A Trek through 'Near Space'
Shorewood's John Flaig captured breath-taking, NASA-like photos and video of Earth and its atmosphere after launching a stratospheric weather balloon into "near space."
Arguably, there aren't many scenes more photogenic than a sunrise on a crisp, clear winter morning — especially one viewable from an altitude of 100,000 feet. On Dec. 1, John Flaig headed west from Shorewood toward the small town of Cresco in northeastern Iowa, with a mission of capturing HD video and photos of the sunrise and moonset from so-called "near space." The next morning, after reassessing its predicted descent, Flaig traveled further west and launched a stratospheric weather balloon from Calmar, IA. Attached was an orange box labeled “NOT DANGEROUS” above an American flag, his phone number, and an offer of a cash reward for finding the package. Inside that box was the payload: two video cameras, one still camera, which he …
CowDung
10:52 am on Thursday, January 3, 2013
The guy stated that a passenger jet almost knocked it out of the sky--the odds of a collision can't be all that small. If birds sucked through a jet engine can bring the plane down, the instrumentation on a weather balloon is capable of the same. Before I fly a plane above 18,000 feet, I need to receive clearance from air traffic control for authorization to enter controlled airspace. I'd be … more ›