When you think of NASA and crashes, you think of things like this:
But, you usually don’t think about government balloon crashes being “dramatic”, unless of course it’s a balloon crash in Roswell, NM in 1947.
Watch this video from Australia’s ABC:
A huge NASA balloon loaded with a telescope painstakingly built to scan the sky at wavelengths invisible to the human eye crashed in the Australian outback Thursday, destroying the astronomy experiment and just missing nearby onlookers, according to Australian media reports.
In dramatic video released by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the giant 400-foot (121-meter) balloon is seen just beginning to lift its payload, then the telescope gondola appears to unexpectedly come loose from its carriage. The telescope crashes through a fence and overturn a nearby parked sport utility vehicle before finally stopping.
Video via Space.com/Yahoo News:
Fortunately, nobody was hurt, but as you can see in the video, it was a close call.
h/t to Steve Goddard
American imperialists destroying the rich environment of our Australian outback! Up to 132% of endangered species may have gone extinct. Nothing will assuage our sense of loss. Except a suitable payout for damages to the UN world authority/government who will pass on every cent of it to our struggling nation with total efficiency and transparency. Please contact our Swiss bank account to arrange details.
Re:
stevengoddard :
April 29, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Hysterical. 🙂
Does this mean that a C list reality actor wannabee is more technically capable than NASA?
Wasn’t it a mistake to launch a balloon so close to the Alps??
(ducks and runs away)
I wonder if those SUV owners will have difficulty filing their insurance claims stating their vehicles were hit by a balloon? A balloon?? Bet they’re glad to have that encounter on video, for sure.
But what if NASA isn’t covered? Is that a no-fault state? Oh my…
NASA
Need
Additional
Sensor
Array
#
#
kwik says:
April 29, 2010 at 12:49 pm
The US missile program didnt get on track until they set Werner von Braun and his crew on the job.
Now Werner et. al. has gone into history, and they have trouble even launching a balloon.
hehe.
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Yes but you can still find Werner von Braun’s daughter at Science Fiction Conventions. Perhaps she could help.
“I just send them up, who knows WHERE they come down? That’s not my department,” says Wernher Von Braun.
The breeze did seem mild but those vehicles and the wire fence were certainly in the firing line. The launch truck initially was in line with the wind direction but,oddly, turned anti-clockwise and seemed to reach about 90 deg. from its initial position when the instruments were released. The release looks accidental but the truck at that final position looked vulnerable to tipping over in higher winds. Very strange, the whole set up.
Why couldn’t they have sent up a few toy balloons first, to test the wind up there?
It could have been worse.
Thank goodness it didn’t drag it, through a windmill complex.
Science on the cheap, results not unexpected. sad.
“In German, or English, I know how to count down…
(und I’m learning Chinese),” says Werner von Braun.
It is very common in the Australian desert to have calm conditions on the ground at daybreak, only to see 35 knots or so at 200 ft elevation.
Once the inversion breaks down, the wind is apparent at ground level.
The reason people launch balloons early in the morning is to take advantage of the calm surface conditions BUT that means nothing when the balloon is two or three hundred feet high.
They’ve been launching these things from Alice Springs since 1963 or so…Surely someone must understand local conditions.
Were they THAT desperate to launch that they could endanger a million dollar or so experiment ??
NASA seems to be controlled by amateurs these days. People with all the credentials but no common sense.
Layne Blanchard ,
Yes, it appears that balloon boy may be more technically proficient than some groups at NASA.
That’s nothing. JP aerospace puts balloons up to 30 km routinely and crashes them with cameras on the balloon running. http://www.jpaerospace.com/
Oh and they’re designing airships that fly to the international space station.
Watch this.
Parachute? What parachute! No parachute needed.
Their other videos are awesome.
We need some of their airships over the poles getting video and temps from the polar ice.
Do they have to file an environmental impact statement to launch one of these balloons? Can you imagine all the poor animals, insects and bacteria that probably suffocated when that balloon descended on them? Oh the humanity!
Faster, cheaper, better.
My favourite was the Genesis probe with the upside down accelerometer that failed to open its parachute.
They never considered the meaning of the common phrase, “trial balloon,” apparently.
Incidentally, why not attach a long (500-foot), second-stage ground-tether to the balloon that wouldn’t be released until the balloon has ascended a bit and demonstrated that it is vertical to the gondola, instead of being blown somewhat sideways to it? Any practical, can-do American would have thought of this. It’s not rocket science.
PS: This tether would be on a reel that would play out gradually, to prevent a sudden shock to the balloon when it got to the end of its rope. The tether would detach from the balloon by a remote command, or a pull on a trigger-release string.
PPS: Or maybe just attach a 3-foot tether to the gondola and don’t release it until the gondola is pulling straight up, or nearly so.
@wesley bruce
Great video, but hang on – 30km up – does that not qualify for ‘reentry’ and why does he not burn up.
Ahh, it must be because he has no horizontal (or vertical) velocity ta start with. Funny, I always assumed it was the potential energy (of elevation) that was being converted to heat during reentry of the space shuttle – but it must be the momentum before the reentry. Or am I wrong?
My favourite was the 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter that burned up due to Lockheed Martin using Imperial measurements and NASA, metric.
Faster, cheaper, splat.
I’m a bit annoyed that the much loved British piece of music Land Of Hope And Glory was used as backing music for this video.
Couldn’t a much loved piece of American music have been used for this? Is is, after all, an American cock-up. The American National Anthem, for example.
Those were almost the first bona fida deaths attributable to AGW theory.
Can I just add, it was an astounding display of stupidity to not:
A) Check the wind speed vs speed of ascent
B) Avoid putting objects down wind
Nice Video CodeTech! I’ve always wanted an RC plane with an actual camera and monitor so you could fly it first person. Pretty cool with just a cell phone!