[Space] space is hard, let's go shopping!

[miloh]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Mikolaj Habryn <dichro at rcpt.to> wrote:

> I have two 8' latex meteorological balloons on the way -
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330370803471
>
>

"Experiments using a balloon like this will not be forgotten."


After ordering, it occurred to me that my simple idea for stopping
> ascent below burst-height (a pressure-relief valve) wouldn't work on
> these anyway since they're stretchy, so the pressure inside is always
> going to be substantially higher than outside, and the difference will
> probably vary with altitude. Which leaves open the question of what
> else we'd like to consider doing with our first launch?
>
>
Are you still interested in other ideas for feedback mechanisms?
perhaps a semi-elastic ring/girdle set to control relief as the balloon
diameter increases to bursting point?

These ideas are coming from my completely naive  standpoint, I would like to
gain more insight, so if anyone on the list has reading references please
post links or wikify them on noisebridge.net

(btw, mikolaj, if you get resistance to adding wiki plugins from ops, I'll
be asking for 'nosebridge' to be repurposed as a plugins sandbox.)



> The standard equipment is a camera, gps, and radio transceiver, but we
> can aim higher than that - I think the FAA plain doesn't care what we
> do up to about 6 pounds (maybe 4?) but with two balloons, we can loft
> significantly more (perhaps with extra paperwork?). A model rocket
> should be doable either way (maybe we'd need three balloons to make a
> stable launch platform?) - and putting the camera on the model rocket
> pointing downwards to watch the launcher fall behind with earth
> curvature in the background would make for fantastic youtube :)
>
> Other ideas?
>
>
What's the time and $$ budget for balloon launches over the next few
months?  Could we manage a set of ~ 3-5 launches that span everything from
vanilla balloon video, interesting descent cannister designs, and ascent
tests from balloon platforms?

Total launch costs for single balloons are around .5k?

I'm interested in looking into managing gas procurement and storage, if you
want to divide up the labor and manage a set of balloon launches with a team
of spacebridgers...


-rma
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