Eideard

Time lapse video ascent to 93,000 feet and back

Oliver Yeh is the kind of guy who cooks up ideas so kooky, so out-of-this-world, that even his fellow MIT students tend to roll their eyes when they hear them.

But that never stops him.

His latest concept — to launch a camera into near-space using a weather balloon, a cell phone, hand warmers and a drink cooler — fell flat when he sent out an e-mail message to dozens of his classmates, asking for help.

Unfazed, Yeh managed to find one friend willing to chip in. And on September 2, the go-it-alone pair floated a balloon-camera high enough into the atmosphere to photograph the curvature of the Earth and the deep black of space, all on a lunch-money budget of $148…

After Yeh’s fellow student and sidekick, Justin Lee, uploaded the story to CNN’s iReport.com, their camera-to-space effort, which they named Project Icarus, went viral online.

Since then, the duo has received a number of requests from other would-be space photographers, asking for their project notes. Yeh said he will post those soon on the project’s Web site at 1337arts.com.

RTFA. Inspiring to read about students with dreams greater than Rock Band and air guitar lust.

University of Delaware researchers in Sweden have launched a giant balloon taller than a football field that is now flying at the edge of space to collect data on cosmic rays — the most super-charged particles in the universe. You can follow the flight’s path online.

The balloon, which is 396 feet tall and 459 feet in diameter when fully inflated, was set aloft at 4:34 a.m. on May 17 from Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden, in the Arctic Circle. It is flying at a speed of more than 40 knots and an altitude of nearly 27 miles. Its payload of cosmic ray detectors, housed in a pressurized shell, will be cut free in northwestern Canada and float back down to Earth on a parachute, and then secured and recovered, likely by helicopter…

“The bulk of cosmic rays are likely produced by strong shock waves from Supernova explosions within our galaxy,” said John Clem, research associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware’s Bartol Research Institute. “It is well documented that these high-energy particles can threaten the health of astronauts in space and expose airline workers to radiation,” Clem noted…

Clem says about a thousand cosmic rays strike every square meter of Earth’s atmosphere each second, depending somewhat on the location. The data from the balloon flights will be used to study solar modulation, the variation in cosmic ray intensity that is correlated with solar activity…

According to Clem, the level of solar activity rises and falls over a period of approximately 11 years and influences cosmic ray intensity. As solar activity rises, cosmic ray activity decreases. Currently, solar activity is low, and we are in a period of high cosmic ray intensity.

RTFA for more details, link to university study. Fascinating work.

When 91-year-old Irvin Lafferty was diagnosed with severe blockage of his heart valve…open-heart surgery was out of the question. He’d already survived quadruple bypass while in his 50s, and having lived almost a century, Lafferty wasn’t a good candidate for heart surgery for many reasons. His local cardiologist referred him to surgical and interventional specialists at Chicago’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute and, on January 21, 2009, Lafferty became the first patient in Illinois to receive a prosthetic heart valve through a procedure known as transapical transcatheter aortic valve implantation, which combines catheterization technology and traditional surgery, allowing doctors to implant a new heart valve in place of Lafferty’s diseased valve while his heart remained beating.

Dr. Patrick M. McCarthy says the procedure builds upon a routine catheter-based procedure, the balloon aortic valvuloplasty. Charles J. Davidson, MD, who is also a co-principal investigator for the trial said, “This particular technique is a more durable treatment than balloon valvuloplasty and is potentially a breakthrough for treating high-risk patients.”

Medical experts estimate every year nearly 200,000 people in the U.S. need new heart valves. Yet over half of them do not receive them primarily due to frailty, one of the most common reasons for exclusion from traditional open-heart surgery.

During insertion, the artificial valve remains collapsed until it reaches its destination. It is then expanded and released in place of diseased aortic heart valves. The prosthesis is made of stainless steel and biological leaflets that help direct the flow of blood in the heart. It is permanent and integrates an expandable stent that holds the valve in its intended position.

Wow. This is one of those old geezer survival tricks that stays on the hard drive. Might need it some day.

Scabby the Rat may not have a word to say, but the large rodent-shaped balloon helped a labor union earn a free-speech victory before New Jersey’s highest court.

The seven justices ruled unanimously that the local union had a right to display its 10-foot-tall, black, rat-shaped balloon at a rally held outside a fitness center.

At issue was whether a township could enforce a ban on inflatable or portable signs and banners on public property. Lawrence Township police had levied a $100 fine against an official from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers because of Scabby.

The court concluded that while townships have a right to maintain an “aesthetic environment” and ensure public safety, its restrictions on expressive displays “do not justify a content-based restriction of non-commercial speech.”

“There is no evidence to suggest that a rat balloon is significantly more harmful to aesthetics or safety than a similar item being displayed as an advertisement or commercial logo,” wrote Justice John Wallace Jr.

As Jack London said, “After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful stuff left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain and…a backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumour of rotten principles…No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with.”

NASA and the National Science Foundation have successfully launched and demonstrated a newly designed super pressure balloon prototype that may enable a new era of high-altitude scientific research. The super-pressure balloon ultimately will carry large scientific experiments to the brink of space for 100 days or more.

This seven-million-cubic-foot super-pressure balloon is the largest single-cell, super-pressure, fully-sealed balloon ever flown. When development ends, NASA will have a 22 million-cubic-foot balloon that can carry a one-ton instrument to an altitude of more than 110,000 feet…

Ultra-long duration missions using the super pressure balloon cost considerably less than a satellite and the scientific instruments flown can be retrieved and launched again, making them ideal very-high altitude research platforms.

You can track the balloons online. Which is a real gas. Har!