High Altitude Balloon (DianeHAB)

Some of you that are friends on FB have seen all of this stuff but I'm too excited to keep it on FB alone so here's my story...

My wife and I launched a high altitude balloon to 90,000 feet above the Earth. Attached were two cameras taking video & still shots of the journey, along with some personal affects commemorating someone very special to me & a future release of my Semi Korosiya toy.

You might be wondering why I’m doing all of this!?? Well, it’s in honor of my mother who passed away earlier this year. She has always encouraged me to follow my dreams and promoted my talents. She has supported me in every endeavor, from tattooing to screen printing to my Cop A Squat Toys venture. I wanted to do something special in memory of someone who has always believed in me. My next figure will be dedicated to her, and bears her favorite colors…

Here's a link to the Flickr set, it contains all 3225 photos taken by my GoPro camera. The video(s) will be released in the next month or so, it features the toy release that also made the journey. Here are a few sample shots from the Flickr set. Enjoy and let me know if you find anything cool in the shots, there's so many it's hard to go through them all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23519292@N06/sets/72157635044241970/

This is right after launch probably around 30 seconds after I let go of the box. That baseball field is where we launched from.


This is approximately 25-30,000 feet up.




This is at the balloons highest point, approximately 90,000 feet. You can see where the balloon finally expanded to the breaking point. The ball of gas to the left is the helium used to lift it that high. The shreds to the right are pieces of the balloon. When we launched the balloon it was about 8' wide, it grows to about 10-15 times that size by the time it reaches 90,000 feet until it can't stretch anymore and explodes. There is a 5' diameter parachute that helps it back to earth safely.

7/3 my birthday :0

That's a really cool idea man, pics are great

thats so cool    
the photos are spectacular
i dont understand how you retrieve the cameras
if they fall back to earth, isnt there a chance of them landing 5 states over?

Well the short explanation is you use enough helium to get a fast ascent rate to get you through the jet streams, plus a gps unit to track it. You have to watch the weather and know all your weights and how much helium to use and launch on a day that the jet streams are fairly slow 40-70 mph. It came down about 40 miles away from the launch site in about three hours time total. It's a fun project but got pretty expensive pretty quick. The cameras were a big part of the expense so now that I own them the next most expensive thing is the helium which you have to get each time, roughly 220 cubic feet so around $175 for a tank and then the balloon which is another $50.

awesome project and pics!  

so sick. amazing project and pics, man.

That is KICK ASS

These pics are sweet!

SOOO COOOOOL!!!!

I love things like this! Great job, man!  

Those pics were giving me vertigo Amazing pics, bro. Really trippy

Wow! This is awesome, man. I can't wait to go through the rest of the photos.

This is awesome!!!  

Love this.

Just amazing, man.  

That is so cool! Thanks for sharing.

Amazing shots.