Helium Balloon amazing space photos - March 2010

[theotherbigbrother]

Try this brodcasting a radio beacon for the Ham radio people, so we can listen for it. Im working on something now.

[CivicRR1881]

Nice vid

[grisgrisy]

very interesting thanks

[mrpontyboi]

Erm if that camera hits someone on the way back to earth then they are dead....

[01000001011100100111]

@mrpontyboi Erm, it has a parachute...

[YodaWhat]

This is cool & cheap, but it's not "space." Space is 100+ km altitude. The importance of these stratospheric balloon flights is the demonstration that you don't have to be a government to do such things. After WWII, most everybody got 'stuck' with the BIG & EXPENSIVE way of thinking about space. BUT modern microelectronics are so small, reliable & inexpensive that we can now do tiny & cheap, and put our own micro-payloads into space - even beyond Earth orbit. Just search "Microlaunchers".

[wonglokking]

@YodaWhat Very right. And without reaching adequate speed, nothing can enter the orbit rotating around the earth.

[AllNoobyStuff]

I was gonna send an ballon to the moon, then I took an arrow to thkeoadjf oknvoibsaoicvbocboaidjf iojdoif hoibfo boi jh oija;q[p [ah cb

[ascii211]

I'm doing this over spring break

[Nialldouglas]

@dogprod89 you are an actual idiot of course it's real it's on the news he has picture proof he showed how he did it and yes it is possible and not fake!

[nicksimpson1008]

i did that once with my dog but he never came back down!

[ArmyRangerish]

@nicksimpson1008 lol

[Jasun1974]

this is really cool! I have often wondered why nobody could do this, I suppose it can be done cool stuff!

[diginut96]

It's a weather ballon made of nylon

[electronicdawg]

How did the Balloon get that high without exploding?

[TailsBit]

If you have any idea, what baloon should I use? Ive got the capsule ready with GPS tracking for the landing, and I really want to produce my very own pictures just like these.

[TakaTukaJVM]

why the balloon burst after reaching maximum altitude?

[FirstClassSkeptic]

So, this is how NASA fakes their space pictures.

[FirstClassSkeptic]

@FirstClassSkeptic Well, I shouldn't say 'fake'. I should say, this is how NASA gets its pictures that it claims are taken from the Space Shuttle and the ISS.

[tjsage79]

I want to build something small with some power enough to send in space...maybe its a more graceful transition then Nasa has been doing...Maybe if its small it doesn't need a ton of power?? Hook that bad boy up with a radio..some solar panels...get a home made sat. going...

[210482fmj]

just goes to show you what you can do put youre mind to it I reckon we should work on a pedal powered airship.

[AnimatorRm]

i liek turtles.

[goodlad22]

IT WOULD BE LIKE GETTING BLOOD OUT OF A STONE ASKING NASA FOR THESE PICS, AND THEY STILL USE BILLIONS OF TAXPAYERS MONEY FOR THEIR 'SO CALLED RESEARCH'.

THEYVE BEEN OUTDONE BY A CAMERA FROM ARGOS. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[goodlad22]

@goodlad22 OR EBAY EVEN MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Postie218]

@goodlad22 Actually, a lot of near space pictures that NASA has done over the years by balloon and high flying aircraft are available FREE if you just go look for them. Making an assumption like yours, well, sorry, it just shows your ignorance. As for the guy in the video's balloon being rare and unique, sorry there too. There are high school and college groups that have been doing this very thing for many many years. Google, "amateur balloon launch" and educate yourself.

[Darko2625]

I must do this. This would be my first space probe :)

[SiisalFTW]

My question is how do you get you camera back because I also wanne do this! do you have any tips for me?

[codykode]

Good job guys. I launched as well Sept 5th, 2010 with success to 90k. aerialparade..com. All info located their, as well as video and pics.

Cody

[w1k]

hmm how that man protect camera in -60 C?

[MrPATSPAWN]

Respond to this video... I didn't notice any satellites in the pics.Nasa has been launching rockets since 1960's.what is my dish pointing at? and if the answer is that the satellites are higher,then what is the capabilities of a camera to capture on film. is there a limited amount of space to be captured on film?

[logolou]

@MrPATSPAWN Good Questions! Low orbiting sats are about 400km above earths surface. Go to WIKI Website for more about the different heights for various types of satellite.

