200,000 lb-ft sec and a concominant (and easily achieved with this power) 93 mile altitude. Most motors in this range are "experimental" ie. home made, but there are a few commercially available motors that can be staged and/or clustered for this power, the 152mm dia + 96" Loki Research P motor at 80kN-sec each being the largest you can currently put on your credit card. 11 of these will put you just under the FAA's proposed limit. 12, and you have to apply to NASA's office of space transportation for a permit. Expect an amateur spacecraft to make the flight, because now it's a matter of qualifying for the license and buying the parts.
 

Re:!Spacecraft

[Brett Buck]

2. The Karman line is the generally accepted edge of space at 100 km (62.5 mi). This is where an aircraft would have to fly so fast to get lift from the thin air that it would achieve orbital velocity in the attempt and so wings would be superfluous. The US has awarded astronaut wings to pilots flying above 50 miles. This doesn't change the objective criteria of the Karman line.

Oh, fucking bullshit. Someone in Europe arbitrarily chose 100 KM as a nice round number, then came up with a bullshit derivation after the fact to justify it. It's no more objective than 50 miles

        Brett

Re:!Spacecraft

[Ocker3]

2. The Karman line is the generally accepted edge of space at 100 km (62.5 mi). This is where an aircraft would have to fly so fast to get lift from the thin air that it would achieve orbital velocity in the attempt and so wings would be superfluous. The US has awarded astronaut wings to pilots flying above 50 miles. This doesn't change the objective criteria of the Karman line.

Oh, fucking bullshit. Someone in Europe arbitrarily chose 100 KM as a nice round number, then came up with a bullshit derivation after the fact to justify it. It's no more objective than 50 miles

Brett

Wrong Wikipedia on the Karman Line Theodore von Kármán, (1881–1963) a Hungarian-American engineer and physicist, calculated what approx altitude would force you to achieve Orbital Velocity (27,000 kph) to stay there, and came up with about 100km. It's not exactly 100km, and it varies slightly, but it is indeed a nice round number, so they decided to keep it.

Re:!Spacecraft

[sirrunsalot]

This guy already scored a lot of points by my count for doing something simple and cool with his kid, but he's since doubled it for inciting so much nerd rage. Take care and keep takin' that blood pressure medicine, Brett!

Lucky

[DreamArcher]

"they were lucky" What a douche. It would take Nasa a few billion dollars to get this lucky.

Re:Lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA doesn't do a lot of this dinky stuff; no doubt they would spend way too much if they did try it for some reason. But not billions, douchehammer.

NOAA, OTOH, does exactly this, 100 times, every day of the year. They know what they're doing, as a result of a million past launches; these guys with no prior experience were completely successful -- they were indeed lucky.

Re:Lucky

[Teancum]

A few thousand launches, when including unmanned spacecraft and sounding rocket, perhaps. A million launches? No way at all. There have been more than a million commercial aircraft take-offs and landings at airports, but not with NASA.

And NASA doesn't do this "hundreds of times every day of the year". A couple per month perhaps, depending on the season and how ready various missions are to get into space, but it certainly isn't even a daily thing either. NASA even stopped their sounding rocket program, although they may be starting back up with more "routine" missions in the reusable sub-orbital spacecraft like Spaceship Two.

Re:19 miles isn't "space", but 347 miles is

[Anonymous Coward]

Hubbles Orbital height is 559 km (347 mi) according to the all-knowing, never-to-be-doubted source of knowledge called Wikipedia

Two ideas for further work

[Man On Pink Corner]

1) Gyroscopically stabilize the camera platform so the footage doesn't look like it was shot by Michael Bay on the Vomit Comet.

2) Use the balloon to bring an ordinary Estes model rocket to 100,000+ feet and fire it. If the rocket could reach 2,000 feet if launched from the ground, how high would it go if launched at 1% atmospheric pressure? In other words, what limits a model rocket's altitude performance -- drag or gravity? How long would the launch rod need to be to stabilize the rocket during launch at 100,000 feet?

Re:Two ideas for further work

[blixel]

Use the balloon to bring an ordinary Estes model rocket to 100,000+ feet and fire it.

Would an ordinary model rocket engine function at such high altitude? I don't know much about model rockets ... but I had a couple when I was a kid. I think model rocket engines require oxygen in order for the black powder to burn?

Re:Two ideas for further work

[Man On Pink Corner]

The Estes-type solid engines contain both a fuel and an oxidizer, so they should do OK in a vacuum or near-vacuum. They'd never be able to burn quickly enough to propel a rocket if they didn't.

