Today's Video: First HD Camera At The Edge Of Space

It's nice... but it's still not "the edge of space".

By definition, a balloon can't leave the atmosphere.

Editor's note: please tell me where the atmosphere ends? Why does the ISS need to be reboosted? Could it be atmospheric drag?

Students have been flying weather balloons to "the edge of space" for several decades.

Editor's note: when was the first HD camera flown? That's the point.

For what it's worth, here's a list of 65 other student "edge of space" balloon projects:
http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/ARHABlinks.htm

Which does miss quite a few: http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMBST09_2107/PV2009_2818.pdf
http://laspace.lsu.edu/hasp/groups/2008/Integration_plan/SP13_VT_PSIP_2008.pdf
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=5843
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/news/article?ID=1143
http://www.aggienetwork.com/AMNotebook/WeatherBaloons?PageID=2125
http://columbustech.blogspot.com/2009/09/students-launch-camera-to-edge-of-space.html
http://www.prlog.org/10233152-aussies-fishing-from-the-edge-of-space.html
http://spacegrant.oregonstate.edu/balloon.html

"Editor's note: please tell me where the atmosphere ends? Why does the ISS need to be reboosted? Could it be atmospheric drag?"

Say, if you could fly a balloon to ISS altitude, that really would be something worth reporting! Until then, I'll stick with the official definition, and call the edge of the space the Karman line (not too far from the thermosphere/mesophere boundary, another plausible definition of "edge" of space).

(G: Nice list of websites there, by the way)

Editor's note: The word "edge" does not appear in this definition. Nor is "the edge of space" defined. When Joe Kittinger jumped from a balloon at similar heights in the 1950s it was called the "edge of space". No one has gotten upset about that in the past 50 yrs so I intend to use it - as have others - for half a century.

Hey, I can see my house from here!

Discussions about the definition of the edge of space aside, this is pretty cool. I'm a big fan of student balloon payloads. They're a great design project for student groups: they can be built relatively cheaply (as shown by MIT's recent $148 payload) and you can build one quickly (I was on a team at UT Austin that built one in about a month to do some hardware testing for their FASTRAC nanosat), but the payload still has to work in a relatively harsh environment, and you still have the ability to do some interesting science if you want to (cameras are cool, but there are other things you can do in that sort of low-pressure, high-radiation environment too).

In short, you can get students some meaningful design, building, and flight experience without the time or expense of something like a nanosat or a cubesat, and it can serve as a good stepping stone if you do want a team to take on one of these more complex projects.

Editor's note: I totally agree - but this experience can also wet their appetite for doing satellites as a follow-on activity too!

Nice video! Although HD video has been taken from the "edge of Space" (dare I say that) on the 2008 HASP flight out of Ft.Sumner NM....I don't think the 2008 HD video is the first either....

In any case it's a beautiful view up there!

If the sky above is black, then you're on the edge of space.

Editor's note: I can't think of a better definition!

Ok, after rereading the comments in the MIT $148 balloon thread, I'll bite on the edge-of-space argument.

People seem to be fixated on the physical distance between the altitude of these balloons and the Karman line, but that isn't necessarily the best measure. I'd argue that the physical environment is a much better measure of what could be termed "edge of space".

As Keith highlighted from the article, these balloons are up between 80kft and 100kft. Air density decreases as you go up, and it's not linear...the rate of density change increases as you get lower to the ground. Not surprisingly, this means that most of the mass of air in the atmosphere is near the ground. At an altitude of 110kft, about 99% of the atmosphere is below you (source: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0120uldb.html), and the pressure is about .007 atm (source: http://www.digitaldutch.com/atmoscalc/index.htm).

From a scientific perspective, you can do a lot of space science on a ballon at these altitudes, as long as you don't need microgravity. For instance, the environment is close enough to vacuum that you can no longer rely on convection to keep your avionics cool, you have to use radiation to get rid of thermal energy just like a spacecraft, and there's virtually no atmosphere above your payload to shield it from solar radiation.

Editor's note: when was the first HD camera flown? That's the point.

Only because it was asked, any based only on my personal knowledge (not trying to claim any "firsts" or the like) but we had a student team at the University of Maryland fly one 2 or 3 years ago (although it was only 720I/P at the time) and we got the same nauseating spinning as is shown in parts of this flight. Also, I believe that JP aerospace has been flying multiple HD cameras on at least their latest flights, but you would have to ask them for details of when they started.

That said, although its not the first, congrats to our colleagues who put on this flight, and is some cool video.

Dru Ellsberry

I forgot to mention the BEAR-4 team from Canada (and Japan) that launched a 1080P camcorder in August:

http://bear.sbszoo.com/bear3-4/bear4.htm

The argument seems to be "why not tell these kids that they sent a probe all the way to the edge of space, because saying that will encourage them." Sure, that's fine, I guess, but it really isn't.
The whole definition of space is that it's what you can't get to in the atmosphere-- you can't fly to space with aerodynamic lift, you can't get there with buoyancy, because there's no atmosphere. If you can float with a balloon, you are floating in something-- there is still atmosphere there. You can't really say you're above the atmosphere, since the very reason that you are there at all is because there is atmosphere..

By implying that it's so easy to get to space that high school students can do it for a couple of hundred dollars, you're somewhat devaluing the people who really are working on getting into space. Really getting into space-- even the edge of space-- is hard. You can't do it with a hundred dollars worth of helium and a weather balloon.

This is very cool, but Kaguya shot HDTV from the Moon for 2 years. http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071113_kaguya_e.html

Nice vid but next time I hope they do this they put $25 of gas in their car and drive a little farther away from Ellington Field and Houston Hobby Airport. Sure would "suck" if something with souls in it ingested this thing on the way up - however unlikely that's supposed to be.

Yes, getting into space is hard. Even getting to the edge of space is hard. When done right, it's way more difficult than a hundred dollars worth of helium and a weather balloon, it's years worth of faculty mentor effort, hundreds of hours of student effort and countless grant proposals and reports. But the result is that you might actually inspire students who will soon be the people sending missions to space, and will do it much better because they were given a chance to learn by sending their own experiment to an environment that is as close to space as they can get.

For the purpose of this discussion the "edge of space" means the highest altitude, non-orbital HD camera ever flown that can see the earth's limb and the darkness of space. How's that for a definition

Hello:

As far as the first, I won't say that we were the first, but I know they weren't! The CSBF flew HD cameras (Sony HDR-UX7) as part of investigations to lessen chute shock on termination of heavy (6 to 8 thousand pound) payloads.

I have the video starting from flight 569N (HERO launched from the spring Fort Sumner NM Campaign in May of 2007), 570N and 571N. Granted the cameras were pointed upward, but we did fly one looking at the horizon on flight 572NT, testing a HD recorder system (longer record times).

As Aerostar (manufacturer of balloons) says "Real Scientists do it on balloons!"

"I'd argue that the physical environment is a much better measure of what could be termed "edge of space"."

OK. From the propulsion point of view, the question about the physical environment is: can you float on the atmosphere? If the answer is "yes," then there's atmosphere there.

If you can float a balloon in it, it's not vacuum.

JP Aerospace has been doing this for several years now and they have several paying clients who have signed on for even more flights in the near future.

"If the sky above is black, then you're on the edge of space.

Editor's note: I can't think of a better definition!"

Hey, cool. I never realized it, but I'm at the edge space on the ground every day beytween about 8 pm and 6:30 am.