That pic is pretty freaky looking...

"Having said that, we are raring to go for next year. The fact that we can start the year with everything ready and the team fully trained means our chances of launching early should be greatly increased."

So they will just huff nitrous oxide until then...

i must get one.

But wait, didn't the article say that they never launched the balloon and the record they were shooting for was 25 miles? hmmmm......

GooberMcFly - yep, that's where your condom went alright... into storage for at least six months.

that pic looks more like a rendering

"Up...Up and away in my beautiful, beautiful Motorboat !"

So woulden't they burn up that high?

I saw no picture

GooberMcFly - touche indeed. and i'm sure your wang is most impressive.

Pussies. If they were tough guys, they just get a rocket and do it right.

WTF is a "ballon"?

If Fox isn't going to feature Dennis Rodman jumping off of it, I don't care...

Space IS awfully windy this time of year.

Sounds like a lot of hot air to me.

I'm sorry.

09-25-02 01:59:00 PM Meade2001
WTF is a "ballon"?

Indeed, obviously a typo as they were on a mission to man eachother's "Bacon".

That's a piece of photoshop. If it was a pic, someone would have to have been above them to take it.

Pu$$ies!

Kaymon - obviously. i don't think anyone's disputing that.

The_Gimp - and now in german:

99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Hielt man fuer UFOs aus dem All
Darum schickte ein General
Eine Fliegerstaffel hinterher
Alarm zu geben, wenn es so war
Dabei war da am Horizont
Nur 99 Luftballons

Errm, that's not even a picture. It's an "artist's rendition".

"A spokesman for the QinetiQ 1 team agreed that the last few months have not been wasted"

The team however has been extremely wasted for the past few months and fianlly straighted up enought to realize how stupid this idea really was !

What is it with the british and ballooning records??

I saw a show on the Discovery Channel about this high altitude NASA ballon guy - he would go up alone then jump when he was done with the balloon (like the pic above). The thing that was freakish is that because he was so far up in the atmosphere and because the speed of sound is determined by temp and air pressure he was going like Mach II during the fall - terminal velocity and all....they had to design like this 6 part parachute thingee to slow him one bit at a time.

They also showed this guy in LA who is a photographer - he just blew up like 20 0r 30 army surplus weather balloons and put them under a large parachute shaped net - it took him to 18 thousand feet and when we was done he had this pole with a spike on the end...you guessed it he would pop a balloon every so often to descend. He had to parachute towards the end - he had hoped to land on the balloons alone...but shiat - anyone could cobble that together over a weekend!

Sorry for the novella

Too windy. In space. I see.

The only ballooning records I want to see broken involve bending them into cute, colorful animal shapes.

09-25-02 02:08:59 PM Kaymon
That's a piece of photoshop. If it was a pic, someone would have to have been above them to take it.

I believe that a Scottish team was above them and took the photo on thier way up. :)

QinetiQ (pronounced "kinetic"), formerly DERA, is full of weird ideas. They designed the world's biggest trimaran and ion drives for space vehicles too.

A lot of balloon folks think they're a bit nuts. In theory it's easy...the balloon ascends to 25 miles, maintains altitude itself, circles the globe retrograde in the upper stratosphere (near the ozone layer) in very little time, no turbulence, no airspace restrictions (cause no onle else can shoot much of anything up there). But the skin of this monster is only a small fraction of a millimeter thick, as the transparency in the illustration suggests.

what are they worried about wind for? Its not like they are going to survive this gig.

They're as mad as a sack of ferrets. They've been testing all their stuff in the harbour behind my house. I got a free keyring!

..as mad as a sack of ferrets.

:)

"Balloon: thing to take meteoric observations and commit suicide with."
- Mark Twain


My Boobies here at Fark, ya' farkers!

Aww... damn! I'm such a |\|008!

Lunist

Does not compute

Apparently when you type the term Weeners, it comes out "Boobies" somehow. Since my initial post was my very f-i-r-s-t @ this Farking place and I wanted everyone to know, I typed the words, and viola! BOOBIES!!!

AAARRRGGGHHH!

f_i_r_s_t p_o_s_t comes out Weeners! Very funny!

Does this mean that...

GIS for "ballon" gives you:

Was it a "manned ballon" or a "manned BALLOON?" What the hell is a "ballon?!"

Lunist:

Go away kid, you bother me.

That pic is an artist rendering used back when the team first announced the project.