Project - sending a Jeb figurine into stratosphere

[NASAFanboy]

Why use hydrogen for the balloon? Use helium. Safer and easier to get.

[Drunken Hobo]

26 comments and no-one has suggested doing this on Titan? Pfft...

Being serious, this is both a realistic & affordable idea with potential to have a unique KSP twist. Perhaps just something silly like have Jeb strapped to a mock-up of a KSP rocket made out of polystyrene.

[lajoswinkler]

- No actual rockets, please. We don't need them. A balloon will carry the payload all by itself rather quickly without jerky accelerations and allows us do dangle Jeb like that Lego figurine in the blue void, on a stick in front of a camera.

- Just an example illustration of the final thing I'd love to see.

The trip is what matters a lot.

- All the things anyone donates should be returned to the owners, of course.

- Metal-acid (Zn+HCl is very cost effective and the metal can be regenerated) reaction's fumes have to be chilled and filtered through a column of water and then dried with 2x the length of a desiccant. Calcium chloride granules in a long tube or two smaller tubes is also very cost effective and easily obtainable. All that removes HCl aerosol, water vapor and most of arsine.

- Important thing has to be considered at all times: everyone involved in the release of the probe has to be grounded. Static electricity builds up easily with large balloons if the weather is fair. Large charge densities can occur, leading to sparks upon contact and balloon explosion. Chances for something like that are slim, but why teasing the devil, right?

Avoiding the trouble is easy as strapping yourself with a cable touching your skin, or simply by laying down aluminium foil connected to a water pipe and having the setup on such plateau.

[lajoswinkler]

Aghanim, Arduino or Raspberry Pi, whatever is more cost effective.

NASAFanboy, helium is extremely expensive compared to hydrogen, and the danger of hydrogen is overhyped. Weather balloons are filled with it on a daily basis.

[TheDataMiner]

Hey, guys, I can do this. If you read my last post you'll see that I already have 2 Balloon launches under my belt.

Edited July 17, 2014 by TheDataMiner

[TheDataMiner]

Why use hydrogen for the balloon? Use helium. Safer and easier to get.

And all balloons that civilians can buy are designed for helium.

Edited July 17, 2014 by TheDataMiner

[NASAFanboy]

NASAFanboy, helium is extremely expensive compared to hydrogen, and the danger of hydrogen is overhyped. Weather balloons are filled with it on a daily basis.

Almost every civilian balloon is designed for helium. Helium is much easier to get than hydrogen, and it doesn't require all these government safety standards. It's price actually depends...in my area, you can get it rather cheaply. I still believe that we should use helium at first, but later transfer onto hydrogen if needed (And if multiple flights are done). Nevertheless, I wish you the best of luck.

Also, I got a funny idea. What if we all actually went on a little "space race" to put a Kerbal onto a suborbital trajectory or into the stratosphere?

[TheDataMiner]

Also, I got a funny idea. What if we all actually went on a little "space race" to put a Kerbal onto a suborbital trajectory or into the stratosphere?

Balloons go pretty deep into the stratosphere, suborbital would be...hard...to say the least.

[NASAFanboy]

Balloons go pretty deep into the stratosphere, suborbital would be...hard...to say the least.

It's been done before in 2003, it's just that no one else has out up a dedicated effort. Let's put out a kickstarter for a ten thousand dollar cash prize to the first team to build a reliable suborbital launch system.

Oh well. Worth the dreams.

[lajoswinkler]

Almost every civilian balloon is designed for helium. Helium is much easier to get than hydrogen, and it doesn't require all these government safety standards. It's price actually depends...in my area, you can get it rather cheaply. I still believe that we should use helium at first, but later transfer onto hydrogen if needed (And if multiple flights are done). Nevertheless, I wish you the best of luck.

Also, I got a funny idea. What if we all actually went on a little "space race" to put a Kerbal onto a suborbital trajectory or into the stratosphere?

Meteorological stations are civilian things (as is police, hospitals, etc). They use hydrogen. It is cheap and perfectly safe unless you're reckless.

You don't really think they'd use helium every day? They release radiosondes every day, and there are a couple of stations in a small country. It would be very expensive to waste precious cubic metres of helium every day.

The balloon we're planning to release would be a real weather balloon, probably latex. Saying it's "designed for helium" is a disinformation.

It's been done before in 2003, it's just that no one else has out up a dedicated effort. Let's put out a kickstarter for a ten thousand dollar cash prize to the first team to build a reliable suborbital launch system.

