Guy Sends Camera Up 100k Feet To Photograph Space (And Gets It Back Safely)

from the nicely-done dept

With the recent fighting over NASA funding, a lot more interest has been put on private space flights by companies like SpaceX (and, indeed, the new funding bill encourages NASA to make more use of such efforts). But it's neat to see that you don't have to be a company or the government to at least launching something that gets a good ways up towards space (if not really that close to the border). One guy named Luke Geissbuhler (with his kids and some friends) launched a video camera 100,000 feet into the air connected to a weather balloon. The video is amazing (or if you don't have the time to watch the whole thing, beneath that, there's a still shot from the apex:

As Geissbuhler notes in the video:

In August 2010, we set out to send a camera to space.

The mission was to attach a HD video camera to a weather balloon and send it up into the upper stratosphere to film the blackness beyond our earth.

Eventually, the balloon will grow from lack of atmospheric pressure, burst, and begin to fall.

It would have to survive 100 mph winds, temperatures of 60 degrees below zero, speeds of over 150 mph, and the high risk of a water landing.

To retrieve the craft, it would need to deploy a parachute, descend through the clouds and transmit a GPS coordinate to a cell phone tower.

Then we have to find it.

Needless to say, there are a lot of variables to overcome.

The results are impressive, to say the least. Of course, if you want to quibble, 100,000 feet really isn't space. Some would argue it's not even that close to space (though, the images sure are impressive), but to those who are quibbling: how high have you launched an HD camera via a balloon and then retrieved it?

Filed Under: space, videos

Viruses... In... Spaaaaaaaaace

from the for-you-muppet-fans dept

NASA is admitting that laptop brought to the international space station in July apparently contained a virus designed to swipe user passwords, though they're not sure how it happened. The computers don't control anything mission critical, but are used by astronauts to send email and to track their nutritional programs. The computers were never connected to the internet, so NASA is guessing that an astronaut had an infected USB key or something that resulted in the virus getting onto the computer.

Filed Under: nasa, space, viruses

Kids More Interested In Cyberspace And MySpace Than Outspace?

from the cybernauts,-not-astronauts? dept

Apparently, NASA is getting worried that the kids these days aren't interested in outer space, preferring to do their "travels" through cyberspace. That seems like a somewhat odd conclusion, as there doesn't seem to be anything mutually exclusive about the two. Also, it's not like you need every kid to be interested in going into space. The number of people who actually get to travel in space is quite small, and I'd imagine that there are still plenty of kids interested in the possibility of either becoming an astronaut or working for NASA. Of course, it might help (as the article notes) if there actually were sexy space missions again. These days, everything having to do with sending people into outer space has been rather mundane and boring.

Filed Under: generation y, kids, nasa, space

Google Funding X Prize For Moon Landing

from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept

We've been impressed with the concept of the "X Prize" and other similar innovation-by-competition programs for many, many years. With the success of SpaceShipOne in claiming the very first X Prize (launching a man into space in a privately built rocket), the concept of prize-driven innovation has only taken off, with plenty of interest coming from private industry, looking to foster innovation in specific areas. Apparently, Google has decided to join the party -- though not in its core field of interest. It's no secret that Google's co-founders are quite interested in space and space exploration, so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Google is putting up the money for a new X Prize for sending a robot to the moon. The robot is required to do certain things once it reaches the moon in order to claim the prize. Google is doing this through the same group that ran the original X Prize, rather than doing it entirely separately, but it's no surprise that having Google's name attached to the prize will help generate even more interest in the program. Still, it'll be interesting if we start seeing a lot more private interest in creating and funding these types of prizes. It's likely that many of them, like Netflix's, will be quite specific to what the company is working on -- but the possibilities for companies with some extra money to burn to fund some pretty far out research could lead to some really fascinating contests.

Filed Under: moon, private space travel, robots, space, x prize
Companies: google

Beam Me Up Otis: Teams Getting Set To Take Another Shot At Space Elevator Prize

from the To-the-moon dept

Despite the fact that it sounds like something straight out of a bad sci-fi novel, there are a number folks who believe that space elevator technology represents that best way for humans to cheaply and conveniently explore outer space. As with other "out there" ideas, NASA has started holding contests to promote innovations in the area. The challenge for the teams isn't to actually build a full-fledged space elevator (that probably won't be for a while), but to build a robot that can hoist itself up 100 meters in the air on a thin carbon tether in 50 seconds. Last year, a team from Canada failed to hit the mark by just two seconds. This October, teams will have another crack at it, and assuming there's been any innovation at all, some team is likely to take home the $500,000 prize. After reaching this goal, it's just another 384,402,900 meters to go before they get to the moon!

Filed Under: contests, nasa, space, space elevator