SABLE-3: an amateur stratospheric balloon flight, Cool Earth images Options

[Paolo Amoroso]

Google's Lunar X-PRIZE has wet your appetite for robotic space exploration but you haven't got enough Delta-V or are cash-strapped? Enter stratospheric balloons.

A group of Canadian amateurs has flown the SABLE-3 balloon (via Backreaction) up to a height of about 35 km and got some pretty cool images of the Earth. Worth a look -- and a thought.


Paolo Amoroso

[nprev]

...Whoa!!! That is major cool!!!

Good thing they did it in Alberta, though; the FAA would throw 'em in jail in SoCal!

[rlorenz]

...Whoa!!! That is major cool!!!

Good thing they did it in Alberta, though; the FAA would throw 'em in jail in SoCal!

Actually there are quite a few groups that do this in the USA - google 'Near Space'
I think if the payload is less than 1 or 2 kg the FAA regulations are pretty unconstraining
(i.e. if the balloon is less massive than your average big bird, the exercise is not
meaningfully adding to aviation hazards) I guess in SoCal and the DC area (or perhaps
in general near major airports) maybe there are more restrictions.

But there is a community out there taking data with simple sensors as well as
camera images. If we ever get a Titan balloon going, these guys will get excited - a
lot of interesting issues to confront such as how could an on-board computer select
the best out of the thousands of images to send back - you can see on these guys'
images that some are more interesting than others..

Ralph

[Ant103]

I like it : simple, low pound and lovely results.

[ustrax]

I like it

I like it, I LOVE it and I want to do it myself...
It reminded me the glorious days of Cynthia I, how could I have abandoned that project?!

Seriously, how can a guy manage to recover the camera? Yes, I can track it but imagine that I launch a balloon like that where I live and it is dragged to the seaside?...

EDITED: This...this is crazy...

[jaredGalen]

Anyone have an idea of what size the balloon expanded to before it burst?

[ElkGroveDan]

Wow. I want to do that too.

[djellison]

So do I - but JP Aerospace wont return my emails

Doug

[nprev]

Surprising. Hell, this would be a much less expensive alternative to a Virgin Galactic flight. A sharp entrepeneur could probably charge US $50K per flight, and make a terrific profit...

[dvandorn]

On the other hand, I can just see a Bob Newhart phone routine coming out of this:

"...and, um... let me get this straight. You're going to hook me up to a balloon? OK. And, and, and... the balloon will take me up above the atmosphere? All right. And, what happens then? The... you say, the balloon breaks? And then... then I fall all the way back to the ground?! Oh, a parachute, OK, I see..."



-the other Doug

[ElkGroveDan]

The tracking device comes in a kit and is inexpensive:
http://www.byonics.com/microtrak/mt300.php

Balloons:
http://www.scientificsales.com/SearchResults.asp

The chute looks simple and is probably home made.

Looks like you can put the whole thing together for a couple hundred dollars - not including a camera. Now Doug you and I both have the same camera, let's use yours since it has probably been tested for a longer period than mine has.

[djellison]

How about one of the cheap 300D's you can find on Ebay and a DIY timer circuit using the cable release socket. Probably <$500 all up.

Otherwise we'll HAVE to use yours - it has fewer cycle's used on it's lifespan

Doug

[David]

35.8 km is pretty good. I don't think any rockets ever got to that altitude until the 1940s -- I don't know what the history of balloon altitude records looks like, but I believe it was a record when the Explorer 2 reached 22 km (that may have been only a manned record, though).

[helvick]

How about one of the cheap 300D's you can find on Ebay and a DIY timer circuit using the cable release socket. Probably <$500 all up.

A DSLR is possibly overkill but it might be justified if you could get a cheap wide angle lens to go with it - even so I reckon you would be trashing the best part of a grands worth of kit for the privilege.

These guys just used a compact digicam that had a time lapse mode (intervalometer). You can pick up the fairly decent Canon S3-IS for around Euro320 new these days so that's got pretty much all you need. You can piggy back in DC power supply too so you can ensure that you have enough juice to take lots of pictures. The S3 is limited to 2GB SD cards AFAIK so you should get about 800 shots before you run out of space or about 6 and a half hours shooting if you take 1 shot every 30 seconds. You should be able to get all of that together for less than Euro 400 (using new kit, a lot less via e-bay and its ilk).

If you bump up to the S5-IS you get SD-HC support so you could plug in an 8GB memory card and you would get ~2500 8Megapixel images before running out of space. At 1 image every 30 seconds that would be almost 24 hours of shooting, or better yet 4 hours with a shot every 5 seconds and you'd still get it all together for less than Euro 500.

[ElkGroveDan]

It also occurred to me (knowing squat about balloons) that if you were to include some kind of pressure release valve on the balloon you'd get more time aloft rather than the burst and plummet scenario that was used here. Using Helvick's 24hr hour camera set up you could really acquire a nice animated ride to be assembled later.