OT: MIT Students Take Space Photos on $150 Budget.

[equalizer]

Let the balloon wars begin. I’m sure we could come up with some creative uses with this rig.

“MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer-Money Budget”

“The two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth. Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems, they filled a weather balloon with helium and hung a styrofoam beer cooler underneath to carry a cheap Canon A470 compact camera. Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work.

Of course, all this would be pointless if the guys couldn’t find the rig when it landed, so they dropped a prepaid GPS-equipped cellphone inside the box for tracking. Total cost, including duct tape? $148.”

BTW, I’m sure DHS would go on high alert aka 99 luft balloons. Here’s the loose German translation Nena:
“99 fighter jets
Each one’s a great warrior
Thought they were Captain Kirk
then came a lot of fireworks
the neighbors didn’t understand anything and felt like they were being provoked so they shot at the horizon
at 99 balloons.” (Allan: here is video if you lost it) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQYQTFudrqc

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget/

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Equalizer: I love that song. I saw her in concert in the UK in 1984, on leave from the Army (I was stationed in Fulda, Germany, at the time).

Very cool concert, but she had that German chick hairy armpit thing going on. Never quite used to that with European women.

Okay, back to the regular scheduled programming featuring MIT students that are smarter than NASA (which none of us should find shocking in the slightest).

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Equalizer: I love that song. I saw her in concert in the UK in 1984, on leave from the Army (I was stationed in Fulda, Germany, at the time).

Very cool concert, but she had that German chick hairy armpit thing going on. Never quite used to that with European women.

Okay, back to the regular scheduled programming featuring MIT students that are smarter than NASA (which none of us should find shocking in the slightest).

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Equalizer: I love that song. I saw her in concert in the UK in 1984, on leave from the Army (I was stationed in Fulda, Germany, at the time).

Very cool concert, but she had that German chick hairy armpit thing going on. Never quite used to that with European women.

Okay, back to the regular scheduled programming featuring MIT students that are smarter than NASA (which none of us should find shocking in the slightest).

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Equalizer: I love that song. I saw her in concert in the UK in 1984, on leave from the Army (I was stationed in Fulda, Germany, at the time).

Very cool concert, but she had that German chick hairy armpit thing going on. Never quite used to that with European women.

Okay, back to the regular scheduled programming featuring MIT students that are smarter than NASA (which none of us should find shocking in the slightest).

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Equalizer: I love that song. I saw her in concert in the UK in 1984, on leave from the Army (I was stationed in Fulda, Germany, at the time).

Very cool concert, but she had that German chick hairy armpit thing going on. Never quite used to that with European women.

Okay, back to the regular scheduled programming featuring MIT students that are smarter than NASA (which none of us should find shocking in the slightest).

[Eugene]

I fail to see what this experiment has to do with NASA (which probably employs more MIT graduates than any other company or agency in this country).

[quote]Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems[/quote]

If you don’t have rockets and boosters, you can only go straight up. And you can’t go too high up, because weather balloons can’t get much higher than 25 miles – they explode. If you want to put a space telescope with an 8 foot mirror into orbit and keep it there for 20 years, you have to do it the old-fashioned NASA way.

Neat experiment, don’t get me wrong, but prospects of doing the actual science that way are very limited.

[Eugene]

I fail to see what this experiment has to do with NASA (which probably employs more MIT graduates than any other company or agency in this country).

[quote]Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems[/quote]

If you don’t have rockets and boosters, you can only go straight up. And you can’t go too high up, because weather balloons can’t get much higher than 25 miles – they explode. If you want to put a space telescope with an 8 foot mirror into orbit and keep it there for 20 years, you have to do it the old-fashioned NASA way.

Neat experiment, don’t get me wrong, but prospects of doing the actual science that way are very limited.

[Eugene]

I fail to see what this experiment has to do with NASA (which probably employs more MIT graduates than any other company or agency in this country).

[quote]Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems[/quote]

If you don’t have rockets and boosters, you can only go straight up. And you can’t go too high up, because weather balloons can’t get much higher than 25 miles – they explode. If you want to put a space telescope with an 8 foot mirror into orbit and keep it there for 20 years, you have to do it the old-fashioned NASA way.

Neat experiment, don’t get me wrong, but prospects of doing the actual science that way are very limited.

[Eugene]

I fail to see what this experiment has to do with NASA (which probably employs more MIT graduates than any other company or agency in this country).

[quote]Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems[/quote]

If you don’t have rockets and boosters, you can only go straight up. And you can’t go too high up, because weather balloons can’t get much higher than 25 miles – they explode. If you want to put a space telescope with an 8 foot mirror into orbit and keep it there for 20 years, you have to do it the old-fashioned NASA way.

Neat experiment, don’t get me wrong, but prospects of doing the actual science that way are very limited.

[Eugene]

I fail to see what this experiment has to do with NASA (which probably employs more MIT graduates than any other company or agency in this country).

[quote]Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems[/quote]

If you don’t have rockets and boosters, you can only go straight up. And you can’t go too high up, because weather balloons can’t get much higher than 25 miles – they explode. If you want to put a space telescope with an 8 foot mirror into orbit and keep it there for 20 years, you have to do it the old-fashioned NASA way.

Neat experiment, don’t get me wrong, but prospects of doing the actual science that way are very limited.

[KSMountain]

Oh Eugene, why do you have to ruin everything with the facts?

[KSMountain]

Oh Eugene, why do you have to ruin everything with the facts?

[KSMountain]

Oh Eugene, why do you have to ruin everything with the facts?

[KSMountain]

Oh Eugene, why do you have to ruin everything with the facts?

[Author]

Posts