Over at How It Works there’s a short story about a father and his two children sending up a weather balloon to 19 miles with a video camera on-board. The camera records all of the ascent and all but 2 minutes of the descent – the battery runs out!
It takes the Geissbuhler family eight months of planning and it’s a great testimony to what can be achieved by enthusiasts. It certainly helps that the miniaturisation of technology has allowed GPS and hi-res video cameras to be encapsulated in tiny devices such as mobile phones. However, this shouldn’t take away from their achievements. Here’s the video.
Apologies – I incorrectly said 19 km when I should have said 19 miles. I had my European head on.
If it only reached 19km of height, it did not go into space.
I’m not sure but I know here in the UK there are certain places where you can do high altitude things like launch rockets. I’m really not an expert.
Totally cool. Did they need permission from the FAA?