Around the World In 14 Days

An anonymous reader writes: "Adventurer Steve Fossett succeeded Tuesday on his sixth try to pilot a balloon solo around the world, crossing the meridian where he started his historic journey June 19, his ground crew at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, announced. Here is the official site, while there's also several other articles, including this one."

Wouldn't it have been easier...

[Anonymous Coward]

...if he had just gone to the Antarctica and walked around in a circle?

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but look at the polar view of his flightpath. He's not near the equator, and he never crosses it. It looks more like a circumnavigation of Antarctica than a circumnavigation of the globe. It only looks like a circumnavigation of the globe if you use the 'flat' map, and only because it smears Antartica out.

I give him a silver star

[Arcturax]

Silver only because he went around an easy part of the world, basically he mostly just circled Antarctica. Heck, you could go to the south pole and walk in a circle and say you've been around the world ;) But still its not a small feat and I congradulate him on it. It would have been a gold star for making it around a lot closer to the equator but then I can understand why he gave up on that, what with countries like China and such refusing to let him cross their airspace...

Wow!

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Piloting a balloon solo around the world. That is incredible---if this was 1899!! :)

Brian Ellenberger

Re:Wouldn't it have been easier...

[Samawi I]

The real issue is not the equator per se but traversing something close to a great cirlce. Is there some recognized standard of deviation from a great circle that would be recognized as circling the globe? There must have been some standard or else he could have taken off from northern tip of Greenland or the south tip of Chile. What are the rules of the game?

Do something worthy

[conduit4]

I'm tired of hearing about these people that have more money than one human being needs. This guy and others (Bill Gates) have enough money to change the world if they wanted to. Why dont they put their money to some good use rather than stupid crap like this. They could change a small country that is dying off due to starvation or lack of water but what do they spend their money on. Balloons. I can understand wanting to do all these things just to say you did it, but I would feel horrible about myself knowing that I have that much money and I am flaunting it around while children are dying all over the world.

Re:Why?

[Christopher Thomas]

What's the point? Those ballooners have blown millions of dollars to do this. Why?

Because it's there?

Because they thought it would be fun/cool/neat/whatever?

Because they *wanted* to?

Why wouldn't they? Once you make enough money to cover your daily life, why not spend the rest on something fun?

Also, bear in mind that it's only *one* balloonist in this case. This is the first *solo* circumnavigation.

Re:not 24,000 miles

[Dead Chicken]

If you guys actually read some of the information on the site then you would see that

-snip-
As established by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale - the International governing body of aeronautics - the rules say a pilot must set a course of waypoints within a band of the Earth that stays at least 30 degrees latitude south of the North Pole or 30 degrees north of the South Pole. The lines joining those waypoints (on a "great circle" projection) must stay outside those polar caps, although parts of the actual flight can drift inside them.

Re:Do something worthy

[mblase]

They could change a small country that is dying off due to starvation or lack of water but what do they spend their money on. Balloons.

And you could sell your PC and give the money to the Peace Corps to buy a few dozen more bags of grain, but what do you spend it on? Asinine Slashdot posts.

Wealth is relative. You're ridiculously rich compared to the starving children you mention, and somehow I doubt you're lifting a finger to do much of anything about it. What you really mean is that you want him to spend his fabulous wealth on you and what you want, isn't it? Give all his money to the poor so you don't have to feel like you have to?

What do you think that money was spent on?

[A nonymous Coward]

Ground crew. People who made the balloon, equipment, and supplies.

It's like the space program -- people act as if the money is just shot into space and lost. It wasn't -- it is spent on the designers, builders, support crew.

Whether or not those people should have considered getting "real" jobs is another question which you seem to know the answer to. I personally would rather they got it than some jacknape too lazy to get off his ass and look for a job. And if it comes down to a spacecraft or balloon engineer or ground crew, vs someone equally deserving in some other country, I'd just as soon it went to the locals.