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Project - sending a Jeb figurine into stratosphere

lajoswinkler

By lajoswinkler
in Science & Spaceflight

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Good Idea?  

64 members have voted

  1. 1. Good Idea?

    • Brilliant! $50+
      7
    • Good Idea, $10
      10
    • Good Idea, won't donate
      42
    • TERRIBLE IDEA EVERYONE SUCKS (haters gotta hate)
      5

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NASAFanboy

NASAFanboy

Posted
Posted (edited)
NASAFanboy, do you already have any equipment for sending a hydrogen-filled weather balloon into high atmosphere? Name the things you need, so I can write all down.

I have a 10ft balloon that is supposed to use hydrogen but uses helium for the sake of convience (Very hard to find people selling Hydrogen in my area), heat packs that I use for insulation, a tin canister that can fit small equipment and camera. This comes attached with a homemade radar reflector and a parachute.

What I do NOT have is the Kerbal...that can be remedied within a week (For shipping) if needed

Edited by NASAFanboy
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Rus-Evo

Rus-Evo

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Good luck - The balloon-only ideas look more than feasible for a resourceful person/persons.

With regards to sensors, could they be cheap off-the-shelf items? The reason I ask is that as I read this my eye caught my little battery powered temperature sensor on my shelf (which cost ten bucks). Something like that could be put in the cameras field of vision and may work well if kept warm (this could apply to other things as well like altitude). The Raspberry Pi type ideas seem quite complicated and time consuming (to my non-scientific eye).

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lajoswinkler

lajoswinkler

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I have a 10ft balloon that is supposed to use hydrogen but uses helium for the sake of convience (Very hard to find people selling Hydrogen in my area), heat packs that I use for insulation, a tin canister that can fit small equipment and camera. This comes attached with a homemade radar reflector and a parachute.

What I do NOT have is the Kerbal...that can be remedied within a week (For shipping) if needed

That's great news. If helium is easier for you to get, then it'll be helium, but you should put a price tag on it, so we can calculate whether it would be easier if you could make your own hydrogen. Renting helium tanks is pricey.

Tin canister won't do. It's heavy and highly conductive. Styrofoam is the best. I've already made a capsule I'm going to use for other projects. Its internal volume is 1.5 L and its mass is less than 60 g. Styrofoam is a great insulator - you can even store LN2 inside for a considerable amount of time.

By heat packs you mean Na-acetate? That's very good. I have those, too.

Can you take photos of all that? Can you weigh each thing on a gram scale?

Someone already said about the Kerbal on earlier pages. If I had one, I'd rent it to this project so I could have a Kerbal who has been in stratosphere. :)

Good luck - The balloon-only ideas look more than feasible for a resourceful person/persons.

With regards to sensors, could they be cheap off-the-shelf items? The reason I ask is that as I read this my eye caught my little battery powered temperature sensor on my shelf (which cost ten bucks). Something like that could be put in the cameras field of vision and may work well if kept warm (this could apply to other things as well like altitude). The Raspberry Pi type ideas seem quite complicated and time consuming (to my non-scientific eye).

Thanks.

Sensors which take even more readings are readily available for 3-5 USD on eBay, and give exact numbers. As the camera will be looking outwards, the screen of your device would have to be outside, too. LCD screens can not survive such frigid temperatures. We're talking about below -60°C here. They become unresponsive at even warmer temperatures, but will surely be destroyed at the temperatures of dry ice sublimation.

All except the Geiger counter could be assembled for less than 30 USD, and the counter itself would be in that price range. Nothing fancy, just CPM and microsieverts or micrograys per hour.

001_geiger_lcd_1200142.jpg

unrelated, but would nasa mind bringing a 3d printed kerbal to the iss?

I don't think they'd mind. In fact, if the next Soyuz would use it as their 0 G indicator instead of Dimler the cat and Red from Angry Birds, it would be great.

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Tommygun

Tommygun

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Posted (edited)
I have a 10ft balloon that is supposed to use hydrogen but uses helium for the sake of convience (Very hard to find people selling Hydrogen in my area), heat packs that I use for insulation, a tin canister that can fit small equipment and camera. This comes attached with a homemade radar reflector and a parachute.

What I do NOT have is the Kerbal...that can be remedied within a week (For shipping) if needed

Can you buy industrial grade helium in your area without a permit?

From what I understand the helium sold to the general public can have up to 20 percent oxygen added to it.