Re:Two ideas for further work

[Sovetskysoyuz]

The black powder part of a model engine is only to deploy the parachute. OTOH, you probably want the parachute deployed to stop the rocket from lawn-darting someone 100 kft below you.

Re:19 miles isn't "space", but 347 miles is

[nedlohs]

So what?

It has never reached escape veolocity, so by the definition I was responding to isn't in space.

Balloon record

[ChrisMaple]

According to wikipedia, Japan has the balloon record at 53 km (33 miles).

Need More Science

[Somegeek]

At 100km in an aircraft, you need to fly at orbital velocities just to stay aloft, so effectively you need a spacecraft instead.

What??? Sorry, you need to go back and rethink that statement; it's not even close to true. Can you explain how SpaceShipOne, flying at 'only' Mach 3, was able to go higher than 100km? Thus, not only staying aloft at at 100km, but climbing? Or the X-15, which also flew higher than 100km, and also at significantly less than orbital velocity?

I like how a good authoritative sounding statement, (which happens to be false), got modded +4 informative.

Re:Need More Science

[wesley96]

What the grandparent probably meant by 'stay afloat' is maintaining altitude for a considerate amount of time. SSO and X-15 reached the 100km point, but had to come down relatively quickly because, once fuel runs out, you just fall to the gravity well.

If you're in the atmosphere, you can glide without using all that much fuel. You can't do that in space - certainly not at 100km altitude. In order to 'stay afloat', you need to do orbital velocity.

Of course, since it's not like atmosphere abruptly ends somewhere, the 'where to draw the line' can be a bit arbitrary, but the currently chosen one isn't impractical.

Re:Need More Science

[Somegeek]

"once fuel runs out, you just fall to the gravity well."

The same could be said of virtually any powered aircraft. The length of time that they can spend 'aloft' is limited by the amount of fuel that they can carry. It's besides the point.

"If you're in the atmosphere, you can glide without using all that much fuel. You can't do that in space - certainly not at 100km altitude. In order to 'stay afloat', you need to do orbital velocity."

That's the issue; as long you're making enough power to overcome gravity, you can 'stay aloft' at any altitude, and you definitely don't need orbital velocity to do so. Orbital velocity is the speed needed for an unpowered craft to remain in orbit. It has nothing to do with a rocket plane flying around at 100m or 200km. Postulate a rocket plane big enough to hold the required fuel and nothing would stop it from flying up to 200km, maneuvering around 'aloft' for an hour and then flying back down.

"Of course, since it's not like atmosphere abruptly ends somewhere, the 'where to draw the line' can be a bit arbitrary, but the currently chosen one isn't impractical."

I never argued otherwise.

Re:Need More Science

[Teancum]

Even just to get to 100km is going to take either some very exotic engines or something akin to rockets. The X-15 was able to get above 100 km (which is how Chuck Yeager got his astronaut wings). Not much else can get up to that altitude. Balloons simply can't get there because they need atmosphere for lift, as do airplanes. You end up in the Coffin corner as airplanes get up to increasingly high altitudes where there is a hard physical ceiling past which a standard airplane simply can't get to. Attempts to go above that altitude can result in the destruction of the aircraft as it will stall out and potentially lose lift completely (hence the "coffin" you just put yourself into for trying). Yes, back before the concept was very well understood, there were several test pilots who unfortunately did discover this altitude on some aircraft the hard way creating some widows in the process.

More to the point, any vehicle which is capable of getting to 100km of altitude could in theory get to any other arbitrary altitude including say getting to Mars if only you had enough fuel. It is a spacecraft at that point, hence why astronaut wings are granted for those who get up that high.

While the number is rather arbitrary, the altitude is something that does reflect a physical phenomena.

Re:Need More Science

[Co0Ps]

What #33779584 is saying is that if you are traveling in a normal aircraft, that don't have rocket engines like X-15/SpaceShipOne, you would need to fly faster than escape velocity anyway to get enough lift force on the wings to not loose altitude...

Re:Need More Science

[Overunderrated]

Can you explain what "mach 3" means in a place with almost no air to propagate sound waves through?

Re:Need More Science

[Anonymous Coward]

What the grandparent probably meant by 'stay afloat' is maintaining altitude for a considerate amount of time. SSO and X-15 reached the 100km point, but had to come down relatively quickly because, once fuel runs out, you just fall to the gravity well.

If you're in the atmosphere, you can glide without using all that much fuel. You can't do that in space - certainly not at 100km altitude. In order to 'stay afloat', you need to do orbital velocity.

