NASA Space Picture, $Millions. Drunk college students, $150.
Ewiges — Tue, 09/15/2009 - 16:36
So today in physics class we we're talking about how much it costs to get into space. My physics is also the school's astronomy teacher so we were discussing alternate ways of orbit. Anyways, I forgot the actual amount of money it costs per gram to get into space but it was a lot.
A few hours I find this article... it says that 2 MIT students managed to get pictures of space for a grand total of $148.
Materials: Weather balloon filled with helium. Digital camera. Foam ice chest full of beer (beer kept on ground). And a pre-paid cell-phone with GPS.
The MIT students used another college's weather tracker to find still winds which would keep the balloon within the state. They then attached the foam ice chest to the weather balloon. They taped the digital camera to the bottom, and put the GPS phone inside.
They used open-source firmware to hack the camera so it would take one picture every 5 seconds (used an 8gig mem card). To keep the camera and phone from freezing, they used instant hand warmers.
Finally they followed the GPS signal on the phone and retrieved the 18 mile high pictures later.
This is a cheap enough project for a fucking elementary school... why doesn't NASA think of this shit?
Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students...?
Heres a little chart I found to help understand the height, they went 30 kilometers in the air: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmosphere_layers-en.svg
It is definitly an ingenius
Agoney — Wed, 09/16/2009 - 08:18It is definitly an ingenius idea for sure..but it's very limited.. Your basically going to get random pictures, since you have no way to change the orientation of the camera once it's launched.
My main issue for usefullness is that it's limited to near space.. 17 miles isn't really too high when you consider that the Kármán line is around 62 miles up (if im remembering right). The line is the so called boundary b/w our atmosphere and outer space. I'm not sure how you'd be able to build anything cheaply and have it re-enter the atmosphere without burning up.
Why doesn't NASA think of
Shihli — Tue, 09/15/2009 - 17:14Why doesn't NASA think of it?
Because they want to see things about a hundred million light years deeper into space. Can't do that with an ice chest.
I think you're missing the
Ewiges — Tue, 09/15/2009 - 19:41I think you're missing the point. Something like this has never been done for this cheap before. The only thing that comes close is from 2 years ago. Some college students in Spain did a similair project but it cost around $1,500.
When NASA does similair pictures, they use a high altitude plane.
A recent movie filmed and
Shihli — Tue, 09/15/2009 - 20:15A recent movie filmed and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival was shot for $58.
The whole movie cost $70 and the critics loved it.
Doesn't mean it's a good way to make the next Transformers movie.
Article about the movie: http://macorekx.com/index/2009/05/29/70-dollar-zombie-movie-going-to-hol...
MIT =/= Drunk college
garreth — Tue, 09/15/2009 - 16:52MIT =/= Drunk college students.
However, MIT's drunk college students are probably smarter than most schools' sober college students.