Oh well. Worth the dreams.

As I've learned, Kickstarter doesn't let funding from anyone on Earth. It's basically an USA thing. Why limiting ourselves to one country? Starting a funding campaign is a serious thing and I think we should ensure the best option. Don't rush this or it will surely fail.

One more thing - those crowdfunding projects have conditions. For example, if someone donates 10 instead of 5 $, he gets something, etc.

Does anyone have any idea about what we could do?

[dharak1]

I've never heard of kickstarter not accepting donations from other countries. I thought you could use paypal or credit cards.

[lajoswinkler]

Seems I got disinformed.

I went to forbes.com and found this:

Only users from the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom may create projects, though anyone may donate.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2013/09/09/donation-based-crowdfunding-sites-kickstarter-vs-indiegogo/

People, be sure to read the article before voting for Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

[HafCoJoe]

Good luck on this! This would make an awesome fan work Friday or Video Wednesdays sometime!

[Creature]

Before setting up a kickstarter you should contact Squad about it. I'm repeating here what I said in the cubesat thread: you're planning to raise money using Squad's IP as a promoting tool. It might or might not be OK with them but you should ask. If they say no, you can probably still just create a kickstarter without mentioning kerbals at all. Anyone donating will anyways be from this community but I can see how a company might not want anyone using their IP material for their own projects even if they are cool.

Anyway I hope this project happens! I'm just bummed that I can't help with it, would love to be there for the launch.

[lajoswinkler]

I don't think copyright rules apply for this. It's a non-profit thing.

Even if it is, it can't be applicable, otherwise photography as a job couldn't survive. Almost everything around us contains something copyrighted. If I take a photo of a car and sell the photo, will the car company have legal rights to to anything about it? No.

I would contact Squad, but I'd ask them for help when the projects starts being more serious.

Until then, we have to choose: Indiegogo or Kickstarter. Both of them are good crowdsourcing places.

[Skyler4856]

I hate to be that guy, but, why not use a small hybrid rocket-balloon combination, if we could somehow get the system in the air (ideally like 10 miles) we would then be able to launch a rocket at less air resistance, with higher ISP. The only problem would be the construction of the hybrid rocket.

[lajoswinkler]

I hate to be that guy, but, why not use a small hybrid rocket-balloon combination, if we could somehow get the system in the air (ideally like 10 miles) we would then be able to launch a rocket at less air resistance, with higher ISP. The only problem would be the construction of the hybrid rocket.

Really? You'd design something people design for months or even years in their garages, and then launch a system using an enormous balloon (because it's heavy) carrying a system that launches a rocket which corrects its attitude, basically a guided missile, that would deploy a Kerbal on a stick in front of a camera in suborbital trajectory, while something is somehow managing to stop the violent spinning that would tear the whole thing into pieces, destroying and losing an expensive 3D printed figurine, a GoPro camera and a data probe in the process, dispersing it over hundreds of square kilometres. That's exactly what would happen.

Why so much complications? A weather balloon will reach approx. 35 km. The sky is black at that height. Visual difference between 35 and 100 km is such that a change in camera lenses would be more dramatic.

There's absolutely no need for a rocket. A balloon probe is complicated enough.

People, be serious. Don't derail the thread with nonsense.

[Skyler4856]

Really? You'd design something people design for months or even years in their garages, and then launch a system using an enormous balloon (because it's heavy) carrying a system that launches a rocket which corrects its attitude, basically a guided missile, that would deploy a Kerbal on a stick in front of a camera in suborbital trajectory, while something is somehow managing to stop the violent spinning that would tear the whole thing into pieces, destroying and losing an expensive 3D printed figurine, a GoPro camera and a data probe in the process, dispersing it over hundreds of square kilometres. That's exactly what would happen.

Why so much complications? A weather balloon will reach approx. 35 km. The sky is black at that height. Visual difference between 35 and 100 km is such that a change in camera lenses would be more dramatic.

There's absolutely no need for a rocket. A balloon probe is complicated enough.

People, be serious. Don't derail the thread with nonsense.

I never said it would be practical, just exceptionally efficacious

[pxi]

I don't think copyright rules apply for this. It's a non-profit thing.

So basically as long as I'm a non-profit, i have free reign to use all Disney's IP? I'm not really sure I want to test that theory.

To be clear, I don't see an issue sending a figurine of Jeb into space. But if I was planning to start a Kickstarter or whatever with Squad, or KSP associated anywhere in the blurb, I'd be damn sure I'd talked to Squad or a lawyer. Probably both.

