Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon - Telegraph

 

That's cool...I'd like to see more of the pictures!

 

Do they get extra credit?

 

Wow thats amazing

 

I saw this in the payload section of one of my rocketry forums.
It's also on Geekology, Wired & Boingboing.

Why don't we see American kids taking the initiative with something like this?

 

Whats craziest about it is the fact that they retrieved the camera afterward.

 

Why not?
In rocketry we not only have radio tracking devices but realtime GPS transmitters as well.

It was only 10 kilometers downrange.

 

I am very impressed!!!. I will be waiting to see a special on Discovery

 

Sorry. They have to study and prepare for standardized tests.
Besides, this is clearly potentially hazardous. Somehow. At least in the administrators mind.

 

It called "government educations systems"
see link, I rest me case
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=W04

 

Sorry, double post

 

Here's a realtime link to a balloon that's crossing the Atlantic using a BigRedBee GPS.

Login - Google Maps APRS

 

because that would require some sort of effort, and also require them to interrupt their video games

 

When I was a meteorologist in the Navy, we used to have to attach parachutes to our weather balloons if we were within 50 miles of land. The radiosonde that we sent up had a bag and a mailing label so if anyone found it they could send it back to NOAA to be reused. I don't know if any ever survived intact enough to be reused. I wonder if their camera survived or just the memory card.

Back then (mid 80's) we used an early version of GPS (a Russian system actually) to track the location of the radio. From this we calculated wind speed and direction aloft. Our balloons usually broke at around 70,000'. These kids had some heavy artillery if they were using a 1500 gram balloon. Ours were only 600 gram.

 

That was a great project!

I worked on a pre-GPS system called Omega which used a group of transmiters at known locations to calculate present position. Ever worked on anything similar to this? I've heard that the Navy has some really cool equipment.