Batman in Space!

[Lucky Dawg]

My buddy Eli in Sarasota and his 6yo son Ethan sent a camera and weather balloon into near-space - with Ethan's plastic Batman tethered to the payload. It's been done, but a fun story.

http://www.bradenton.com/2011/02/24/2982766/a-toy-batman-digital-camera-and.html

I think these MIT guys were on the leading edge of champagne-quality space photography on a beer budget http://space.1337arts.com/

Here is a cool tool - granted, with a very narrow usefulness range! This gives a predictive GoogleEarth graphic of a weather balloon lauch (within a 24 hour window) http://weather.uwyo.edu/polar/balloon_traj.html Select the GoogleEarth KML button for output. (see image for 2 flights to 93000 feet if it happened today or tomorrow, and a photo from 93000 feet (which seems to be the rough ceiling limit))

It's on the Spring fun project list now.....

[Ariel 109]

Thanks for posting this story. I remember many hours spent looking at Edmund Scientific catalogs as a kid growing up back in Michigan, they sold weather balloons. And I sort of remember ads for weather balloons in the back pages of comic books.

[Lucky Dawg]

It is remarkable to me that, looking at the GoogleEarth image and the burst point's relation to the ground, the stratosphere just seems awfully "close" (in relative terms) to the ground! That is about 17.5 miles up. NASA uses 76 miles as the rough boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space, but there isn't a clear boundary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space

[Ariel 109]

Here's the space shuttle Discovery's "final" launch recorded by a passenger on a commercial flight this past week. Gives a unique look at the distances involved with getting into space. I wonder if Virgin Galactic will have standby tickets?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_USPTmYXM

[Lucky Dawg]

Holy S@&$! That gives instant goosebumps!

[mbd]

:cool:

Very cool!

[Lucky Dawg]

Sadie, my 7 year old, and I had to copy this adventure. Successful flight to about 90,000' this past weekend. See https://picasaweb.google.com/100988960116603858412/Spaceadventure2011#

[Ariel 109]

Such an amazing experiment! I like how the homeowner who's property the balloon landing on helped you get it down from the high treetop, a trooper. The technologies that you guys used for this school science project are impressive. When I was a kid it would have taken NASA millions of dollars to replicate your feat. When Ebb and Bill were kids the Montgolfier brothers were sending sheep, ducks, and roosters aloft. :cool:

I can wait to see how you top this! Great work!

[Lucky Dawg]

Thanks. Steve (homeowner) was indeed a trooper. 63yo, built like a tank, and could whip the lot of us if he had the inkling. Thankfully, also nice as can be. That was pretty hairy and I only went half as far up in the tree as he did.

The day was clear as a bell and then clouded up some as we were filling the balloon. Knew it was possible, but we were anxious to get our project aloft and hoped the clouds would add visual interest.

The only changes I'd make for 2012... would be to launch on a guaranteed crystal clear day. It would make getting an accurate apex / altitude possible. And we might have overfilled the balloon a tad as well - I suspect that even a 1/2lb (of lift) less helium would have extended the time aloft and altitude significantly. Not enough helium makes for a drifter (very bad) and too much makes for premature-explodeulation - latter is preferable.

Completing the project with my daughter was a hoot - she was very excited to have her tooth completing the trip - figures it's more valuable to the Tooth Fairy.

[Lucky Dawg]

This is a long shot, but did anyone just happen to download (and save to your computer) the Picasa album of our space shot? It would have been from the link in post #7 above - https://picasaweb.google.com/100988960116603858412/Spaceadventure2011#
In cleaning up a stuffed hard drive, I accidentally deleted 90% of the photos at that link. When you delete them on your computer, it also deletes them online - figured this out after I blindly clicked through the "are you sure?" prompt. I have a back up of all of the pictures, but I spent some time editing them down, identifying altitudes, and narrating the event. All can be recreated, but it is a pain. I have since reloaded several photos of the flight, but I would like to get my hands on the original version.
Thanks!

[mbd]

Bummer Kyle! I hope someone is able to come through for you. A little late now, but maybe you should look into an external USB drive for pics? They're pretty cheap these days. At least you've got the originals...

[Lucky Dawg]

I have several copies of the originals. Just not a copy of the edited Picasa travelogue!

(Update) - back in business!! https://picasaweb.google.com/100988960116603858412/Spaceadventure2011#