[lajoswinkler]

I never said it would be practical, just exceptionally efficacious

Oh, ok then.

So basically as long as I'm a non-profit, i have free reign to use all Disney's IP? I'm not really sure I want to test that theory.

To be clear, I don't see an issue sending a figurine of Jeb into space. But if I was planning to start a Kickstarter or whatever with Squad, or KSP associated anywhere in the blurb, I'd be damn sure I'd talked to Squad or a lawyer. Probably both.

If I take a photo of a man dressed in Goofy, or a Goofy figurine being lit on fire by a torch lamp, and I make money out of it (even if it's profit for me, though this Jeb thing is non-profit), it's at least fair use.

If I make a short movie in which Goofy is used as a Disney character, without it being parodied or turned into an art, and I make money on it, then I'm breaking the law. I don't need a lawyer for something so basic.

Equivalent thing would be if I make an icecream brand with Jeb's face on it and title "Kerbal-cream".

You have a very narrow and wrong look on the copyright issues. If things were as you describe, this would would be a very different place.

Almost all of YouTube would be breaking the law, just to mention that site.

[Creature]

First point is that whether or not something is fair use is not easily decided and it's done on case-by-case basis. I don't want to go into ogy contests about this but just from wikipedia you can pull examples both ways and study the mess that is copyright laws. Just because you think it's fair use might not be fair use. Asking Squad about it is free and if they say it's not OK you should not do it, it's that simple. If they say it is OK, your bases are covered since you have the IP holder's permission to use it in this way.

Second point here is that whether or not this is non-profit can be contested. You're asking people for money that goes directly to a single person to fund their balloon launching hobby. You don't even have an existing work here, you're selling the idea of Jeb on stratosphere to get money of which you're basically not accountable to anyone on how you use it. It's very different if you were to first do the work, then ask for donations to cover the expenses. Now you're just asking for money.

Third point is that using this forum to ask for money without permission from the forum's owner is just plain rude. I can think of a few scenarios that might happen if they just let anyone advertise their kickstarters to fund their Jeb-launching projects. Again asking for permission costs nothing, is polite and if they say no, you don't do it. There's literally no reason not to do it.

Final point here is that the person setting the kickstarter should realize that if any copyright issues would be to arise, they're personally accountable. If they get ten thousand dollar fine, they themselves will have to pay. Crying to court about someone on the internet saying it's ok will not help.

For all the above points that may or may not cause trouble the simple, polite and completely free solution is to ask for permission. Personally I can't understand why this is such an issue and needs to be argumented over? Just ask, if they say yes, great, you have official support. If they say no, you just avoided a lot of headache for someone and unneccessary work for a gaming company. Either way it's a win.

[pxi]

If I take a photo of a man dressed in Goofy, or a Goofy figurine being lit on fire by a torch lamp, and I make money out of it (even if it's profit for me, though this Jeb thing is non-profit), it's at least fair use.

If I make a short movie in which Goofy is used as a Disney character, without it being parodied or turned into an art, and I make money on it, then I'm breaking the law. I don't need a lawyer for something so basic.

Equivalent thing would be if I make an icecream brand with Jeb's face on it and title "Kerbal-cream".

You have a very narrow and wrong look on the copyright issues. If things were as you describe, this would would be a very different place.

Almost all of YouTube would be breaking the law, just to mention that site.

Heh, your opinion is your own I guess. Anyway, I've said my bit, take it or leave it. You may at least take the fact that I am even raising this issue in this thread as a mark of my believing that this is an actually doable project. I just don't want you to run into problems down the road. Anyway, I'll leave the experts at it.

[lajoswinkler]

Even if we use Kickstarter instead of Indiegogo (we still haven't decided), I can't start it because I'm not in USA. So if anyone wants to do this, say it loud and clear. We'll discuss the expenses, write a plan and open a campaign.

[NASAFanboy]

Even if we use Kickstarter instead of Indiegogo (we still haven't decided), I can't start it because I'm not in USA. So if anyone wants to do this, say it loud and clear. We'll discuss the expenses, write a plan and open a campaign.

I'll do it. I used to to find balloons before, and I can do it again.

[TheDataMiner]

I'll do it. I used to to find balloons before, and I can do it again.

I don't have enough time to manage it all, but I do have some experience with HAB's and I could help out. Where in the us do you live? If you live in CA, I could help you in person.