High School Students Send Lego Man 24 Kilometers High

First time accepted submitter AbilityLiving writes "Two high schoolers have launched a Lego Man to 80,000 feet — three times the height of a jet — in a homebrew project that involved a few Ebay-purchased cameras, a giant helium balloon and a star-ship full of ingenuity."

Comments

Three times the height of a jet?

[mark-t]

I'm pretty sure that jet aircraft are only something like 15 or 20 feet high, measuring from the base. 80,000 feet is considerably higher than three times that distance.

If you mean to say 3 times the maximum altitude of most jet aircraft, say so.

Re:Three times the height of a jet?

[badboy_tw2002]

Irregardless, for all intensive purposes its the same thing. We knew what he mint.

Re:It's been done

[Digital Vomit]

You could use a balloon to cover much of the altitude, but you'd need some other means of propulsion to get it to leave the atmosphere entirely.

Hmmm... What if you attached the whole thing to another helium balloon?

Re:It's been done

[Mabhatter]

Well, they're still in high school... They gotta start somewhere.

Frankly, they were irresponsible not to give their Lego dude (or girl) a helmet and air tank. Not to mention the OSHA violations being forced to stand on a ledge at 80k feet with no seatbelt or railings! I think the minifigures need some kind of union against these dangerous experiments.

Lastly, did they make sure their guy wasnt on a no-fly list. He looks European... But with those foreign sounding names national security should have been contacted... They even took pictures of how many people they put in danger!!! At least they didn't attach the balloon to any sharks... Teens and science are just irresponsible.