Hackerspaces In Space

[MattStultz]

Back in September it was Pitched to the group that we attempt to launch a weather balloon into near space. Now it's a challenge. Workshop 88 from Chicago has created a competition between hackerspaces to each launch a balloon and see who can do it the cheapest and the "best". We will be meeting Monday nights for a while to try to start prepping for this competition. If you are a member and would like to be involved come by and help out. We are already registered so let's go for it. For more details check out:

http://www.workshop88.com/space/

http://dichro.blogspot.com/2010/02/decl ... ce-of.html

[schmarty]

For folks who listen to podcasts, the most recent Dr. Kiki's Science Hour was an interview with the creator of Spacehack.org, and it was quite good. They talk about NASA, collaborative communities around data, Noisebridge's $150 balloon launch, and more.

http://twit.tv/kiki34
http://spacehack.org/

[MattStultz]

List of tasks

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... utput=html

[MattStultz]

Useful links

http://bear.sbszoo.com/

http://www.unr.edu/NevadaSat/BalloonSat ... otrak.html

http://www.eoss.org/wbaltrak/

http://space.1337arts.com/

http://weather.uwyo.edu/polar/balloon_traj.html

[beegle]

Basic numbers for different lighter-than-air gas
http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/lift.html

A source for commercial weather ballons
http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3041755

How helium balloons work
http://science.howstuffworks.com/helium2.htm

American Science and Surplus has cheap mylar rolls and other cheap supplies
http://www.sciplus.com/recommend.cfm/recommendid/5529

[sbrudenell]

All of our tracking system ideas have involved GPS in some way. It looks like that's going to be a big part of our budget. Could we do something simpler / more old-school?

I've seen a few different references to using VHF signals to track animals / rockets / trucks. Sputnik even communicated in the low VHF range (20 and 40 MHz, at 1W). The equipment looks very cheap ( http://www.jbgizmo.com/page23.html ), and there's a lot of information on the subject of how to locate radio-emitting things ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_direction_finder , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_Ra ... on_Finding ).

However, I don't know about what frequencies we're allowed to broadcast on, and at what power, etc. Does anyone have any knowledge about this?

[chibu]

So, since we have at least a few people with Ham licenses, we can basically broadcast on whatever frequency we want. 1W should be well below the allowed limit, though, we should try to keep the signal strength down as low as we can to be nice the other operators (And it's kind of a rule that you should use the least amount of power necessary to achieve the desired transmission).

But, it does look to be a little bit cheaper... But I think that, while fox hunting our balloon would be far more hilarious, it would also take much longer.

The problem is that it looks like it could be landing a few hundred miles away from the launch site, and unless you have a pretty good idea of where it is to begin with, it's going to be hard to get a fix on its location.

But it's definitely worth looking into more. If nothing else we could fork it into a Fox Hunt Game project!

[sbrudenell]

I think we could minimize the fox hunt factor.

If we do direction-finding on the balloon from two separate locations, we should be able to get its position. It will be in the sky most of the time, so we should be able to get line-of-sight to the balloon from a long distance until just before it's on the ground.

The real trick with this approach is having people hang out in two different locations during the balloon's journey, and coordinating the information both stations would have. And building / buying some direction finding equipment in the first place. I'd be willing to put in the time for these things, though. I think it would be worth it for the material cost we'd save.

[sbrudenell]

Also, since no one's brought it up, I thought I'd post this as inspiration for the art / style bit of the project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrBZeWjGjl8

To summarize Wikipedia, this is actual footage from Project Excelsior, which was designed to test flight suits at high altitude (apparently if you jump from high enough altitude and don't die from anything else, you'll die from spinning around too fast). The man did in fact jump from a height of around 103,000 feet, although he did not in fact land in the ocean and go surfing.

Short of sending someone into space to ACTUALLY jump into the ocean and go surfing, does anyone have any ideas for cool stuff we could do?

I've kind of got geographical overlays on the brain as a result of my current project at work. I was wondering if we could overlay something or other on whatever pictures (or video??) we take. Tweets, maybe? Flickr photos? Flickr photos of makers making stuff?

Ideas go here.

[chibu]

I just ran across this post on a blog I read: http://chibu.net/l/wl
It's about controlling a digital camera with an Arduino USB Host Shield. I'm not sure what direction we're planning to go yet, but I thought I'd thow it out there.

[MattStultz]

An update for those that were not at the shop Monday night. We have decided to target April 17th as our first test launch of a balloon to help keep the project moving forward.

[MattStultz]

Wiki entry is up and running.

http://www.hackpittsburgh.org/wiki/inde ... on_Project

[cjyohe]

Just an FYI - Checked into the Weather Balloon Payload body. He's looking for that. Will probably receive it next week.
Also have some "smaller than a beer cooler" but bigger than the balloon payload insulated shipping capsules coming down.
All were used in the shipping of stuff in dry ice so all are decently insulated and all are shipping waste so should technically free.
I'll post more as I find out.

Also if we wanted to try receiver tracking, I can bum an antenna or two off of him, however he thinks that at the distances this will travel we will likely use the tracking on its way down way too soon. If we want to try it though, I can try and scarf them up.

Yohe

[cjyohe]

Also, thoughts on the cameras/line-untangler-plastic-dohickey-thingy (I'm sure thats the technical name - don't have a sparkfun part #) we spoke about tonight.

Any thoughts on possibly using a cd spindle (if we use it towards the bottoms of the lines). We could mount a camera or two inside, with barebones arduino for trigger, run the lines through and seal with some sort of silicone/glue.

Just something that struck me.

[SamMastromatteo]

Did you guys ever launch your balloon?

[SamMastromatteo]

I just saw some of the pictures. Congratulations on the successful launch!