Robert Harrison used a basic digital camera. He set it up to record a few seconds of footage at regular intervals throughout it's upward journey

[MrPATSPAWN]

@logolou thank you for the info,great pics by the way.

[tziuriky86]

@MrPATSPAWN

distances are huge, it's like trying to spot people walking on earth from that point of view, you wouldn't see anything.

[rock3tcat]

@MrPATSPAWN

Telecom satellites orbit at an altitude of 40.000 kilometers (geostationary orbit), helium balloons can only reach an altitude of about 40 kilometers.

[stephenyeary]

@MrPATSPAWN ur gay

[MrPATSPAWN]

@stephenyeary i love you! you cock sucker!!!!

[ICEGTN]

@MrPATSPAWN TV sats have to be very very high so they can orbit at slow speed (35,000km and more). If they were close you would have to turn continuously your antenna, and at some point you would lose signal as the satellite goes to the other side of the planet. If they were too far, the planet would turn too fast and you would lose signal of the satellite. At the altitude of 100km the satellite would have to go 2.25 km/s, doing a complete orbit in just 33 minutes

[nvstewart]

@ICEGTN 2.25 km/s is wrong. the Space Shuttle used to do around 7.5 km/s. At 100 km altitude it will have to be going much faster than 7.5 km/s.

[ICEGTN]

@nvstewart Yeah you are right, thanks!

[awsome5ful]

i did this same thang but insted on a camrea i put a bomb and a mini drone on it thiswastokillmy nabhour

[TheSupremephenom]

coudnt he have made a device when he hits that high of an altitude us something like a model rocket to give him a little boost out into orbit? would it be possible?

[nesokretep]

@TheSupremephenom -- No. Orbit is not at a particular altitude. It is a state of equilibrium between gravity and centrifugal force.

An orbit is basically when you travel forward so fast that when you fall, you "fall" over the edge of the horizon, so that your altitude stays the same. For "low earth orbit" this speed is about 18,000 miles per hour.

With a rocket, he could boost the thing a little higher than the balloon, but it takes a lot more to accelerate to 18,000 mph.

[imback218]

@nesokretep english please? lol

[Shadows0fIntent]

@TheSupremephenom thats just what im planing to do! =-) it will need to be a very powerful model rocket thought.

[ButtomFACE]

Spectacular! The launch of good times.

[ndhudecz]

Look out a balloon,we're all dead.Lol WWII Sir we need more balloons to take down these plane.........

[solarday]

Great video and nicely thought through experiment , look forward to his Mk2.

(ATC was informed, of course)

[altha2008]

wander if you can use a dvd camrecorder

[wrighty21]

he could of used a better camera but nice job anyway amazing stuff !

[aarreessppllaann]

nasa fail

[firefox1278]

Well its nice....not. Now imagine u r in a plane and you see a balloon being suck into the engine of the plane...next you'll be screaming when the plane went down.

[logolou]

He was careful to release the balloon in an area where there was no commercial air traffic..

Legit balloon people coordinate their launches with air traffic control.

[zeesham13]

@logolou , Did his camera land? by the launch place?

[Chacha5678]

@logolou a balloon can affect an entire plane? lmao right

[jlc012]

@firefox1278 what an ignorant comment modern airplanes are designed to take a lot more than a balloon to kill an engine. plus they have more than one which is more than enough to bring them back to land.

[NEEDCARS]

@firefox1278 And he used a radar reflector

[kyleisreallycool]

@firefox1278 rofl that wouldn't bring a plane down idiot

[PokerStarsPLUS]

nasa is ok

[matchbox555]

a time traveller from 1969 asked:

whats the 'new invention' in 2010 ?

a man on mars ?

a mission to jupiter ?

no i replied.

a ballon that can take pictures from "space".

[norman4lyf]

matchbox555:

This is not a new invention. Amateur scientists have been doing the exact same thing that he did for around twenty years. NASA has known about this hobby for quite some time. They just happened to like his photos, and that's why he's getting all this attention. This is nothing new.

[PSNcrazy95]

you can do it for less but still cheaper than nasa's $1,000,000,000 projects

[firefox1278]

yeah sure just strap a camera infront of a rocket right? If u just want picture sure u can just that. But nasa will also want scientific data. And when it came back to earth? Let it freefall? now imagine that.

U do know that the balloon did not leave our Atmosphere and go into space right?

Anything that goes into space bound to encounter problem like radiation,extreme temperature, etc. All those will need to research and it will cost money.

