Homemade Spacecraft: Awesome Family Tech!
October 6, 2010 by Bobby Travis 
11 Comments
This is about the coolest thing I have ever seen. I know I’ve said that before, but it’s a graduating scale — and this made my geek-self tingle and grin like a fool!
Father and son Luke and Max Geissbühler, from out Brooklyn way, popped an iPhone and an HD camcorder into a polystyrene container, wrapped it up in hand warmers to keep it alive in the upper stratosphere, attached it to a giant helium balloon and let it fly. Lack of atmospheric pressure causes the balloon to grow and burst, and the camera was on all the way up. It took a good look at the Earth from the outside, and then stayed on for most of the trip down — a plummet, really, at about 150mph even with its parachute. The iPhone got a GPS lock on the way down and was used to locate the “payload”.
The video footage is amazing and of incredible quality, especially for a civilian effort. The video is only a few minutes long — watch it. It’s awesome!
I think I may do this with my kid someday.
Homemade Spacecraft [Make Magazine]
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I hope to be able to launch an “experiment” like this! But it might be a little too expensive!
That was my worry . . . I’d need to buy another phone for this. Looks very cool, though. Good thing it didn’t take out a skydiver or something during its 150 MPH descent.
Heh — Way to “Glass half-full” Evan… :P
And I agree, Marlon, it may be a bit pricey at the moment. Possibly not so much by the time I would be doing it though. I have a few years before my daughter will care.
Couldn’t they just put the kid in the weather balloon and have him take pictures.
Or maybe not do that and say they did?
Oh. I guess that wouldn’t be very original :)
Heh — You’re right, it’s been done.
Agreed that this is an incredibly cool thing for a father to do with his son and all that were involved. I only hope the kids will realize this coolness and “bonding” of this when they grow up, but judging from their dad, I think they will.
Anthony
They do seem likely to have other cool things in their future.
And I thought doing bottle rockets was cool :-/
I think they -are- still cool! This is a bit of another level though, eh? :D