Look Up: What's in the Sky This Week?
Indeed, what's in the sky this week? Spaceblimps, that's what! Right here in D.C., there are very smart people sending things up into (near) space, as part of a competition that ended in late August with a launch in Camp Spring, Md. Hackerspaces in Space was created by a Chicago group to challenge teams anywhere and everywhere to "send a weather balloon, with payload, into near-space to capture pictures of the Earth's horizon, to return the payload safely to the ground, and to retrieve the payload." Local team HacDC was up to the challenge and built the "Spaceblimp" you see in the gallery above.
We talked to HacDC's Alberto Gaitán about his team's experience during the Spaceblimp project, which started earlier in the spring. Many of you may actually know Gaitán as a new media artist, who has worked in D.C. for the last 30 years, but obviously his tech chops easily transfer over to some "creative science" as well (a particular skill set that warms this writer's heart). The HacDC members who participated in the R&D of the Spaceblimp project are mostly engineers (hardware, software and wetware -- one of them is a geneticist/bio-informaticist).
The winners of Hackerspaces in Space won't be announced until the end of September, but we do know the Spaceblimp, which cost $320 to make and is carrying a Canon PowerShot SD300 running a "Canon Hack Development Kit" in its payload, reached 60,000 feet where the temperature is a chilly negative-140 degrees Fahrenheit, when the balloon popped and the payload came back to Earth. I spoke with Gaitán about the Spaceblimp project -- what can come out of a challenge to private citizens to send balloons into space? -- and made the gallery above from HacDC's amazing Flickr set.
Can you tell me a little about HacDC? How did you get involved? What kinds of other big projects have you done?
HacDC is a member-supported space dedicated to making things by inventing, extending and repurposing new and junked stuff. We also research common interests by forming working groups and building projects, and building associations with like minded communities of interest, in D.C. and beyond. The general public is welcome to all events and is encouraged to join the hacker space.
I came to HacDC via DorkbotDC, the D.C. chapter of the international group of people doing strange things with electricity. Two of our members, Nick Farr and Adam Koeppel were DorkbotDC regulars and they germinated the idea to form a hacker space on D.C. Parallel to their efforts to raise enough charter members to rent a space, a joint DorkbotDC and HacDC build-a-thon event was planned at the Koshland Museum of Science, spearheaded by DorkbotDC regular Mark Adams. The first friends and members of HacDC came from that community.
HacDC is a relatively young organization but has organized several workshops aimed at teaching the basic skills necessary to be able to approach present and past technology with the creative mindset to mutate it in an innovative or idiosyncratic way. HacDC maintains a wiki with much of the organization's history (in progress) including ongoing and past projects.
Tell me about Hackerspaces in Space. What was the goal? How many groups were involved?
The Hackerspaces in Space contest was initiated by Workshop 88, a hackerspace in Chicago. According to their website, 19 groups are involved from as far away as Thailand. The contest officially ended on August 31. The rules are here (PDF) and include rules on cost, launch and recovery team size. Scoring criteria include retrieval time, weight of package, and cost. Our working group was code named the Spaceblimp Project because Near-Space Balloon Project didn't have the same ring to it; besides, Spaceblimp has a certain 70s disaster movie feel to it and this whole thing could have turned out to be so much pie in the sky. The team included a small core group of very talented and motivated people who dedicated many, many hours of planning, design, experimentation/prototyping, fabrication, funding, and good ol'sweat. It was their commitment and dedication that made this happen.
What was your experience building the spaceblimp? Did you have any interesting challenges to overcome? How long did it take to build?
The rules were pretty limiting and we're still not sure where we rank. We learned that it's quite difficult to get a balloon into near space cheaply. There are also regional differences in materials/supplies pricing that give a relative advantage to some groups. We lost one balloon the week before the successful launch and that was traumatic and demoralizing. We had to weigh the desire to add redundant systems and more sensors -- both of which would have allowed us to account for more contingencies -- against the need to keep the payload light. As with most projects, the highly motivated few who drove the process had the most to lose so they were more nervous than the bystanders on launch day.
What was launch day like? Did anything surprising or crazy happen?
The final launch took place on August 21, at Camp Spring, Md. The jet stream was acting crazy so the balloon deviated from the original prediction. The team was divided into launch and recovery subgroups. They both became parts of the chase team once the balloon was aloft. The stats on the launch can be found on the wiki.
Team member Tom Cohlmia added, "My feeling, at least, was excitement mingled with extreme dread; we'd lost the last capsule pretty badly, and if this one didn't make it we would completely miss the competition deadline. I really wanted to see it all go well, and it's really thrilling to do that countdown and release it into the sky."
The package descended a short distance from a private residence's pool, just beyond reach from outside the fence. Nobody was home and we were faced with a dilemma, jump the low fence and grab the package, or wait until the owners arrive? The decision was made for us as the owners' car pulled up. Our efforts turned to explaining to them why a group of people were congregated at the edge of their relatively rural property. They were amenable and allowed us to retrieve the package and go on our way. We gathered at a church up the road and converged there with the rest of the chasers. We cracked the "launch box" open and let it warm up a bit before pulling the SD card and transferring the images: without a photograph of the curvature of the planet, we would have nothing except a fun chase. As the images of blackness the of space appeared on the laptop, there was a great cheer.
What were the results of HacDC's launch in particular? Was it successful?
Ours was a big success! The payload went to 60,000 feet, and then parachuted back to the ground. Everything was intact and the pictures turned out great. Total time from launch to recovery was 1 hour, 33 minutes, traveling 27 miles as the crow flies.
What are the applications of the spaceblimp project?
We look forward to launching another balloon without having to worry about meeting contest criteria. We're talking about adding an accelerometer, several cameras with faceted mirror array to get many angles at once, and perhaps including video.
There are a wide range of applications to this kind of technology, all of which have the potential of engaging communities at the grass roots level in the observation and analysis of the kind of scientific data collected from (near) space. Given the controversies over issues like global warming, land use, environmental disaster (yes, BP and Exxon, we are looking at you) having a means for communities to monitor and record their own world and the changes in it is increasingly important. This technology greatly democratizes access to most of the value of a space program (satellites, etc.) without the cost. A relatively small group can monitor air quality, haze, temperature, radiation, and many other factors live and near-real time from 60,000 to 120,000 feet for very little money -- without dependence on large government agencies or commercial organizations.
In addition, the project provides a really exciting platform for a range of educational opportunities -- all of which include the excitement of seeing the student's own work go into (near) space! We have had both school-age kids and teachers participate in our activities, and everyone went away excited about participating, along with being very interested in perhaps doing their own near-space balloon launch in the future! One thing is for certain: kids really "get it" about the fun and potential of high-altitude balloon launches!