MAKE: Blog: HALO2 High Altitude Balloon

HALO2 High Altitude Balloon

Another successful high altitude balloon flight with some gorgeous images. Alexei writes:

High altitude ballooning is an emerging hobby, since the price of GPS and communications equipment has gotten quite low. It is an excellent hobby for people fascinated by space flight and telerobotics and has many learning aspects -- from systems design to electronics design to software engineering. There is also an exciting risk factor, namely, that you could lose your precious electronics if something malfunctions. In this project, many of my interest and knowledge areas came together. Also, I have verified that the Earth is indeed round and that space is black.

Helium Balloon Mission to Near-Space - Link

Related:

Successful High Altitude Balloon! - Link
High Altitude Ballooning - Make: Video Podcast - Link
A view from 66,000 feet up - Link
Satellites on a Budget - High Altitude Balloons - Link

Related:

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: J.W. on January 23, 2008 at 2:12 PM

What? Nobody complaining about wasted helium, frightened birds, how they could've spent the money feeding the homeless... ???

Posted by: Targ8ter on January 23, 2008 at 4:25 PM

I wonder... if you had valve on the balloon to release helium at pressure, could you get higher?

Posted by: Simon on January 24, 2008 at 3:34 AM

Helium as a lifting gas? If you're worried about depleting Earth's resources of He, then why not take a step up the periodic table until you find hydrogen? These aren't manned balloons, and hydrogen has better lifting properties.

(Always check with your local aerospace licensing regulations first)

Posted by: michael on February 22, 2008 at 12:47 AM

I dunno about the Hydrogen comment - i read somewhere that Hydrogen is only a tiny bit better than Helium at lifting things (i think it was some article on Hydrogen vs Helium in airships)

Either way, this project is awesome! Well done :)

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