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Earth to Sky Calculus Club
The students of the Earth to Sky project sent a bobblehead doll of President Barack Obama flying on a weather balloon over Owens Valley, CA, on Nov. 5, 2012, in honor of Election Day.
By Leonard David, SpaceCom
GOLDEN, Colo. — Talk about ballooning expectations. How about launching your own payloads into the exotic environment of near space?
High-altitude balloon flights are becoming cheaper and more widely available, expanding research opportunities for scientists and hobbyists, as well as young people just learning how science works.
In the last year or so, for example, schoolkids have lofted a number of balloons to the stratosphere, including three carrying a Lego figure, a Hello Kitty doll and bobblehead versions of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, respectively.
"You can launch hardware to the very edge of space on a budget," said Joseph Maydell, founder and chief engineer of High Altitude Science, which provides balloon-mission hardware and services. "We've adopted a keep-it-simple philosophy." [Barack O'Bobblehead Flies to the Stratosphere (Video)
Bringing near-space science to the masses
Maydell is a former flight controller for the International Space Station at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Viewing downlinked images of Earth taken from aboard the orbiting lab helped inspire him to found Colorado-based High Altitude Science in 2011, he said.
“I was awestruck by the beauty of our planet and the ability to be in space," Maydell told SPACE.com. "I really wanted to share that with as many people as possible."
Weather balloons seemed like the most accessible and affordable way to make that happen, he added. High Altitude Science provides balloon launch services to customers with specific near-space needs — such as scientific research, space hardware prototype testing and advertising — and others interested in the sheer fun of it.
"We've got a wide plethora of customers," Maydell said, from folks interested in curve-of-the-Earth imagery to those who want to assess the speed of the jet stream or measure high-altitude temperatures and pressures. "Some are launching gliders from the edge of space or doing some other bigger research projects."
Weather balloons can rise to an altitude of 24 miles (39 kilometers) or more before they burst, and a payload may land (via parachute) up to 75 miles (120 km) away, depending on wind conditions at the launch site, Maydell said.
Though outer space doesn't technically begin until you get 62 miles (100 km) above Earth's surface, the views are still great from 24 miles up. At that altitude, the sky is black and the curvature of the Earth is clearly visible, Maydell said.
Hello Kitty gets a ride
One recent user of High Altitude Science services was Lauren Rojas, a seventh-grader at Cornerstone Christian School in Antioch, Calif.
Rojas' Hello Kitty doll soared to an altitude of 93,625 feet (28,537 meters), gaining a spectacular view of Earth before coming back down in a tree-snagging parachute landing.
Hello Kitty's mission also involved onboard sensors to gauge temperature, air pressure and altitude, along with cameras that documented the ride.The video of Hello Kitty's trip has been an Internet sensation, garnering more than 820,000 views since it was posted on YouTube on Jan. 25.
Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom, and on Facebook & Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.
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- Barack O-Bobblehead Flies To Edge Of Space | Video
- Lego Man Flies To The Edge Of Space
Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Leave a Comment:
Dang it.Its just a bobble head
Too bad it didn't mention the cost. With video equipment being miniaturized so much these days, the actual balloon size could be quite small.
Cool idea.
Should of sent the real thing
To bad the real bobble headed nut case wasn't aboard....
Why don' thry put UBL whith him,What a bull sh...f..idea is this.Yes john they should put him ,The Vice ass,an Pelosi to.................................
Hey, fun with balloons! Any school kid can do it. Until the feds claim you're a potential terrorist and you're messing with the radar.
Flights into positive airspace (above 16,000') require Air traffic Control authorization. They definitely want to know what's up there, where it's going, what it's route and mission are, and what kind of craft is.
And then there's the part about the stuff falling back to earth.
Hey, Obama-haters, just remember that he won the last two elections with more than 50% of the vote. You're in the minority!!
hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why is this news? Ham radio operators have been doing weather balloon launches for at least 25+ years. Cross band repeaters, Packet BBS, slow scan TV / video broadcast (pre cellphone) videos, photos, etc.
Google "Amateur Radio High Altitude Ballooning".
And flylowguy is right. You need FAA clearance to launch. I helped with a launch at Buchanan Field Airport during one of the yearly ham radio Pacificon conferences in Concord CA. back in the mid 90's Landed over in Tracy, CA.
73
In the sixties, they launched research balloons at my local airport.
I was watching when one of the launch crew got his leg caught in a rope, just as it took off. Luckily, it came loose by ten to fifteen feet. He fell head first, onto the landing strip, broke one of his arms.