[Mopsmops]

@preslley because nasa steals that money for black projects soon they will ban that activity you will see, they don't want people to do things like this cause it will show the truth about nasa black projects

[pseudotruth]

@Mopsmops

Another conspiracy idiot.

[Mopsmops]

nasa steals that money for black projects soon they will ban that activity you will see, they don't want people to do things like this cause it will show the truth about nasa black projects

[LLCoolPass]

its how govt spies on us citizens

[aarreessppllaann]

nasa = fail

[aarreessppllaann]

nasa = fail

[fremsley001]

No discredit to this guy, but yet again Sky News haven't done their homework. This has already been done - eg. Chem class project at MIT - but then that little fact wouldn't make such a good story, would it? Lazy journalism.

[keport]

genius

[flyby7a]

Take that OVERPRICED space programs.. Smart man

[ewolf39]

i want to see when the camera falls to the ground!

[MrQarsim]

30mins to fall to the ground that's amazing O_O

[norman4lyf]

Why in the world did NASA contact him? What Robert did is nothing new, and normal typical people send high-altitude balloons up into the stratosphere (above 99.5 pecent of the atmosphere) all the time to take photos and videos. Heck, I've even done it too. It's not like Robert just invented this.

YouTube search "high-altitude balloon"

Flickr search "high altitude balloon"

You'll see photos and videos just as good, if not better, than his.

[MrQarsim]

Maybe because he didn't actually need £1000s to get this done

[Filmerfilms]

The British are the greatest inventors in the world and always will be,nice one Robert.

[OverBurn1990]

wth? His not an inventor. Things like that, sending a ballon is nothing new. Couple of bucks and you can send your own one to the "space".

[OldDirtyBatTurd]

Beautiful images and brilliant concept.  How are the images sent from the camera?

[planetrob555]

They aren't sent from the camera. Remember hearing him say he took the SD card out?? It's recording video onto the SD card until the card is full. When the camera lands, he goes and finds the camera and then transfers the pictures off of the camera's SD card.

[flyby7a]

The ballon POPS as it leaves the atmosphere. Once this happens the covered camera falls to earth. A parachute is deployed and it safely lands

[fastandman321]

NASA reportedly got in touch with the father of three. They apparently told him that the space agency would have had to have spend millions of dollars to get similar results. Harrison's budget was a comparatively modest $815.

straight out of yahoo news

[Sanosuke004]

It was actually $765. :) But nonetheless, that makes a mockery out of NASA's comparatively over priced rocket launches.

[nesokretep]

@Sanosuke004 -- This does not make a "mockery" out of NASA's rocket launches. Balloons can get up to a nice altitude, but they cannot get into space. And NASA does not go up just to take a couple pictures.

[MarcusKiner]

Wow, that makes a mockery of aerospace technology in a way right? Cool as heck.

[planetrob555]

Rather, it makes a mockery of all the government junk that NASA has to go through to do something like this. That's what really drives up the cost.

[MarcusKiner]

Yeah you're right.

[Kolgejt77]

What in hell are you talking about. Thats only 35km altitude, space starts at 100km. NASA does space exploration not photos from high altitude. That has nothing to do with real space science.

[imthejman85]

I think it's meant to simply show that you don't have to have million dollar budgets to get pictures almost no one else has. You're griping about it only being 35km up!?! You can't get 100km up with a small budget, the material needed is cost-prohibitive, so I guess 35 clicks'll have to do!

[Kolgejt77]

@imthejman85 Well i agree its nice that you can make picture like that cheap. But people here are saying that guy made a mockery out of NASA, because they do the same pictures for milion dollars. But this is not even close to being the same picture. A NASA does not go there to make few pictures in the first place.

[planetrob555]

@Kolgejt77 Dude you need to do more research on exactly what NASA does. If you think they aren't involved in lower atmospheric testing, including photographs, then you're not really that familiar with NASA. NASA does things on the ground as well, even below the surface of the earth. Read all about it.

[Esuper1]

@planetrob555 A mockery? listen, you can also drop a stone in the deepest part of the oceans and it doesn't mean it makes a mockery of submarines. Pics from space are nice and all but the ships and people go there for the exploration of it all.

[planetrob555]

@Esuper1 You misunderstood what I meant. I meant it makes a mockery of all the crap NASA must go through, bureaucracy, red tape, this and that, just to get a rocket up. I'm a huge NASA fan, so don't get me wrong! :)