Father and son science projects always have the potential for excitement, especially when those projects include launching objects tied to balloons. In the case of Luke Geissbuhler, both dad and son stayed firmly planted on the ground while they launched a video camera and iPhone into space in their home made spacecraft.
Mr. Geissbuhler and his son packed a Go Pro Hero HD video camera and iPhone into a styrofoam block and launched them into space on the end of a balloon. The craft managed to climb up over 100,000 feet before the balloon ruptured, then returned to Earth via parachute.
The view from space via balloon
They tracked the iPhone’s on-board GPS and managed to recover the intact spacecraft about 30 miles away from its launch point.
A video of the adventure is available at the Vimeo Web site.
Build a spaceship, launch and recover it: Best father/son project ever. AT&T’s suborbital coverage, however, was a little spotty.
5 Comments Leave Your Own
Some good thought there. Looks like Ski hand warmers to keep the system from freezing at -60F. You could never do this with a video camera using video tape!
John, I agree. Good use of a recycled iPhone 3G. Their preparations were well planned, taking a lot of factors into consideration. And wise to follow FAA guidelines & get their approval. Great execution of flight, video + editing, captions, use of GPS, finding the spacecraft, etc. And fairly lucky too that the parachute worked & capsule didn’t land somewhere inaccessible. Were there prior attempts that failed?
Very cool. Thanks for posting this, Jeff.
I agree. very cool. another thank you for posting.
This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen recently! I love all the preprations they took, but I love the images from space for goodness’s sake!
Reminded me a little of the images from the incredibly brave Captain Kittinger who JUMPED off a weather balloon platform from 102K feet. That guy was such a stud.
But I digress…I love that it was an iPhone used in this father-son project to send and receive images from space out of the proverbial back yard!
That was my first thought as well. I remember when he did that, I think that it is still the longest free fall.
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