Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Space Photos

krou writes "With a budget of £500, Robert Harrison used cheap parts, a weather balloon, some duct tape, a digital camera, and a GPS device to capture some great photos of the earth from space that resulted in NASA calling him to find out how he had done it. 'A guy phoned up who worked for NASA who was interested in how we took the pictures,' said Mr Harrison. 'He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars.' The details of his balloon are as follows: he used 'an ordinary Canon camera mounted on a weather balloon,' 'free software' that 'reprogrammed the camera to wake up every five minutes and take eight photographs and a video before switching off for a rest.' He also ensured the camera was 'wrapped in loft insulation' to make sure it could operate at the cold temperatures. The GPS device allowed him to pinpoint the balloon's location, and retrieve the camera when it fell down to earth attached to a small parachute."

Why the fancy software ?

[bugs2squash]

when you can just push the shutter button from your lawn chair.

Sadly

[UnknowingFool]

It will require more than duct tape and £500 to resurrect his server after a slashdotting.

Re:Cool

[sckirklan]

no kidding, how do you not hang up on someone thinking your being pranked from NASA anyhow.

Re:Flat Earth Society

[courteaudotbiz]

No, I'm sure the Earth's curve you noticed is just a lens effect...

Re:Cool

[arjan_t]

Polite Europeans huh? Guess you never had to jump away for a bicycle approaching you at high speed while you were at the middle of a pedestrian crossing in Amsterdam! :P

Re:Cool

[BattleApple]

What does NASA care that this guy launched a rocket?
From the tone of the article, it sounds like they were impressed and/or curious. Any other articles you want me to read for you?

Re:Cool

[Sinning]

In NYC the driver wouldn't have given you the time to jump out of the way.

Re:Altimeter

[bhima]

Joseph Kittinger would agree.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

In Chicago your warning would have been the burst of gunfire.

This seems to get attention every few months

[ferrocene]

Slashdot has

http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/10/24/1813205/Huge-Balloon-Lofts-New-Telescope [slashdot.org]

reported on this

http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/12/21/1328206/BLAST-Telescope-About-To-Launch-From-Antarctica [slashdot.org]

several times

http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/09/19/2312240/Space-On-a-Shoestring [slashdot.org]

over the past

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/05/05/16/1845220/DIY-High-Altitude-Ballooning [slashdot.org]

few years.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/03/18/1645216/DIY-Space-Photography [slashdot.org]

And each time

http://www.sbszoo.com/bear/sable/sable3.htm [sbszoo.com]

people are surprised. Maybe I read Slashdot too much. Yeah, that's the problem...

Re:All the NASA scientists couldn't think of that?

[Arthur Grumbine]

Shows how much thinking "out of the box" goes on in top engineering circles today...

Why are you surprised? NASA spent millions to develop a pen that could write in space... the Russians used a pencil. Sometimes people look for a really complicated solution instead of going for something cheap and cheerful that gets-the-job-done.

To be fair, though, NASA saved billions by faking the moon landing.

Re:Cool

[Cryacin]

When someone builds a space station that stays in orbit out of a Pringles can and duct tape.. I'll be impressed.

That would either be one hell of a pringles can, or you'd be recruited some mighty small people to populate the space station.