False.

The X-15 flew by gliding under power just as an airliner does. It relied on lift from its wings to maintain altitude.

Of course once fuel ran out it had to quickly descend, but so would an airliner or even a Cessna.

Re:Need More Science

[Man Eating Duck]

The X-15 was able to get above 100 km (which is how Chuck Yeager got his astronaut wings).

Thanks for an excellent post! The X-15 was not piloted by Chuck Yeager, however, fellow daredevil Joe Walker got the honour of flying it to an altitude of 107.8 km (thanks to Wikipedia for the exact height).

Sorry for nitpicking, it's peripheral to your post anyway.

Re:Need More Science

[Anonymous Coward]

It's important to remember that the Mach scale is dependent on the speed of sound. i.e. Mach 3 is three times the speed of sound. The speed of sound in a medium is inversely proportional to density of that medium. At 100km, the speed of sound is much faster than at sea level and thus Mach 3 at 100km is a lot faster than you may think.

Re:Need More Science

[FormOfActionBanana]

It's the speed at which the atmospheric molecules form supersonic patterns around the aircraft instead of subsonic ones. That is, the craft is traveling faster than the propagation speed of the "almost no air".

Next question

Re:Need More Science

[mrsquid0]

Any vehicle that can get to 10 m of altitude can in theory get to Mars if it had enough fuel. Give me enough fuel and I can get a tin of pork and beans to Mars.

Re:Need More Science

[Teancum]

No matter how hard you try, no matter what you do you can't fly a Boeing 747 to Mars. There is most certainly an upper altitude past which the flight control surfaces simply cease to function. That certainly gets well above 10m, sort of disproving your statement here. Mid-air refueling is possible for a 747 (used on the VC-25 variant) giving it essentially an unlimited fuel supply too. In theory it doesn't ever have to land except to pick up food or for repairs.

Stick a can of pork and beans in a fire and it won't get to Mars. It will get up to 10m in altitude though. Stick a rocket under it.... yeah it might get there but that isn't the vehicle, the can is merely payload.

I've also made some automobiles go airborne and I don't think any quantity of gasoline will ever get them up to 100km, much less to Mars.

Re:Need More Science

[thousandinone]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they are referring to Mach 3 at STP. I don't know how much measuring has been done of sound propagation at various speeds, so one would presume they're comparing velocity to sound at surface conditions...

Re:Need More Science

[thousandinone]

I need to learn to preview. Sound propagation at various altitudes, not speeds...

Re:Need More Science

[Overunderrated]

oh i know, i'm just an aerodynamicist that felt like doing a bit of trolling ;)

Re:Need More Science

[thousandinone]

Well then, IHBT! :P

IT AIN'T SPACE, AND IT AIN'T NEWS

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, I don't know why slashdot (and other "news" outlets) keep running stories of this kind. 100,000 feet ain't space. It ain't even CLOSE to space (Usually defined as above 100,000 meters-- over three times as high), and it sure as hell ain't orbit, which is the kind of space people usually *think* of as being spaceflight.

And it isn't even unusual-- basically, this is nice, but the bottom line is that these guys flew a weather balloon, which reached the kind of altitudes that such balloons usually reach. High school students do this routinely-- hundreds of them do it every year.

Congrats, guys, good work, and all that, but it's not news.

Rockoons are over 60 years old

[Somegeek]

I have to disagree with your statement that ARCA is doing something 'genuinely innovative' by using a balloon for the first stage. The concept is called a 'Rockoon' and was pioneered in the US in 1949 and has been used extensivly by JP Areospace, (among others), a small US company that has been working with balloons and rockets for over 30 years.

http://jpaerospace.com/rockoons.html

Re:Rockoons are over 60 years old

[Teancum]

The innovative part isn't merely getting the rockets up, and the JP Aerospace concept is fundamentally different. You need to dig around with some of the stuff that ARCA is doing before you knock what it is that they are doing, particularly with the "pulling" stages that

BTW, I'm not knocking JP Aerospace as their system of a high altitude launches is also something very unique and innovative. I especially love the DarkStar approach that JP Aerospace is using as a sort of semi-permanent platform in the stratosphere. I wish them luck and there is certainly some room for innovation in this area. Both companies are doing stuff that is real cutting edge and pushing the envelope, and more importantly they are both flying stuff and "bending metal".

The Pongsat program of JP Aerospace is something I've wanted to personally get involved with but keep putting off for really lame and stupid reasons. One of these days I might get inspired or at least get my kids to help submit one.

