6 ms·
Homemade spacecraft reaches 100,000 ft, films the whole way
- DTrejo 16y agoThey make it look so easy. I bet many parents would be willing to buy such a kit. Does anyone sell this yet?
- nkassis 16y agoSomeone mentioned that you need to notify the FAA and such before doing something like this. I think the regulation surrounding this would make it hard for most parents to do even with a simple kit. On the other hand, I used to love playing with Estes Rockets(http://www.estesrockets.com/ http://www.estesrockets.com/) as a kid (Which I still am since I still love those things ;p) . Those don't go far enough to be an issue.
- electromagnetic 16y agoIIRC launching a weather balloon is regulated differently than launching a rocket that will enter/cross regulated air space. Still, you're going to get into a huge load of shit if you get caught without getting prior approval.
- Derferman 16y agoAt an altitude of 100,000 ft (30.48 km), the balloon reached the stratosphere portion of our atmosphere. The space shuttle and other spaceships reach the thermosphere, which is the layer between 95km and 600km. The space station orbits at an altitude of 350km. The edge of space, called the Karman line, is 100km above the Earth, meaning that the ballon technically did not enter "space". Regardless, this experiment and it's footage are fantastic. More info at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
- AngryParsley 16y agoIn addition to altitude, another important distinction is velocity. You need to be moving at around 7.5 km/sec (17,000mph) to stay in LEO. Ballons aren't going to help much there. And any orbital spacecraft is going to need some serious shielding if you want it to come back in one piece. Some of the pictures of this Soyuz landing give an idea of the engineering needed: http://cryptome.org/info/soyuz-tma18/soyuz-tma18.htm http://cryptome.org/info/soyuz-tma18/soyuz-tma18.htm The pictures and video are pretty, but calling it a spacecraft is exaggeration. You can't see the curvature of the earth at that altitude. It only appears that way because of the wide angle lens. I hate to rain on this parade, because high altitude balloons are really cool. They're just not spacecraft and I can't stand exaggerated titles.
- jacquesm 16y agoNobody is trying to do science here, that's one very cool dad and as far as his son is concerned it might as well be space. Petty bickering over definitions doesn't matter much, after all no balloon could take you to the 100Km mark simply because they'd explode long before you got there (as did this one), but 30Km is three times as high as your typical passenger jet will fly and that's good enough for most people. The article about the Karman line literally reads: "Some people (including the FAI in some of their publications) also use the expression "edge of space" to refer to a region below the conventional 100 km boundary to space, which is often meant to include substantially lower regions as well. Thus, certain balloon or airplane flights might be described as "reaching the edge of space". In such statements, "reaching the edge of space" merely refers to going higher than average aeronautical vehicles commonly would.[5][6]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line
- bigiain 16y agoThere's a distinction (which admittedly might only be in my head) that a balloon _requires atmosphere_ to work, which means it can't get into _space_, since buoyancy in the surrounding air runs out by the time you get to "space" where there _is_ no "surrounding air". 'course that's no more a technical definition of "space" than "100km" or "the Karman line"... Still, that's a cool project!
- zokier 16y agoIf they actually strapped an iPhone into the capsule, then it would have been interesting to capture accelerometer data too.
- radley 16y agoFWIW - sounds like they did use an iPhone: "We used the instatracker app. You can use buddyway as well but we found it unreliable and too complex. A friend lent us her old 3G with a cracked screen."
- jacquesm 16y agoIf you plan on duplication read this: http://www.eoss.org/pubs/faqloon.htm http://www.eoss.org/pubs/faqloon.htm and please pay special attention to the 'notice for airmen'. I'd hate to be on board a plane colliding with this, and even if the chances are small the outcome could be bad enough that I think that a toll free phone call is not too much to ask. Great experiment otherwise!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- yters 16y agoSomewhat related, one wish of mine is to be lifted by a balloon to the degree that I can still walk and run, but I can also jump 20 feet if needed.
- sbierwagen 16y agoAmusingly, helium is a fossil gas. (It's extracted from the top of natural gas reservoirs.) Once we run out, there won't be any more, and the only way to make more is through nuclear transmutation, or extraterrestrial mining. No matter how you look at it, filling balloons with helium and giving them to children is going to be too expensive in the near-ish future. Also, attaching an iPhone to a weather balloon seems like an expensive and roundabout method to destroy a phone, if the parachute fails, or if it hits water hard enough to break the seal on the instrumentation capsule.
- wtracy 16y agoThe iPhone never left the ground; they used it to receive the GPS signal from the balloon.
- jacquesm 16y agoIf you listen to the audio track of the video there clearly is the tell-tale chirp of a cell phone connecting in there.
- Deprecated 16y agoHydrogen is lighter than helium and will always be cheap and plentiful. Helium does have the advantage of being inert.
- dchs 16y agoCoolest Dad ever!
- Gdgfgdgd 16y agoDon't people worry about where these things land? That's pretty fast to be landing on someones head!
- jacquesm 16y agoOr on a highway.