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Commercial Suborbital Balloon Flight Facility Takes Shape
coondoggie writes "The Near Space Corporation this week said it would begin developing a $6.9 million phase of what it says is the first commercial high altitude balloon flight facility in the country. Commercial balloon flights to near space will be launched – though the company didn't say when — from the new facility in Tillamook, Oregon, including several of those reserved through the NASA's Flight Opportunities Program."
If I only had a friggin' nickel for every twit with a Powerpoint presentation saying that they were "going to begin development" of some cool, radical technology. I now interpret this phrase as meaning someone is contemplating getting off the couch to make a Powerpoint of what they are thinking of doing.
Build the damned thing and fly it, or stop wasting my time with your empty words.
Balloon flights have been suborbital since the Montgolfier brothers first launched in 1783. The only orbital "balloons" I'm aware of are Bigelow's Genesis modules. Commercial ballooning goes back to the late 1700s as well.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Does this count?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
They already do that, although the latitude is rather high. I built a few pieces of a terahertz receiver for a balloon-borne radio telescope called the STO. It's designed to launch at McMurdo and circle Antarctica for a few weeks.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
'99 Suborbital Balloons'
Silence is a state of mime.
In that case,TX must have been too dangerous, what with all the conservative gasbags and even more cows.
Near Tillamook is the Tillamook Air Museum, which is housed in a World War II blimp hangar. I wonder if the new facility is close by. The hangar might have been a useful facility but is (obviously) presently in use. Also the choice of Tillamook is interesting, with the previous construction of the blimp hangar. I wonder if the meteorological conditions in the area are good for lighter-than-air craft.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
The Tillamook airport also has on old blimp hangar that's big enough to inflate (at least partially) the balloon in. Also, being located on the west coast the prevailing winds will blow a balloon to the east and over the continent rather than over the ocean. Pictures here.
Remember that it's a finite resource.
Orbiting isn't about elevation, it's about velocity. Even if a balloon made it to the altitude of the ISS, for example, it wouldn't be in orbit unless it was traveling at 17,000 MPH, which is the velocity required to orbit at that altitude and inclination.
Better known as 318230.
Orbiting isn't about elevation
Elevation and velocity are inversely proportional
why not
1. sew your own baloon
2. build a hydrogen generator/solar collector
3. fill baloon
4. put extra weight and people in.
5. fly!
Don't tell me cause hydrogen is dangerous. gasoline is too.
Except that balloons have lift, so they don't need to orbit as fast as the lumps of metal that we call satellites. The typical orbital period of a balloon is weeks, not hours.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
I'm afraid your right about my beloved state. Off the top of my head, we've given the world Lyndon Johnson, Phil Graham (of the many architects of our current financial mess, he's one of the top dogs), George Bush and Rick Perry. We've got Alaska beat.
OK - actually I've seen that. I've enjoyed visiting the Oregon Coast several times.
I knew there was probably a good reason, but was thinking more along the lines that it was just where the founders lived. Maybe my subconscious remembered the air museum but I ignored it in favor of making a methane and beer joke.
I can see the fnords!
Call me when you've got orbitial balloon flights.
It was orbitching.
Don't forget Tom Delay.
Balloons derive their lift from aerodynamic principles. They float in the atmosphere. By definition they do not go into space, nor do they orbit.
The world altitude record is 53km, just over half the distance to the Karman line (aka. The edge of space). At that altitude, an object would have to be travelling at 7.9 km/s (which is mach 26) to be in orbit. A balloon would be ripped to shreds at that speed. Of course, the fastest (manned) balloon was travelling at 394 km/h, but for such a balloon to be in orbit, it would have to be at an altitude of 30 million km, or roughly eighty times farther out than the moon.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Actually, there have been a fair number of balloons (inflatable satellites) in orbit. The most famous are Echo 1 and Echo 2 in the 1960s
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
My point is that there's no point in putting a balloon in orbit in the sense of a satellite, which is why this entire thread is silly. Why even discuss it? Because we've nothing better to do.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
No balloon has gotten higher than 53km. That's just half way there.
I must admit to a bit of envy. The group I work with (JP Aerospace) has to travel about 250 miles from our workshop to launch balloons (from Sacramento, CA to Black Rock Desert in Nevada). This place can launch them from the same spot where they make them. And there's almost $7 million for some shiny new buildings. I bet the chairs will be nice.
Near Space Corporation? That's a terrible name for a company. Though it may be apt for what they do and their honesty is commendable but it also gives away what they cannot do - "Oh we actually wanna be Space Corporation but we have neither the money/technology nor balls to do it, so we're just gonna be content with Near Earth Corporation"
Are you living in the 80's or what. I don't bother getting off the couch to make a power-point ... I don't bother getting out BED for that.
Call me when you've got orbitial balloon flights.
Actually, it's been proposed, and it's not as silly as it sounds. The idea is to get high enough with a balloon that an ion engine could operate. Then you'd slowly gain speed and altitude over a course of weeks transitioning from buoyancy to momentum as the atmosphere further thinned. Obviously you couldn't lift much mass this way, so some have suggested powering the balloon with microwave transmissions, reducing the need to carry fuel.
Personally, I have doubts a system like this would ever be practical. Unless the thrusters work at a fairly low altitude you'd need an enormous balloon for a tiny payload. Cutting the bureaucracy and politics out of chemical rocket design might well yield lower prices per unit mass to orbit more. But it's a neat idea because it's at least physically plausible.
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