Still Cool News for Nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody remember this Slashdot article from last year? http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/09/23/1958212/HD-Video-From-the-Edge-of-Space-On-the-Cheap

And from his site (http://bear.sbszoo.com/) he's been sending stuff into the stratosphere for over a decade now with current launches done for high schools to send their "projects" up.

Love reading the write ups.

Yes, they can.

[mnemonic_]

It's space flight, or orbital flight. Different from atmospheric flight. But this is a stupid semantic debate I'll avoid.

Isn't this against FCC regs?

[mbstone]

Isn't it illegal under FCC regs to operate a cell phone at high altitudes? Doesn't the RF signal get detected by large numbers of cell stations, thus confusing the cell phone system? This is supposedly the rationale for making you turn off your cell phone on commercial jetliners.

Re:Isn't this against FCC regs?

[Teancum]

The issue is mainly one of concern about the safety of the airplanes themselves, not so much the altitude. If you are standing on a mountain peak (not even "above" the ground technically), it can cause problems for some cell phone towers as you are still in "line of sight" with the tower but can be at some considerable distance.

IMHO it is something completely unfounded and don't tell me that everybody who has a cell phone remembers to turn their cell phone off when they make a flight. I've forgotten to turn mine off where after a flight I looked in the bag that I threw into the overhead bin and the cell phone was still on when I pulled the thing down. I think my kids even tried to call me while the plane was in the air.

There may be a complaint from the cell phone service provider as the tower has to crank up the power if you are a distance away from the tower, but that is the only FCC issue as there might be a maximum power past which the tower may not be licensed to transmit.

The regs for cell phones are FAA requirements instead, related directly to operational safety of the vehicle. If you are the engineer in charge and perhaps have a waiver from the FAA for your flight, I don't think there is a problem. I don't think there are cell phone restrictions on helium balloons and in particular unmanned balloons like this although a flight plan is advised to be filed with your local airport if you attempt a flight like this.

5 bars!

[binarybum]

The Brooklyn man was quoted as saying "it all started as a way to find out if there was really any place at all where I could get good reception on the iphone". When the phone landed there were 7 voicemail messages, 13 text messages, and 16 emails that were all sent several days prior but had managed to download at about 5 vertical miles.

I'm wearing new socks today!

[billcopc]

Weather balloon != spacecraft

People do this sort of thing all the time. A year ago it was MIT students (camera + cell phone ZOMG!), then it hit Digg and inspired a flurry of imitators, including these no-talent hacks.

Wake this section when someone launches a private vehicle into orbit, then we'll have stuff that matters.

Nothing to see here citizen (puts on sunglasses)

[dbIII]

Weather balloon != spacecraft

You are right, we just thought it was because of the swamp gas!

relax /.

[dominious]

this is a father and son project and the news attribute to the excitement.

you don't have to criticise everything.

a commercial application

[Max_W]

Wouldn't it be nice if such balloons were hanging above a megalopolis, attached by a light but strong carbon cord. And wide-angle HD cameras were transmitting real-time high definition images of the megalopolis from above.

Cameras may become in future very small, especially if the water-lenses technology succeed. Such a camera could be lifted by a small balloon. Vibration is not an issue if a photo taken at the 1/1000 second shutter speed.

These images could be assembled on the server by the software into a real time map of the city from above.

And if images are really HD by that time, this map could be zoomed in to have a look at even very small objects on streets, in parks, etc. The images would not be hampered by tens of miles of atmospheric gases as the satellite images inevitably are.

Yay for attempting to blast iPhones into the sun..

[Anonymous Coward]

... can we pls have all the iPhones on the planet thrown into the sun to burn as they deserve?

30 miles or 80 miles?

[e980238]

Brooklyn is ~80 miles from Newburgh http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=newburgh,+ny&daddr=Brooklyn,+NY&hl=en&geocode=FcNKeQIdzrCW-ykn2WuD8SvdiTFuEDzsjdZF9w%3BFRBFbAId0JyX-ykJIXyUFkTCiTGGeAAEdFx2gg&mra=ls&sll=40.65,-73.95&sspn=0.138315,0.308647&g=Brooklyn,+NY&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=9

XYZ Prize?

[Phoghat]

Tom Swift and his Interplanetary Balloon?

Same day Illinois launch

[vlm]

There are sooo many balloon launches, that on the same weekend there was a separate successful launch in Illinois, the iHAB2 launch.

http://www.w0otm.com/iHAB/iHAB-2/MissionControl.php

http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?p=2055228

The iHAB had a cooler "science pack" including all kinds of radio gear, in addition to the seemingly obligatory cell phone.