This is to help prevent suffocation from people trying to breathe it in.

Edited by Tommygun
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GoSlash27

GoSlash27

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Can you buy industrial grade helium in your area without a permit?

A permit... for helium?? I'm slow to pick up on when people are messin' with me. Please tell me there isn't a place where you need a helium permit!

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NASAFanboy

NASAFanboy

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Can you buy industrial grade helium in your area without a permit?

From what I understand the helium sold to the general public can have up to 20 percent oxygen added to it.

This is to help prevent suffocation from people trying to breathe it in.

It's not industrial grade. From what I'm told, it's around 5-10% oxygen. I may purchase a larger balloon for this, perhaps a 20 foot one to compensate for the oxygen loss?

Also, does anyone have ideas for an slow-deflation device for balloon recovery? These weather balloon nowadays are pretty pricey (The good ones).

Edited by NASAFanboy
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lajoswinkler

lajoswinkler

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It's not industrial grade. From what I'm told, it's around 5-10% oxygen. I may purchase a larger balloon for this, perhaps a 20 foot one to compensate for the oxygen loss?

Also, does anyone have ideas for an slow-deflation device for balloon recovery? These weather balloon nowadays are pretty pricey (The good ones).

Industrial grade helium is cheaper. Helium you're talking about is not only oxygenized, but extra purified. I'd avoid it. It means more money and less lift.

I'm not sure what would happen with oxygenized helium balloon. Helium leaks through latex a lot faster than oxygen, so the concentration of oxygen rises as the balloon goes up. I think it wouldn't reach typical weather balloon heights.

Weather balloons are disposable. As we'd start a crowdsourcing campaign, the funds would be covered.

Once the latex is stretched by the gas and blasted by UV rays at those heights, it's not guaranteed to work well next time. They're designed to burst, that's it.

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AngusJimiKeith

AngusJimiKeith

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I actively work on HABs with my school. I don't know if I'll be able to lend a physical hand, but I'll help however I can.

Worst case, if getting our own setup fails, I can see about putting Jeb on one of our flights.

EDIT: And my first contribution:

It seems that the idea of strapping a rocket to the balloon is dead, but just to bury it further: assuming the flight happens in the US, the FAA will be very unhappy with you. We (my team) had to get permission to do a ballistic drop, which is usually against regulations. They don't like it when you fly any sort of propellant, let alone actually fire it. Please, if you're going to do this, keep it legal. Especially if you intend to post the results to the internet.

Edited by AngusJimiKeith
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sam445

sam445

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If you are still looking for a programmer for the geiger, i'm in! I just need to know what system and/or language should be used, after this is cleared, we can ge on to more technical details.

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lajoswinkler

lajoswinkler

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If you are still looking for a programmer for the geiger, i'm in! I just need to know what system and/or language should be used, after this is cleared, we can ge on to more technical details.

Well I'm sort of a coordinator here, and can't do anything else. Others seem to got awfully quiet.

Yes, we need someone who could write a script that would collect the timestamped data pouring in from various sensors, Geiger-Müller tube included.

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  • 1 month later...
Albert VDS

Albert VDS

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Posted

Something that would be really cool and handy is letting all of it run off a Raspberry Pi.

You can hook up all sorts of sensors and stuff and it can handle the webcam.

http://www.yoctopuce.com/EN/products/category/usb-sensors

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=raspberry+pi+sensors&spell=1

All the data could be stored on an SD card, which has a high possibility of surviving a crash.

And most importantly the RBP is light. :)

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Skyler4856

Skyler4856

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Posted
Something that would be really cool and handy is letting all of it run off a Raspberry Pi.

You can hook up all sorts of sensors and stuff and it can handle the webcam.

http://www.yoctopuce.com/EN/products/category/usb-sensors

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=raspberry+pi+sensors&spell=1

All the data could be stored on an SD card, which has a high possibility of surviving a crash.

And most importantly the RBP is light. :)

An Arduino system would be cheaper, lighter, and easier to program

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Albert VDS

Albert VDS

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Posted (edited)

Unless I'm missing something, there's still not a Arduino which can run Linux (or at least for the price of a RBP).

With RPB you can just connect anything you want without having to solder anything and it can actually handle alot more data than an Arduino.

700Mhz vs 16Mhz.

Or in other words; you'll need to have an Arduino for every sensor.

Edited by Albert VDS
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