Amateur Space Geeks Send Beer Cooler to Near Space
- First Posted: Oct 19 2011 08:31 AM
- Updated: about 4 hours ago
New Brunswick buddies put a new spin on a weekend, a beer cooler, and $200.
Two guys from New Brunswick launched a beer cooler attached to a helium-filled balloon 30 kilometres into the air over the weekend, filming the adventure into the outer limits of Earth's atmosphere with a couple digital cameras in the cooler. The slapdash project cost engineer Brian McCain and his space enthusiast buddy Jamie Allison all of $200, which covered the cost of the balloon, two digital cameras, and a GPS tracker. McCain and Allison launched the hoser-style weather balloon from Florenceville, N.B., and watched it ascend until it disappeared into cloud cover. They figure the cooler travelled some 30 kilometres into the air before the balloon popped and plummeted back to land, crashing into a lake some 100 km away from where it was launched. The guys retrieved the cooler, found the cameras intact, and uploaded it all to YouTube.
For more content from The Mark, check out:
Another Satellite to Crash into Earth
A New Frontier in Space Exploration
The Launch:
The Flight:
The Pop:
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