What they're doing is cool, but make no mistake, they are neither pioneers, nor working alone.

wide angle lens / curvature of earth

[FunkyELF]

Its hard to tell how high the craft actually is because of the use of the wide angle.
When its tumbling around up high and the camera goes upside down you can see the curvature of the earth inverted. Pretty weird looking.
In fact, on its way down where you can still make out trees and stuff, there seems to be a curvature.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have used wide-angle, indeed they should have for something like this. Its just a little misleading.

Re:wide angle lens / curvature of earth

[rgviza]

You can calculate the trajectory of a rocket easily. It's rocket science. http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/rkthowhi.html

Nice try.

[Twinbee]

Nice try, I'll give it that.

But there are about 10 dozen reasons why this can be considered fake, and that the real motive behind the video is to try and brainwash the public into thinking the Earth is round.

Like as if. For those who are still in denial, this is what would happen if the Earth was round:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/flat/rounwrld.jpg

Well, this PROUD flat-earther will NOT BUDGE.

Thanks for playing.

Not new

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great fun and all but not really a big deal. A group of us from the Dayton Amateur Radio Association did this 20 years ago. We lifted a 2M, 20M and ATV transmitter to approximately 100,000 feet . Our TV signal was viewed several states away and the 20M beacon was heard all over the world.

Ah yes - the annual homemade spacecraft story!

[rclandrum]

I know for a fact that I've read two previous stories about exactly the same type of thing on slashdot - some bozos tie a camera and a data logger to a helium balloon and launch it 20 miles up, then proceed to chase it around the countryside in hopes of finding it again. I suppose some newbie posted this because of the iPhone angle, but geez, people have been launching these types of near-space balloon-sats for 10-20 years or more. Nuts and Volts magazine regularly has projects for people that do this. While this type of stuff can be technically interesting, reporting a launch is really reaching on a slow news day :-)

4 years ago polish guy did it better

[Sneer]

I've sent here a year or so a story from Poland, which was rejected by admin. http://moo.pl/~tygrys/balloon/ I know everything in US is better, bigger and wiser, but cygnus baloon was launched in 2006 and reached 28 kms above groudn level. No comments.

a dozen of these porjects so far

[peter303]

College students have been doing this scince the camera smart phones came out.

Better Title ...

[Boona]

What to do with your iPhone now that you've got an Android.

Not much lift

[Anonymous Coward]

A 19-inch balloon doesn't have much lift. If 19 inches is the diameter of a spherical balloon, and the balloon has no weight and doesn't compress its contents at all, it will have a lift of slightly less than 60 grams at sea level. The lift will be less if (a) the balloon has weight, (b) the balloon compresses the helium it contains, or (c) the air pressure around the balloon is less than at sea level. In fact, at 18,000 feet, air density has dropped by about half, which alone would reduce the balloon's lift to about 30 grams.

And this balloon was supposed to be lifting a video camera and an iPhone? No way.

HacDC Spaceblimp

[kjcole]

HacDC, the Washington, DC hackerspace had a similar launch this past summer: See the two links below for details. http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/HacDC_Spaceblimp http://blog.twilio.com/2010/08/twilio-in-space-powers-hacdc-space-blimp-tracking.html

Balloon 1.0 - 2002

[Luminary Crush]

This is not news. The first time I remember seeing this kind of feat was 2002: Balloon 1.0
This is from the time before disposable mobile phones with embedded GPS...this guy had to make his own telemetry gear - much more of an accomplishment!

Father & Son

[taylorius]

Space / not space - who cares? I probably have an overly bleak opinion of the world, but it warmed my heart to see a "Father & Son" team doing something cool together - the world needs (a lot) more parents like this. I hope to do some similar antics once my kids are old enough to appreciate / contribute.

Expensive hobby

[Shotgun]

I wonder how much the father got charged in roaming charges?

aid?

[evilviper]

They rigged a parachute to the capsule to aid in its return to Earth,

Actually, I think the parachute HINDERED and delayed it's return to earth, if anything. It would have been perfectly capable of returning to earth without help, as NASA scientists discovered some time ago...

mbt shoes

[aotian]

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Luck?

[rgviza]

To Marcel Aguera:

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity"
-Lucius Seneca

Luck had little to do with it outside of the weather that day.

Loved it

[zitping]

The video of this was quite charming to watch. Little kid all excited and happy, plus the quote at the end. Simple, but it gave me chills. "This thing went to space."

No but srsly...

[egibster]

I need one of these, and stat.