This is the stuff that geek dreams are made of. For a total cost of about 150 bucks, two MIT students sent a cheap consumer digicam to an altitude of nineteen miles in a Styrofoam cooler attached to a helium-filled weather balloon:
A styrofoam cooler can withstand a 19 foot drop?
I was wondering about that myself. I first heard about it this afternoon while watching the 4:00 o’clock news, and my first thought was “how did they get the camera back?”
They monkeyed with the aerodynamics of the cooler till its terminal velocity was slow enough for the camera to survive impact, I’d expect. Shouldn’t be that difficult to achieve.
They used a parachute. Besides that, their limit was apparently 4 pounds of payload to comply with FAA regulations. Four pounds in something the size of a styrofoam cooler would fall pretty slow anyway.
Epic. Awesome. I’m amazed at the ingenuity here.